Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit

by Pimoroni

A robot friend to sit on your desk and scroll the news, weather, or your Twitter feed - Scroll Bot!

Updated version! Our Scroll Bot kit now includes a Raspberry Pi Zero WH and a brand spanking new Scroll HAT Mini - this means there's now absolutely no soldering required.

The Scroll Bot Kit* combines the Pi Zero WH with our Scroll HAT Mini board, and masquerades as a friendly orange robot, perfect for sitting on your desk or on a shelf. It's ideal for scrolling messages or for simple animations and, of course, it takes advantage of the built-in wireless LAN on the Pi Zero WH. It'll take around 30 minutes to assemble everything** (check out our assembly guide for details).

Kit contents*

  • Pi Zero WH with pre-soldered headers
  • Scroll HAT Mini with 17x7 individually dimmable white LEDs
  • Orange robot stand and diffuser
  • 50cm USB A to micro-B cable
  • USB A (female) to micro B (male) adaptor
  • Mini to full-size HDMI adaptor
  • Sticker sheet (personalise your Scroll Bot!)
  • Comes in a reusable kit box

*Just add your own micro-SD card!

Scroll Bot uses our Scroll HAT Mini board, a dense matrix of 17x7 (119 total) bright white LEDs. Each pixel's brightness can be controlled individually, meaning that it's possible to create stunning animations or even anti-aliased text. The LED matrix sits behind Scroll Bot's mouth, and the frosted orange acrylic diffuses the LEDs beautifully.

Use the built-in wireless LAN to make your Scroll Bot internet-connected and have him/her/them inform you of the latest news, weather, track hashtags or mentions on Twitter, or much, much more.

Features

  • 17x7 matrix of bright white pixels (119 total)
  • Individual PWM brightness control of each pixel
  • Uses the IS31FL3731 LED matrix driver chip
  • 3-layer orange robot stand and diffuser
  • Pi Zero WH with single core CPU and built-in wireless LAN and Bluetooth
  • Adaptor kit
  • 50cm USB A to micro-B cable (power your Pi from an existing charger or computer)
  • Python library

Software

Our handy one-line installer will install the Scroll pHAT HD Python library for you, which will also work with Scroll HAT Mini. We've included a bunch of examples too, to show off what you can do!

Note: that the default orientation for Scroll HAT Mini is upside-down if you're using it in a Scroll Bot. To flip it, simply add scrollphathd.rotate(180) towards the top of your code, just below the import lines.

Notes

Assembled size of Scroll Bot is 125x85x67mm (WxHxD).

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."

42 customer reviews

4 years ago
Well packaged kit for young children to learn the programming. I helped soldering, but a 5-6 years old can perfectly assemble everything else together. Had great fun time with this when hooding up with API and voice services. Examples provided are fully working and really easy to follow - great kick start to build complex larger projects.
by Anonymous about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Awesome little kit to get started with scrolling on a PWM LED matrix. I used it for getting Cryptocurrencies price. You can see the assembled project here: https://youtu.be/qjFf3hSImd0
by gilemonx about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Great kit, with easy installation and good examples to get going. Only thing I notice is that the little bot rests on the Pi zero itself on the back, instead of the plastic legs. Could be I set it up wrong, or it could be that the Hammer headers are taller than the soldered headers. In any case, it doesn't impact the function.
by Ricardo about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
really cool project, easy to build, nice design. the less cool thing: as the notice was not included, my bf stumbled upon the price when looking for it online. the more cool thing: the Christmas Critter gift I received along with my order. best surprise ever, really cool to discover electronics with children.
by Iris about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Excellent kit with nice display. My kids love it. I was going to use it as wall clock, but appears that it will be used for programming and fun for whole family. Also I printed the 3D case designed on this device.
by Wojciech about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Lovely nice project kit! It comes in a cute little box, including small stickers and cables/adapters to connect to a power supply (USB port of your laptop for instance), HDMI display or make a keyboard or any other USB-device connect to it. Very easy to setup and start playing around with. Great fun value!! It reminded me of a binary clock I have borrowed from a friend of mine years ago. Unfortunately after some time he wanted me to return it. But now I've created my own, https://github.com/snarlistic/binary_clock. Return of the happy times!
by Freddy about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io
7 years ago
This is a cool little project for the kids but we had to use the hammer GPIO to get the Raspberry Pi going since our soldering skills are not so good. While the scrollbot is running, you have a full fledged Raspberry Pi computer at your hands to do anything you want with it.
by AndysTechGarage about Scroll Bot - Pi Zero WH Project Kit via REVIEWS.io