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Orionrobots (Danny Staple)

@orionrobots.bsky.social
207 followers 144 following 289 posts

I'm a robot builder, robotics books author, open source programer. #python, #raspberrypi, electronics. Maker, mentor, warranty voider and family man.

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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I’m excited to say I am reviving Armbot, a 13 year old project combining a rover and robot arm . I’ll be taking it on a new adventure with a Raspberry pi 5, ROS, lidar and SLAM.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
🤖 Prime Day deal: up to 30% off Learn Robotics Programming (3rd Ed) on amazon.com, 6th–7th Oct only. Build a Raspberry Pi robot step by step: motors, sensors, vision, voice AI. www.amazon.com/Learn-Robotics-Progr… #Robotics #RaspberryPi
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
🎉 Giveaway winners! Congratulations to Ezra Daniel and James Whitehead, who each win an eBook of Learn Robotics Programming (3rd Ed) from Packt and me. Build a Raspberry Pi robot step by step: motors, sensors, vision, voice AI, navigation. Thanks to everyone who entered! 🤖 #Robotics #RaspberryPi
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I love the style of this - makes me think Amiga games.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Not my own book, but embedded firmware's close to my heart — it's what robots run on under the hood. My publisher's Embedded Firmware Developer Toolkit (15+ books) is on Humble Bundle now. 👉 www.humblebundle.com/books/embedded…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
My Learn Robotics Programming Raspberry Pi robot now lives on my Tailscale tailnet — reachable from anywhere, not just when mDNS feels like cooperating. One pyinfra script handles the setup. orionrobots.co.uk/2026/09/02/02-rea…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This is great. I knew you could get more interesting synth output from a Pico, making into a standalone synth is great fun!
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Are those game screen mock ups through the library, game demos or fully playable games? Awesome stuff in micropython!
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
🎁 Packt's giving away 2 eBook copies of my book, Learn Robotics Programming (3rd Ed)! Build a real Raspberry Pi robot: motors, sensors, vision, voice & nav. Everyone who enters gets Ch.1 free. 👉 landing.packtpub.com/danny-staple-e… Closes Sep 30.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Perhaps group with white clover, creeping thyme, roman chamomile? Ie drought hardy but also not a muddy winter swamp?
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Like much of the uk, our local common is yellow and distressed. But there are patches of green. According to Google this is yarrow, soft, feathery, staying stubbornly green. I’m wondering if yarrow might make a hardier green space plant than common grass? It is apparently sensitive to foot traffic.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
🤖 Learn Robotics Programming (3rd Edition) topped the Amazon US New Releases chart in Computer Hardware Peripherals - 27% off paperback deal still live, but time's running out. 👉 www.amazon.com/Learn-Robotics-Progr… #Robotics #RaspberryPi
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
My 3d printer enclosure collapsed, here’s how I rebuilt the frame for one- orionrobots.co.uk/2026/07/16/1...
orionrobots.co.uk
Assembling the new 3D printer enclosure frame | Orionrobots - Learn to build robots at home
In the last post I was planning a replacement for my 3D printer enclosure’s frame - swapping the fibreglass rods and plastic corners that the cat had cracked for aluminium extrusion and metal corner b...
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I’ve never thought of using scales to measure getting the right number of screws…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Tiny notable detail, the usb cable there is 8bitdo branded.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I wonder if I could get an ESP 32 to drive consumer ir volume signals. We are under a flight path, close enough to see wheels on planes, so a gadget to adjust TV volume when a plane is about to drown it out might be handy.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Hehe, reading your posts backwards, I was trying to work out what it was you’d been making this time.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
📚 Learn Robotics Programming (3rd Edition) is 27% off in paperback on Amazon US right now. Hands-on guide to building robots with Raspberry Pi + Python. Limited-time deal. 👉 www.amazon.com/Learn-Robotics-Progr… #Robotics #RaspberryPi
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Sharing the binfluence…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
For the tunes, I think once scales and song playing are in, I’ll make Ode to Joy the starter song, and have reference sheets for other tunes. Ah and arpeggios- gotta remember those.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Among the activities will be beeps, boops, sweeps, scales, and tunes like Ode to Joy. My eldest insisted on the ninjago overture, and I also worked out The Imperial march. My son wanted the Mario theme.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I’ve spent some of this weekend playing with beepers in micropython again, this time to build a coder dojo sheet making droid noises and tunes. Using the pwm primitive, googling a table of note frequencies. Not sure my family enjoyed the noises quite as much as I did.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Imagine if one of the highest-status things a politician could say was: “I don’t know yet. I’d like to hear from the relevant experts before deciding.”
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I've been rescuing old robot code from the archives — skittlebot (2017), armBot (2014), and a MicroPython music project are now on GitHub. Nearly 12 years of history recovered from zip files and broken git repos 🤖 orionrobots.co.uk/2026/06/18/1... #robotics #opensource #python #opencv #raspberrypi
orionrobots.co.uk
Rescuing Old Robot Code from the Archives | Orionrobots - Learn to build robots at home
Over the years I’ve accumulated a fair amount of robot source code — old projects in zip files, folders with broken .git histories, repos that were once on a long-gone GitLab instance. I’ve been worki...
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
No but that’s a really good idea…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Space for my existing fleets of robots has already been an issue.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
3 or 4 weeks might be better pacing. Especially if you still need to fit it around life and a day job.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Bonus points if you can braid dandelions…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
We used to have a silly hat in an old workplace. “I’ll go take the hat then.”.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I have an orange cat. While he is a bit haughty and aloof, and sometimes smart, he is also goofy and daft as a brush. I’ve also lived with a collie, and that collie was way smarter.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Not sure it’s a commitment I could make (planned writing and family), but I’m tempted to make a new robot every week for a while and see what I came up with. Also not sure where I’d put them all…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I’m suspecting making so many robot things is developing and honing skills and technique. That you are able to compare the build experiences says volumes about the opportunity to learn with this.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I watched spaceballs with my 14yo and he loved it. It want to get him to try The Princess Bride, now he knows that “old” movies can be fun too.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Greebling - lots of little detail bits on the hull.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Sigh that should be mecha look. Autocorrect didn’t like that.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
If going for the media look, is it over the top to give it some cockpit inner detail? Another idea would be stuff like exhaust ports, heat sinks and some greebling.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
That is one deep but amusing rabbit hole...
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Dwarf fortress - I've not reached an undead fortress but I hear it's a common thing for advanced players, if the cat population didn't explode and kill their save.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The 3 weeks one is fully electromechanical, the 10 hours is perhaps more sculpture? Making things that work takes ages.. Lots of trial and error.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
My book *Learn Robotics Programming, 3rd Edition* is in Packt’s June Sale. The ebook is currently **$9.99**. Build robots with Python, Raspberry Pi, MQTT, sensors, motors, and computer vision. www.packtpub.com/en-us/produc... #packtsale #robotics #python #mqtt
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I guess if it’s not getting toasty while doing it, it’s gotta be pretty efficient.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I’ve also used the win + tab to get another desktop to see task manager. Borderlands 2 does this to me, although it is always in Opportunity.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Look up Monzy “kill dash nine”, a rap on killing rogue processes. A bit sweary but amusing.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
lol. It’s a good pair.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
When people say smoke break, they don’t usually mean putting out smouldering clothing 😅… that looks like some kind of chicken walker?
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Nextcloud top tip - don’t accidentally make git clones and venvs there (or node modules). Now I have a bit of a mess to fix up.. keep git repos at arms length from cloud sync drives .
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
I’m imagine an Amiga workbench phone…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Ours is a bit of a menace… 2 years, bit of a chaos goblin exploring everything with his mouth. Apart from sleeping, he is barely anywhere for more than 5 minutes…
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
I’ll be the first to admit that software is my comfort zone, but that doesn’t mean it’s a special tier.
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Orionrobots (Danny Staple) @orionrobots.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
That’s some major robot building intensity!
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