I don’t normally cover non-Raspberry Pi stuff, but this is one of those rare occasions.

Ryan Walmsley, creator of the RyanTeck Motor Controller Board for the Raspberry Pi, has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for his latest product: the TurtlTeck. The TurtlTeck is a pre-assembled blue circuit board containing buttons and circuitry that will help you build your own robot. I’ve got one of the beta boards to try out and, I have to say, I really like it. You press the direction buttons to program the robot and then hit the green button to make it move along it’s programmed course.

It reminds me a lot of the fun of Big Trak from when I was a kid but with more fun, and a lot of educational value, because you have to build the robot yourself out of the parts supplied. It’s great fun and it’s a great way to get into autonomous robot programming before looking at using an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi.

The price is really good, too – £16 (rising to £18) just for the board and £34 (which is a fantastic deal) for the board and the robot chassis, motors, wheels etc. Check out the Kickstarter campaign here and see the dedicated TurtlTeck website here. Highly recommended.