Day 18: Introducing the Servo Motor to the Micro:Bit

Adding a Servo Motor to your Micro:bit can expand the potential of your micro:bit.
But I must warn you.. they can be a little finicky, so be prepared for some troubleshooting.

Here's how to get started.






Start with a simple micro:bit Go pack



Next  you'll need  a servo motor.  For our classroom projects we  started with some inexpensive SG90 Micro Servo Motors like these:

SG90 Micro Servo Motor (about $1.50 each)  

Then you'll need some wires to attach the servo motors to the micro:bit.

The easiest way to connect your servo motor to your micro:bit is to use three premade wires like these croc-clip to jumper wire (male) 

But if you have alligator clips and jumper cable,  you can make your own - like this

Most standard servos have three wires, each a different color. 

It's important to know that the color of the wire indicates how it should be communicated to your micro:bit 

• brown or black = ground  and should connect to the -negative or GND connector 
• red = servo power  and should connect to the + Positive or 3V connector
• orange, yellow, white, or blue = servo control and will connect to pin 0, 1, or 2 on your micro:bit

Unfortunately, the servo as a 3 prong female connector, so you'll need a way to attach each of these colored wires to the microBit.   Here is where your croc to male alligator clips come in handy. 

I like to color code my alligator clips, so I selected a BLACK, RED, and YELLOW tipped Alligator Clip

Then I connected my
 BLACK tipped alligator clip to the BROWN/Black Servo wire
 RED tipped alligator clip to the RED servo wire
YELLOW tipped alligator clip to 'other color' SERVO wire
      depending on your Servo wire, the other color may vary. Mine is orange this time.

Next connect your GND (Black) alligator Clip to your Micro:bit GND pin
Connect your RED +3V alligator Clip to your micro:bit 3V pin

and Finally connect your 'other colored' - (YELLOW) to PIN (0) on your micro:bit

Any pin  (0, 1, 2) would work, but let's start with PIN 0.

TEST your Servo 

The next step will assume that you know how to create simple code using MakeCode and download it to your micro:Bit to run it.

If you want to test your servo motor connection you can try to create this simple program, which will allow your servo motor to change directions based on how you tilt your micro:bit.

You will find the RED commands under ADVANCED and PINS

And the purple Acceleration command under INPUT

Or you can download TEST SERVO CODE hex file here!

IMPORTANT: servo motors require significant power.
Test the code with your micro:bit connected to your computer.
Now Test the code with our micro:bit running on battery.
Notice the difference in power.

If your servo code is not working as expected, always test with your micro:bit being powered with your computer, to see it the problem is not a lack of sufficient power from the battery pack. 

NEXT STEP!  Calibrate your Servo.

Use the code found on this page to see if you can change your servo by pressing the A and B buttons

You can download the code from this page

https://makecode.microbit.org/projects/servo-calibrator

My first challenge was to understand the way the servo motor records angles.  By creating this very simple project,  I got a much better understanding of how to control my servo motor. 

I grabbed an empty box, and created a cut out for the MicroBit. 

Then I attached the servo motor so that its plastic arm pointed toward the center of the box. 

Finally I created a graphic with the letters A,   B,  and AB. 

The challenge was to write code that positioned the arm next to A, when you pressed button A,  and for the arms to point to B when you pressed Button B, and then point to AB . when you pressed both buttons (A and B) 

Once you are able to complete this challenge, you'll have have a better grasp on how to control your servo motor with a microBit. 

Our next challenge is to create a game that uses the servo motor in some way.

Here is the game I created.   What would you create?