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Welcome to Day 1

Time: 9:30 AM to 9:45 AM
Today is all about getting your robot ready. By the end of Day 1, every sensor will show PASS and you will have a confirmed SSH connection to your robot.

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The week ahead

Here is what you will accomplish each day:
  1. Today (Monday): Setup, calibration, and sensor validation
  2. Tuesday: Movement programs, text-to-speech, line following, and computer vision
  3. Wednesday: Connect to a large language model and build a voice chatbot
  4. Thursday: Feed the camera into a vision AI so the robot can see and understand
  5. Friday: AI ethics, data privacy, final project, and continued learning resources

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Meet your robot

Your PiCar-X robot has several key components. The facilitator will walk through each one on camera:
  • Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W — the tiny computer that runs everything
  • Robot HAT — the board on top that controls motors, reads sensors, and has a speaker
  • Camera module — a 5MP camera on a 2-axis pan/tilt mount
  • Ultrasonic sensor — the two “eyes” at the front that measure distance
  • Grayscale sensor — three infrared sensors underneath that read surface brightness
  • Speaker — plays audio and text-to-speech through the Robot HAT
  • USB audio dongle — adds microphone input for voice control
  • Two DC motors — drive the rear wheels
  • Three servos — one for steering, two for camera pan and tilt
  • Battery pack — two 18650 lithium batteries (7.4V nominal)

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Kit check

Confirm your kit contains all of the following items before proceeding.
1

Assembled PiCar-X robot

Pre-assembled and ready to go. Do not disassemble anything. The camera, ultrasonic sensor, and grayscale module should all be attached.
2

MicroSD card (in the robot)

A 32GB microSD card is inserted in the Raspberry Pi on the underside of the robot. You will remove it shortly to flash the operating system.
3

SD card reader

A USB adapter to connect the microSD card to your laptop for flashing.
4

USB audio dongle

A small USB sound card (Texas Instruments PCM2902) that provides microphone input and additional audio output. Keep this in your kit for Day 3.
5

USB micro cable for charging

A standard USB-A to micro-USB cable for charging the robot’s batteries. Use a 5V phone charger — do not use a high-wattage USB-C laptop charger.
6

Dark electrical tape

A strip of black electrical tape for line-following and grayscale sensor calibration.
Battery safety: The robot uses two 18650 lithium-ion batteries. Do not remove, puncture, or short-circuit them. Only charge through the Robot HAT’s micro-USB port with a standard 5V charger.

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Credentials for today

You will use these throughout the camp. Write them down:
These are the same for every robot in camp. If you are on the same network as another student, you may need to use the IP address instead of picar.local to avoid conflicts.