Connecting & Programming a Servo

Step 1: collect your supplies

1. Your robot, with pin connectors
2. A servo motor

Step 2: if it has not been done for you already, seperate the three servo wires from their black plastic DuPont connector.

Step 3: connect the wires to your robot

• The brown wire to a GND pin
• The red wire to a 3V3 pin
• The orange wire to a signal pin (the code below uses pin 12)

Notes: information about the components

• A servo motor is a geared motor which can turn approximately 180 degrees.
• You can control their precise movement, so they can be set to turn to a specific position.
• You can connect a servo directly to a micro:bit, instead of using your robot, by using crocodile clips. The robot is not required for the code below to work.

Step 1: setting a position

Open your robot program (if you were at Robocamp, click here to find yours)

You are going to add new code near the top of your program, underneath import radio and above radio.config.

In this spot, add the following code:

pin12.write_analog(50)

Does your servo move?

Step 2: working out the range

Change the number 50 - can you get your servo to move to a different position? The maximum number you can use is 1023.

If your servo is buzzing loudly, the number you last gave it is not a position it can move to.

Work out the range of positions that your servo can move to, then stick with those. If you use numbers outside of its range for too long, the servo will get hot and will stop working.

Step 3: physically using your servo

• What do you want your servo to do?
• Control some waving arms, or a mechanism to push or flip things over?
• What do you want to attach to your servo?
• Design something in Tinkercad or use found materials such as lollysticks?

Step 4: using the servo in your robot code

So far, you have tested code so that it runs at the start of your program.

Think about when you want a your robot to turn the servo...

• When you press a button on your joystick?
• At a set point in a dance routine?