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Showing posts from May, 2006

Quiet, Holiday, Special Project

Sorry it's been so quiet here for the past few days... it's a holiday in the US (Memorial Day) and everyone has a 3-day weekend - mine has been spent painting a room and bathroom. I've also picked up a special NXT writing project that's kept me busy - all my motors, sensors, and other parts are in use and I've got no time to play. Just an FYI: I will be out of town June 3-11 with no internet access and no email. Hopefully Matthias and Brian will keep you occupied during that time. I'm not sure how they respond to dares, but you could try to provoke them :) Jim

Another Screen-Capture video

I received an email asking if I could show how the wiring works when connecting blocks... Well, it's very simple and I hope you're not disappointed - no fireworks or any special animation... you just click on a port/plug and drag to another... if the wire is colored (in this example, yellow) it means you've got a valid connection... a dashed line indicates a broken wire meaning you've incorrectly connected two plugs (for example, an output plug that puts out TEXT connected to a plug that is expecting an Integer). It's another .EXE file... sorry, but that's how the software saves it... view it here .

LEGO is listening

Okay, I've got readers from LEGO corporate and LEGO Education that check in on the blog, so here's our chance to have an open discussion about the converter cable & legacy block subject. I'll also email my contacts to let them know they might want to look in on the discussion... For starters, I want to provide some short statements from Lisbeth (in red, edited for length): "... as of today, I have not heard anything about a retail version that will have the legacy blocks, nor has my immediate supervisor..." "...we’re not trying to make people cancel pre-orders of retail sets so they’ll order from us. We may serve the hobbyist market, but by and large our primary market is educators. Lots and lots of schools have spent lots and lots of money creating LEGO Robotics labs, and we know that school budgets run the gamut from perpetually underfunded to usually underfunded. My understanding is that this is the biggest reason for the inclusion of the legacy bl

HELP documentation - legacy motor and sensor

I've taken a couple of screenshots of the HELP documentation provided with the NXT software. You'll notice the asterisk (*) added to the names of some of the items indicating a legacy item.

GoRobotics.net article

I submitted an article to GoRobotics.net - it covers the Firmware update process as well as the brick control window (where you can see battery strength, change the brick default name, view programs and other files, etc.). Check it out here .

NXT jousting: Early rider concepts

My thoughts on the rider are that we need to minimize pieces - mainly to have a larger selection of pieces for the mount. Some might argue for leaving the design of the rider open, but I think we should "lock in" some variables to make the game fair. I think the mount is where we should allow for creativity. Just my opinion. In the first rider I'm including here, I've just put together some quick concepts of what a rider might look like. The claws I rarely have a use for, so I thought using them for legs might save some other beams for the mount. I used the main body (with head/eyes) for the 2nd rider... (I'm also including a photo of the exploded 2nd rider for view of all the required pieces). The 2nd rider design uses more of the dark gray pieces, but it's still fairly light weight and does resemble a rider (maybe not...). These are just ideas... not final designs. I'll be curious to see what Brian and/or Matthias come up with...

NXT jousting: the lance, viewed from aft

By popular demand, here's the lance, viewed from aft.

NXT jousting: a version of the lance with 15 holed head

As requested, here's a version of the lance with a 15 holed head and more stable connectors for comparison. Personally, I think the 13 holed head version below more well-balanced - but that's just my subjective opinion. Matthias

NXT jousting: yet another lance

Dearies, Regardless what the actual settings for NXT jousting will be in the end, no doubt a requisite to be provided by a every attending robot will be the lance. As it is still subject of discussion if we will provide a (set of?) standard lance(s) to be used by anybody or just its dimensions, here's nevertheless my first draft for one (adding a buddy next to Jim's contribution to our armoury). Matthias Paul

Philo's solution to NXT batteries

Take a visit over to Philo's website to see a set of instructions for building a power-supply insert for the NXT brick that uses an AC power adapter to provide power to your bots. Not for the everyone (especially those of us with not-so-great electronics skills), but a great start for the hacks and homebrew fans.

Entertaining NXT video - 7 minutes

The LEGO Education NXT blog has posted a fun video here . You get a look at the containers they'll eventually be selling. There's also some really quick glimpses of the printed material, but it's hard to see details. I did notice some components in the Education version that I don't have in my retail version... not a big deal as I'm sure there are parts in my kit that won't be found in the Education version. This brings up the question - do I buy the Education version or the Retail version? I think we can manage a good discussion here on this. A few weeks ago when I had a chance to meet with some fellow MDPers and Soren and Paal of LEGO, this issue did come up. One thing we need to keep in mind is that the Retail version is designed for a single user (or small group of friends) that will experiment on their own. My opinion is that the RoboCenter is designed to give this user a good understanding of the basics of construction and programming. The RoboCenter

RaSPy papparazzo

NXT aficionados, In response to some according requests I've created some additional glossy images of RaSPy, derived from the LDraw file. Feel free to have a look. Matthias Paul

Double-Secret Project... revealed

Brian, Matthias, and I are currently discussing constraints and standards for the creation of a NXT-based JOUST competition. It's so early in the project that we really don't have much to share... the earlier image I posted was my thought on the lance... In order to make a game of JOUST fun for two or more competitors, the game needs to be fair in many regards - length/size of lance, limitations on size of bot, location of target areas, rail follower or point-and-shoot, rider with mount, or just mount, etc... all these things we're trying to figure out. Stay tuned...

NXT Battlebots

No, it didn't start out that way, but give a bunch of overgrown kids some toys and, well... Steve Hassenplug and I both had remote controled vehicles at the recent House of Bricks event, and we mounted a camera on mine. Here's a short video clip (38 sec, 980K) of Steve's robot knocking mine over (with a camera on top and a narrow wheelbase, this happened a lot). The first part is from the standpoint of the spectators, while the second is the view from the robot as it falls over and the other robot "gloats" over its kill. PS- yes, I'll do the sound better nxt time. -- Brian Davis

Gastropoda robotica (The Slug)

Dear readers, During some nights over the last weeks I've built a mobile robot that may be not completely white-bread, as its principle way of moving is neither leg nor wheel: The Slug . Please have a look at it . Comments are highly appreciated. Regards, Matthias Paul

Demo video of software

I was asked a while back if I could use some screen-capture software to demonstrate the software... I have uploaded a (relatively) small file (2.4MB) that shows me dropping various blocks (MOVE, WAIT, LOOP, SWITCH, etc.) and how things resize. There's no sound, but I think this gives you a good idea of how the LOOP resizes and how the blocks are dragged and dropped. You can see the file here . Save it to your hard drive (NXTSW.exe) and give it a view. Jim

Johnny 5 is ALIVE!

Fellow MDPer Daniele Benedettelli has been working quietly on a well-known figure from the 80's... below are some questions I presented to Daniele with responses (in red): 1. Why did you choose to build a NXT version of Johnny 5? Since I was 11 years old, after looking Short Circuit film, I started trying to build my own J5 Lego replica. It was very simple: at that time there were no special parts as today! Just think the treads were made out of slopes! Then, the project rested in peace for years, during the so-called "dark age of Lego", in which a guy discovers real life! When I put my hands on my first RIS (2003), I started working with real robotics and some ideas began to spring out again. With a second RIS I continued developing other projects (mainly bipeds) and I used a whole RIS to build the first version of J5 [please, refer to my site for images of older versions (see first image). Of course I had to add lots of parts from other sets (barcode truck) and others s

Double-Secret Project (... double-secret??)

Brian, Matthias, Here's my suggestion for the piece we've been discussing. It uses 4 of the 15L beams and 4 of the longer black connectors (showing one as an example). Very sturdy. Doesn't bend. Good reach. Jim

What do you do with 10 NXTs?

Have a very good time, of course! This weekend (Friday 12 May - Sunday 14 May) several of us got together near Chicago, IL, for the House of Bricks event (this is a small LEGO show within a SciFi/Fantasy convention - a very interesting combination, to be sure). There were several members of the MDP there, including (from left to right) John Brost, Steve Hassenplug, Bryan Bonahoom, Kevin Clague, and myself (seated in front). Between the five of us, there were 10 NXTs present. Yep, 10 of 'em. So what do you do with this much technology? Play, of course! Both Steve and I have used two NXT kits to make remote-controled vehicles, with one NXT (the remote) sending commands to the NXT vehicle. With two of them (by the end of the weekend we had three), battlebots ensued, as well as other forms of destruction. We mounted a camera on mine so we could video a robots-eye view (video coming when I can edit it - I have something like 3 Gb to sift through). We also used other LEGO sets to make

Feedback for Matthias' Building Instructions

USA-based readers: Please offer up your comments and feedback on Matthias' Building Instructions for RaSPy. On Friday (May 19) I'll let Matthias pick the 3 submissions he feels were most useful to him (or if he doesn't want to choose, I'll do it) and I'll send (via US Postal Service) the 3 selected readers an OFFICIAL NXT button - the button says "I know what's NXT", each about 2 inches in diameter. We'll set 3pm Friday EST as the deadline. Jim (apologies to non-USA-based readers)

RaSPy: LDraw file and building instructions

Ladies, I'm pleased to conclude the weekend with finally adding RaSPy's LDraw file (6.6 k) and the building instructions (1.1 mb) to The NXT STEP. Some notes: The LDraw file relies on new NXT related LDraw files that do not come with the standard LDraw distribution. They have been created by some MDP members and made available in the MDP only so far. There has been the understandable desire by readers of this blog to publish them - however, as LDraw's publishing policy is pretty taut, this is subject to discussion still and I'm presently not in the position to provide them outside of the MDP (sorry for the inconvenience - it is to be hoped that this will change soon). The images in the building instructions have been created with the according MLCAD utility. The web pages contained are the result of a small generator I've written this evening to this end (I presume there alreadyexist according tools in the web, yet I didn't fancy searching...).

RaSPy goes LDraw

Folks, having spent the afternoon with creating the LDraw file for RaSPy, I'm pleased to present the first image derived from it (rendered with POV-Ray). You will deduce from it that RaSPY in general is "LDrawn" now. Yet, I'd like to do some polishing before releasing the LDraw file. After that, the next steps on my list are building instructions more high-quality images. Watch out! Matthias Paul

First Lego League applications now being accepted

The LEGO Education blog has posted an announcement regarding FLL and a reminder about the Mindstorms Education Pilot Program here . A link is also provided to place orders for FLL kits. This next challenge focuses on nano-technology... should be interesting. Jim

RSS Feed

Well, it appears you have to pay Blogger (to upgrade to Blogger Pro) to gain RSS... so Blogger recommended a feature called Feedburner which is supposed to provide the blog via RSS feed... Here's the RSS feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheNxtStep-LegoMindstormsNxtBlog If anyone uses this, please let me know if it works or not... thanks. Jim

Smaller video files from Philo

I'd like to thank Philo for taking our RaSPy videos and compressing them... here are the links: http://www.bluerocketwriting.com/raspy4.avi (compressed using Divx5 for video at 300 kbits/s, MP3 for sound. 1.4MB) http://www.bluerocketwriting.com/raspy5.avi (compressed using Divx5 for video at 500 kbits/s. 2.2MB) http://www.bluerocketwriting.com/raspy6.avi (Also at 500 kbits/s but cropped to the useful part. ) Thank you, Philo. Jim

Next for RaSPy...

Now that we have a working bot, I'm going to take it apart and photograph it being disassembled. I'll provide these photos to Matthias who has volunteered to create the LDRAW file(s) for it. Stay tuned... Jim

Oops (or, "why can't Brian count?")

Jim tried out my program and promptly discovered I had been lazy and not actually tested it... at all (that's right folks, always remember to make your mistakes big and in the blogosphere...). The problem was that the loop counter was counting "0 - 1 - 2" just like computer do, but Brian was thinking of it as "1 - 2 - 3". As a result, the sound didn't synchronize and the numbers displayed weren't quite right. The solution Jim found was simple: use a Math block to add one to the loop counter before wiring it into the Number-To-Text block and the Switch. Problem solved! -- Brian Davis -- Brian Davis

New videos and image

Two videos of the new and improved RaSPy can be found below. WARNING: raspy3 is 11MB and raspy2 is 4MB - it's either large files and less grainy or those really grainy files... sorry. I think I may have discovered a problem... everytime I run the program, the first 3-4 times it sometimes seems to pick the same item (not always paper like in this video). After about 3-4 games, it seems to settle down into random behavior. I'll be playing with it some more to determine if this is always the case. It may very well be that, given only 3 choices, that paper really did come up 5 times in a row. Since each item has an equal chance of being picked, it's not completely unheard of... but testing will occur. This doesn't happen every time, but it does happen enough to make me curious. http://www.bluerocketwriting.com/raspy3.mpeg And the 2nd video is a bit grainy... my apologies. What you are looking at is a small text bubble that Brian programmed to display on the screen...

Giving RaSPy some personality

Tag, I'm it? OK, here's a quick version that I whipped up this morning. Keep in mind that Jim and I have never seen each other or even spoken on the phone, and there's nothing up my sleeves ;-). The new program has a number of requested features: it will wait until you press and release the touch sensor, and then count out loud "one, two, three" while moving the three arms forward 45° and then back (it also displays the number in a cartoon-like "speech bubble" on the LCD screen, just for fun). Then it picks a number and moves just that motor forward 70° to show which one (rock, scissors, or paper) that it picked. This time I did away with the multi-case Switch block at the end, instead just wiring the random number into a Motor block to directly select which motor to run. It waits for a second press and release (a "bump"), resets the motor that it previsouly moved, and starts all over again. Notice that it's now up to Jim to test this

Latest version of RaSPy

Okay, Brian... tag, your it. Here are some images of the latest version of RaSPy. I've shrunk the size of the rock, scissors and paper and made them stronger. I linked the 3 motors together to provide stability (the original was throwing the motors all over the place as they rotated - high torque). I added in the touch sensor as the button to trigger the start and reset of the game (took this idea from the Las Vegas slot machine bot). And finally, I linked the brick to the motors using a solid base that provides more stability and strength to the whole thing. Now let's watch as Brian does his magic on the program... Next, once the hardware and program are tested and work, I'll provide detailed pictures to Matthias for him to work on the LDRAW file(s).

Blog Team Collaboration

Brian, Matthias, and I are having some fun. Taking the RaSPy, we are going to "attempt" the following: 1. Take the prototype bot and improve on its design (Jim) 2. Take the original code and improve it (Brian - already done a couple - see earlier post). 3. Develop an LDRAW file of the final design (Matthias) The fun part is collaborating on a project where the 3 of us aren't in the same geographical location. Using email and this blog, we hope to demonstrate some good teamwork by distributing the duties. Hopefully, once the NXT is released and more people have access to the parts and software, we'll start seeing more collaborations... Jim

Images of LEGO Education brochure

Todd Thuma has posted some scans of a brochure put out by LEGO Education. Check them out below: http://www.toddthuma.info/Lego/cable.jpg http://www.toddthuma.info/Lego/NXT_Lego_Ed_1.jpg http://www.toddthuma.info/Lego/NXT_Lego_Ed_2.jpg http://www.toddthuma.info/Lego/NXT_Lego_Ed_3.jpg http://www.toddthuma.info/Lego/NXT_Lego_Ed_4.jpg

RaSPy - the story continues

Thanks go to my fellow MDPer and blogger Brian Davis for taking my program and improving it using a multi-state SWITCH block (wish I had thought of it first). And he implemented the LOOP block for the initial 1...2...3... Brian, nice clean program... great work. - Jim

Another dare... another story...

Okay, I love a good dare. Here's the story: I was demonstrating the NXT today to some kids I know. There were 4 of them and they all wanted to play with it, but I was giving a demonstration of the program and building with the kit using a projector and my laptop. I was going to have one of them build the TriBot from the Quick Start guide, but they didn't like that idea and told me to build something else... one of them (who reads my blog) DARED me to build something new and program it with them. I asked for a volunteer... and they all raised their hands so they played a game of rock-scissors-paper to pick the winner... (Carson)... and the idea was born. So... I present to you, the BETA and EXTREMELY UGLY Rock-Scissors-Paper Bot or, RaSPy (the nickname given to it). Here's how it works (and it DOES work): Just like playing Rock-Scissors-Paper, the bot does the count: 1... 2... 3... and then displays its selection (Rock, Scissors, or Paper). For the counts, the motors (all 3

Let me introduce myself

Hallo folks, My name is Matthias Paul Scholz and I feel extremely honored to have been invited by Jim to contribute to this blog. Some words about me: I'm German, living in the Black Forest and for some time have been (and still am) an active developer for the Open Source leJOS project (www.lejos.org), a Java based platform for the RCX (which is most presumably the reason why I was chosen to be part of the MDP - I can only guess...). Well, I'm looking forward to a thrilling time in this blog, hoping to transfer some of the fun we all had in the MDP so far (which is most likely similar to the fun you will have when the NXT kits are available out there finally - fumbling my NXT robot here before me - har har!). Cheers, Matthias Paul ps And, yes, feel free to check out my NXT related page at http://www.matthias-paul-scholz.homepage.t-online.de/lego/nxt/index.html - feedback is welcome!

Leaving Blogger?

I'm becoming very aggravated with Blogger and am considering moving The NXT STEP. I have registered thenxtstep.com and the hosting service does offer a blogging application. I am going to investigate this option and share with the rest of the blogging team... I'll keep you informed as to any decisions that are made. Right now, I'm just looking for options. My complaints with Blogger include: slow upload of images, NO upload of images, frequently no access to create new posts, slow service, complete denial of service for short periods of time, and then, of course, there was the earlier incident where they accused me of spam blogging and shut down my ability to post for over a week. (And the fact that I've been trying to post THIS writeup for the past 15 minutes... with no success.) All in all, Blogger is a great way to get a blog up and going, but I'm beginning to think that The NXT STEP and its readers deserve better... Thoughts/Comments from our readers will b

SodaCanBot

Martyn wanted to share this: The SodaCanBot has 2 touch sensors on top to fetch either the left or the right can. The robot waits for a command and then drives to the can. It closes its gripper and lowers the rear coaster wheel that causes the robot to tilt and lift the (full) can. Ben (MDP) listens to John (DEV) who made the SodaCanBot and demonstrates it here. The gripper is closed and the robot is on its way to return to the can. Here you can see the lifter (that holds the rear coaster). Now the gripper is down, and the can was just released. This robot also has a light sensor facing downwards to follow a line. It can also use the ultrasound sensor to detect the can. Martyn Boogaarts

How RoboCenter works

When you open up the Mindstorms NXT software, this is the start screen. On the right is the RoboCenter. This is where the 18 challenges are covered (broken into 4 categories - Vehicles, Machines, Animals, and Humanoids). To start a project, you click on the + beside a category. For this walkthrough, I'm going to open the Animals category. For each category, there is one major project (in this case, Spike). Each project is broken up into sub-projects that allow you to slowly build the device and program it. In some instances (like the Vehicles category - TriBot) each sub-project has you doing something a little different with the device. For the TriBot, for example, most of the projects have you using a different sensor and learning to integrate it and program it with the basic TriBot base. Here, I'll click the "Go" button for Spike to see the sub-projects. The Spike project opens... and I see that there are 4 sub-projects: Crawling Base, Tail, Sound Sensor, and Reac

More Mindstorms NXT sensors on the way (video)

I received an email today from Dr. Nitin Patil - Dr. Patil and mindsensors.com are developing some new sensors for the Mindstorms NXT. With the email was a link to a small video showing mindsensors.com's new compass sensor... in the video, you'll see the bot facing a specified direction while sitting on the NXT test poster-sheet... as the sheet is turned, the bot will turn to stay oriented to face in the original direction. The sheet is turned in both directions, sometimes with a small turn and sometimes with a large turn... the compass sensor lets the bot return to its starting position. If you like what you see and want more information, check out the mindsensor.com website. Click on the "Coming Soon for NXT" and you can read about their magnetic compass sensor and the temperature sensor.

A MyBlock primer (with a side of math)

MyBlocks are the graphical version of subroutines. If you have a section of code you need to use in several places, or even in different programs, it's sometimes easier to "package" this code into a single block that you can just drag and drop into a program as needed. But this can be more than just a simple sequence of blocks: it is essentially a mini-program all its own, with the added ability to pass variables in and out of MyBlocks. In fact, once you've made a MyBlock and saved it, you can use it just like any of the other blocks: it's like you get to extend the language as you go! It saves reinventing code each time you program, and makes the programs much easier to understand and more readable. You can even "nest" MyBlocks, allowing you to build up very complicated blocks from simple building blocks (hmm... a lot like LEGO). As an example, here's o ne way to make a MyBlock that does the Modulo math function (if you've never heard of that,