SMRRF 2026 Kit

Thank you for picking up a RoboPad kit at SMRRF 2026! On this page you'll find all the information you'll need to get setup like we were at the event.

The kit itself is build around the RoboPad, assembled onto a breakout board that we call the EduBoard. In order to find out more about the RoboPad, checkout the user guide and the rest of this wiki. The RoboPad can be configured to do quite a few things, but by default it is configured to just drive two brushed motors using a simple tank-drive control scheme - this should be enough to get you started, before you begin taking steps to make more complex bots!

Before you start, we recommend that you register your product; in doing so, you'll be able to choose to sign up for firmware updates and general product updates, should you want to. These are the best ways of keeping up to date with information on the latest RoboPad firmware releases and feature updates.

Kit Contents and Quickstart

The components in the kit

The kit itself only accounts for the electronic components - everything you need to build a simple 2-wheel robot. However, if you took home parts on the day, you may have additional 3D printed parts.

The kit is designed to make it easy to use a 9v battery and a RoboPad to drive two motors. The power switch (3) is separated from the power distribution wire (5) so that you can easily mount the power switch into any 3D printed enclosure (such as the 3D printed print-a-blok switch holder that was used at SMRRF) without having to resolder its connecting wires.

The RoboPad+EduBoard combo allows for easy connection of servo motors and additional outputs should you want to add more later down the line.

To get going with your RoboPad, simply connect the two motors to the "M1" and "M2" headers on the EduBoard breakout (optionally via the extension leads for extra reach), connect a 9v battery to the connector, the switch to the battery connector, and then the battery connector into the JST-XH connector on the EduBoard, and then flick the switch to turn it on. You should see a network with the same name as the one listed on the RoboPad. Connect to it, and navigate to "start.robopad.co.uk" (or "192.168.4.1" if your phone raises an SSL warning) in your phone's browser and start driving.

Printable Parts

The SMRRF 2026 workshop was run in collaboration with The 3D Printing Professor, facilitated by DreamsVoid. Through this collaboration, we were able to leverage the creativity of the 3D-printable building block system, PrintABlok, as a base for the robots you built! We designed a number of our own PrintABlok parts to support the electrical components available, and DreamsVoid provided kilograms of base parts. If you'd like to 3D print these parts yourself, you can find them below:

• The Blayze Tech RoboPad PrintABlok support parts on Printables
• The Blayze Tech N20 motor/o-ring wheels on Printables
• The 3D Printing Professor's online store, where you can get the base PrintABlok parts and the electroBlok parts for free, as well as many other themed PrintABlok sets at a reasonable price point (we personally are quite excited about his recently released PrintAQuest line)
• DreamsVoid's connector removal tool - an incredibly useful tool for when you want to remove PrintABlok connectors

The RoboPad & EduBoard

The pin mappings of a RoboPad mounted onto an EduBoard.

The EduBoard is a carrier board for a RoboPad. It provides a secure battery attachment interface via a JST-XH connector and easily accessible headers to attach motors and additional actuators to.

Just like the RoboPad, the board accepts an input power of between 4 and 10v. The polarity of this input power source matches that indicated on the attached RoboPad - that is, positive on the left, with negative (ground) on the right. If you bought your kit on the day, you may notice that the leads on the supplied JST-XH connection cable do not match this colourscheme; however if you received your kit in the post, you will find that they do. In both cases, the correct way to place the JST-XH cable into the power socket is to align it correctly with the socket itself, rather than considering the wiring colours.

On the base RoboPad, additional actuators can be attached to a number of the exposed pins. However, pins E1 and E2 are considered the "default" external pins, as the other pins can exhibit undefined behaviour briefly on device power-up (these pins are defined as "advanced" or "extra" pins). The EduBoard breaks out these two pins, as well as the most stable of extra pins in a format that makes them easily usable alongside typical hobby-grade servos via the 3-pin connectors on the left of the board. As indicated on the board, the left-most pin is a ground pin, the middle is the power input to the servo, and the right is the signal.

Functionally, the signal pin is directly connected to it's respective pin on the base RoboPad board, and provides a 3.3v signal to the connected device. The power pin, however, is selectable via two solderable joints on the rear of the EduBoard. Using one or more of these joints, it is possible to select the maximum voltage that will be provided to the given servos. This can be particularly useful when you are trying to drive a servo that operates at a lower voltage than the input voltage provided to the board itself. For example, when powering a hobby 9v servo that operates at 6v, but with a 9v battery connected, you will want to solder the "5.8v" selector - this will step down the battery's voltage to around 6v, allowing it to safely drive the servo without risk of overvolting it. The combined current draw of these pins is limited to 2.1 amps, so please check the maximum current draw of the actuators you intend to connect before attempting to drive them.

Additionally, servos need not be the only things driven. By ignoring the central "PWR" connector, the Externals headers become generic output pins - you could, for example, connect an LED via from a "SIG" pin to it's respective "GND" pin via a current limiting resistor - then, by configuring the output as a digital or PWM output in the IO Config Editor, you can dynamically control that LED from the UI.

Tips

Tips on motor removal, wheel generation + printing, course building and battery selection/upgrading to come here.