Datasheet

Robotics with the BOE Shield-Bot • 7
A Bit of Background
The BOE Shield-Bot is a small microcontroller development platform on wheels. It is
designed for experimenting with circuit-building and programming, using standard
electronic components.
It is a variation of the original Boe-Bot
®
robot with its BASIC Stamp
®
2 brain, shown below. It
was introduced by Parallax Inc. in 1999 and continues to be widely used with schools for
STEM courses, because PBASIC is a very easy language for a first-time, text-based
programming experience.
The Arduino microcontroller arrived on the scene in 2005 and its popularity grew through
the DIY (do-it-yourself) hobby community. Parallax teamed up with SimplyTronics to design
the Board of Education
®
Shield, which makes the Arduino hardware compatible with the
Boe-Bot chassis. The Arduino can do the same tasks as the BASIC Stamp, though in a slightly
different way, but it was still straightforward to rewrite the original Robotics with the Boe-
Bot to support the Shield-Bot. This gives the Arduino hobby community the opportunity to
wrap a robotics shield around an Uno. It also gives teachers a different programming
language option for working with Parallax robots.
Original Boe-Bot Robot with
BASIC Stamp 2 brain
Board of Education Shield-
Bot with Arduino Uno brain