ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Here's the description from the creator: "This robot can play five chords using three NXT motors. The guitar is an ordinary acoustic guitar tuned in "open C" - it plays a C chord when the strings are strummed without the other hand touching the fret board. And I can say that the robot plays the guitar better than I do!"

Yesterday, over 400 participants gathered at the Atlanta Girls' School for Bot'oberfest 2008 (up from almost 300 in 2007). Classes this year included: Intro to NXT-G Programming Intermediate NXT-G Advanced NXT-G Basic Robot Design Reliable Robot Design Chassis Design FLL Project & Judging Overview FLL Missions Overview (and Discussion of Rules) Open Meet & Discuss I'll post a link shortly where you can view slideshows for the various classes. The event was a huge success, and we're already hearing back from attendees on what they liked and what they'd like to see next year. We broke the event up into a morning and afternoon session and allowed participants to sign up for one or the other (the schedule was repeated and the spreadsheet can be downloaded here ).

Today, I ran over the web site of Boston Dynamics that features a video with a fascinating robot of theirs, the RHex ("The Rugged Robot that Devours Rough Terrain") . It's a six-legged machine that is able to walk over almost any terrain found out there, to climb stairways, steep slopes and railroad tracks and even to swim! Though it's not a NXT robot, the video decidedly is some kind of inspiration in that regard (however, don't try to throw your brick into a pool of mud, don't you! Mind, it's not as sealed as RHEx...). Watch the video - it's intriguing!

LEGO MINSTORMS NXT One-Kit Wonders , the new book by the blog contributors is scheduled to be printed around the fourth of November this year. This post gives you an outline of the ten chapters and their robots. Chapter one: CandyPicker: A candy-picking robot with built-in generator and remote control Chapter two: PunchBot: Old-school programming using your NXT Chapter three: M: the m&m sorter Chapter four: NXT Dragster: The NXT STEP Dragster Challenge Chapter five: BobBot: An NXT version of the Bobcat Chapter six: RoboLock: A security system for your robots Chapter seven: The hand: A robot for those dirty jobs Chapter eight: SPC: Self-parking car Chapter nine: GrabBot: A robot that finds, grabs, lifts, and moves Chapter ten: Bike: A two wheeled, obstacle avoiding vehicle Read more about the book in previous posts here .

While exploring the depths of Youtube, I came across this nicely done Anime video discussing the concepts of the FLL competition by a Saudian FLL team. I think it gets the Gracious Proffesionalism theme across particularly well, and how winning is not everything... just enjoy! Good luck to all, Richard

EDIT : You can see a robot that does this sort of thing here . This week's inspiration is somewhat advanced: construction robots. Can you make a robot that builds something, on its own, out of LEGOs? It doesn't have to be another robot, or even something very complicated. You could have a robot build a wall, for example. Or you could have a pallet of pieces, arranged in the right order, that a robot selects and puts together on a workspace. You can see some (very) elaborate examples of construction robots in the Aircraft Factory and Car Factory . Obviously, you probably wouldn't make something like this, but maybe a small, simpler, version would be possible. Let us know if you make one! -Jonathan P.S. See other posts in this blog series here .

Shortly after reaching the 50 project milestone , today the nxtprograms.com web site reached another milestone by turning one year old! So here is a one-candle birthday cake project to celebrate. The flame on the candle of the cake will "flicker" while the NXT plays the "Happy Birthday" song ,and when the song finishes, you can make a wish and blow out the candle. The sound sensor will detect the blowing, and then the flame will disappear! Here is a video of the cake in action:

The rubber axle joiners at the center of the grip are to prevent damage when gripping or pulling parts. Building instructions are here .

Kevin Knuth has posted some nice, TECHNIC equilateral triangles of various sizes. His triangles are for a drive system; however, clever folks can find other uses for them as well. Several of the triangles shown have lists of parts and building instructions here .

We enjoy covering FLL and will continue to bring you news related to it, but just in case you're unfamiliar with the site, please check out www.techbrick.com if you've never paid a visit. Marco Ciavolino's coverage of all things FLL is outstanding - he even provides an email newsletter that always keeps you up-to-date on rule changes, new resources, and anything else he can fit in there... many of the notices you see on our blog related to FLL come directly from Marco. He's recently added some new resources that teams will find incredibly useful... here's a sample of his most recent newsletter: ********************************************** 1. Anne and Dave, our new mentors for FLL, have come up with the most amazing, simple, and effective method for helping a team work through the missions, especially for rookie teams. Read about it here: http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/LEGO2008/Resources/fllmissioncards.html ********************************************** 2

The nxtprograms.com website reached a milestone recently, with 50 projects posted, all with full building instructions and downloadable programs. To celebrate this milestone, I have published a new version of the CD titled " 50 Fun Projects for your LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT ", now in a full color jewel case. The CD is useful for anyone who wants to access the projects without a fast internet connection in their LEGO room, as a backup against network flakiness, or just as a nice addition to their collection of books and other NXT resources. A significant bulk discount is also available for teachers and coaches to order multiple copies to use in their classrooms and/or distribute to their students. Also, by popular demand, I have started to try to enter the video age by posting videos of the projects on YouTube. There are some there now from the most recent projects, and as I have time, I will be rebuilding and videoing the past projects to get more up there.

What can be more fun than a barrel full of monkeys? A barrel full of NXT monkeys! We've had Biped, Quadruped, and even Bug Bot challenges on NXTLOG, but now we want you to have lots of fun and build the coolest creature on the planet. Read on here at NXTLog. Have fun! Richard EDIT: Due to a request from a reader, I've changed the link above to a hyperlink.

One of our readers, Mr. Kumaran from India, sent me a nice link about the Robotics Club in Bangalore he is member of. Together with friends of his, they hold Robotics Classes at the Spastics Society of Karnaka . Visit the site - great stuff!

Reader MG submitted the following writeup - (be sure to check out the pictures using the Picasa link at bottom): The Mexican Robotics Federation, the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Distrito Federal (Institute for Science and Technology of Distrito Federal), along with local private and state universities hosted a national robotics competition, at Palacio de Mineria, from September 4th through 6th in Mexico City. The event gathered students from all over the country, from middle school to graduate students. It was an event that made national news. This tournament hosted a great number of categories, from the Robocup and Robocup Jr. to the IEEE Latin American Students Robotics Competition. The variety of robots was big, from homebrew to Lego Mindstorms. You could see humanoid robots playing soccer, cleaning robots, arm disarming robots, rescue robots, line followers and much, much more. I had the privilege of judging the SEK category. There were 12 teams competing, all of the tea

Reader "W" emailed to inform me about Toys'R'Us annual birthday sale (Geoffrey, their mascot)... LEGO is included in the buy 2, get 1 free deal and "W" said the offer goes for NXT kits this year AND is available on-line and in-stores. I checked out the website and LEGO products are listed as being covered, but no word on in-store - if someone else wants to verify and drop me an email, it'd be appreciated.

Here's an admittedly wonkish article about the improvements to LEGO's supply chain in recent years. (After all, we can't rhapsodize about the NXT until we can actually GET the NXT, right?). :) Some key points of the piece (for those who'd rather pass on the complete article): Through a series of management moves, LEGO: 1) Reduced its number of vendors and made larger, more regular purchases from each one, enabling it to leverage the company's scale with suppliers. 2) Better coordinated the production within its mold machines, resulting in better utilization and increased capacity. 3) Decreased fulfillment costs at their distribution centers by bundling orders in larger shipments. 4) Rationalized their production cycles into 4-to-12-week increments (instead of making every machine available to produce any element at any time). 5) Relocated its factories near its most important markets (e.g., Europe), thereby decreasing its distribution costs. All of this means

AlphaRex sure get's around! Find out about his recent visit and view the picture album here . Chris

There are many blogs out in the world today. Many are devoted to LEGO topics. Some are devoted to Robotics. But not many are devoted to both LEGO and Robotics. The Brothers Brick is one of the LEGO Blogs out there. It isn't really Robotics focused, or even Technic focused. It's more of a "Check out this cool creation". They have a good group of authors, and a large readership. The Brothers Brick recently posted their 10 Other LEGO Blogs you should be reading . And guess who is on the list! That's right. The NXT Step! One of the other blogs they mentioned looks pretty good too. It's called TechnicBRICKS . They cover a lot of Technic creations, which often go hand-in-hand with the NXT Robotics creations too. And one last find. The Brothers Brick recently featured a Tripod Turret that is fully automated, and appears to be powered by some PF devices. You can read their writeup here. The Brothers Brick - Auto-Controlled Tripod Turret .

We blogged here a while back about a fantastic utility from Andreas Dreier called nxtRICeditV2 , a way to edit the subtle and complex image files used by the NXT. But displaying anything other than simple images under NXT-G really wasn't possible. Now Guy Ziv over at NXTasy has authored a nice block to allow custom fonts, designed with nxtRICeditV2, to be used with NXT-G. Take a look here: Advanced Display Text NXT-G block He's done a really nice job on the interface, including built-in help, and included a couple of sample fonts (one with larger characters, one with smaller characters, and one that is upside-down). Take a look and try this out - it should install just fine under v1.1, or under v1.0 with the patch. Let us know how you use these! And thank you Guy Ziv for authoring some nice blocks for those of us who still like using NXT-G. -- Brian Davis

One interesting kind of robots is bionic robots, or robots that humans can wear to gain extra capabilities. Some examples of these robots are my A27 Bionic Glove and Bionic Helmet . So this week's inspiration is to build some sort of bionic apparatus that you wear and that gives you one or more extra capabilities. Some examples include extending grabber arms, night vision (or object detection at night), weapons, and decoders (make your own code, like a color code, and a robot that can read and decipher it). Some places to wear a robot include on your arm/wrist, in your pocket, on your leg, and on your back as a backpack. A couple issues to consider when making a bionic apparatus are fit and weight. With solid, blocky LEGO building pieces, it can be pretty hard to make a robot that fits securely and, especially, comfortably. And by the way, even if the robot seems to have a comfortable fit, wear it around for 10 minutes and you might change your mind! :-) When trying to get the fi

Together with a contact for listing your own robotics event.

The parts system being used for the FTC competition (besides the NXT), TETRIX, is available to the public on Pitsco's website, here . Although the parts are pretty expensive, this system basically allows you to take your NXT to the next level. 12-volt DC motors and strong aluminum beams and other parts let you build big robots that are still controlled by the NXT Brick. With the motor controllers that allow the NXT to control the non-LEGO motors, you can have many more than three motors; by stringing motor controllers together, you can have almost as many motors as you want, provided you have enough batteries. One important problem with the Pitsco store is that it doesn't seem to sell the HiTechnic controllers which are required to let the NXT interface with the TETRIX motors. Hopefully these will be available from HiTechnic soon. -Jonathan

I was just surfing the HiTechnic Website when I found that they have released a new sensor. The Electro Optical Proximity Detector or EOPD is used to ...accurately detect objects and small changes in distance... The sensor has its own internal light source so it won't be disturbed by external light signals. Objects can be detected from distances up to 30 cm. Has anyone got or tested this sensor - if so please comment and share your experience with the rest of us. Anders

On his trip around the world due to the 10th anniversary of LEGO® MINDSTORMS, AlphaRex has visited the idyllic Black Forest in Germany and I have been able to take some shots - have a look for them at the official LEGO® MINDSTORMS site .

Here's another Tripod prototype spin-off from the said internal competition, this time created by Mike Brandl . Its name is RAMA , and details (including a movie) can be found on the associated web site (though the text is in German, there are a lot of images also).

More videos and a complete description are here .

For an (internal) contest some time ago, some MINDSTORMS veterans took up the challenge to build NXT tripods, i.e., NXT-based robots on three legs that would be able to autonomously walk in arbitrary direction (without rolling) and avoid or cross obstacles. Though it doesn't look so at a first glance, this is a rather difficult task from the engineerical point of view which might be the reason why so few actual working tribot robots have been built so far. One of the prototypes that arose from that efforts is that of Philo : It walks along with a "dragging" movement. More movies can be seen here , pictures are available here , here , here and here .

Here's a simple but cool model for kids. The creator's description follows: "This small robot starts with raising its head a little up and keeping it raised because gravity pulls it down. It goes direct until it approaches any thing then it decelerates its speed (so that if it hits that thing, the hit is not hard). Then when it is 25cm far from that thing, it raises its head and turns back randomly either to the right or to the left. The randomness was important to get out from small spaces after many tries."

(Click here for a high quality video.) Are you curious for the robots in this book? Here's a preview with three models and what else you will find in there. All ten chapters include building instructions as well as detailed programming instructions. In other words, all you need to spend hours of fun with an NXT kit. Each author will be blogging about his robot design in the coming months. Stay tuned!

To be published November 29, 2008--just in time for Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas and every budding engineers birthday. :) Each of the ten models in the book requires only one NXT retail kit. The Amazon link is here . (NOTE: Amazon has the book listed as "NXT Idea Book Volume 2". However, the book's image on the link has the correct title. The publisher promises to correct this on Amazon as soon as possible).

I have a LOT of hobbies and prefer to make things by hand when I can - so for my wife's recent birthday I suspected she'd probably like something non-robotic in nature. These were time consuming so I just haven't had much chance to play around with my latest NXT idea (it's coming... soon...) but maybe some of you will enjoy these and try your hand at making one... or two... (they are addictive). I'm working on doing one showing an NXT robot in motion, so stay tuned. http://www.instructables.com/id/Handmade_Flipbook/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Handmade_Flipbook_2/

Remember the post on the MINDSTORMS competition by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group where you should build an interesting NXT robot that uses Bluetooth to communicate with some other Bluetooth-enabled device in some way? They have extended their deadline for submissions until end of October now and dropped the limitation to contributors aged 21 and over - a wise decision in my eyes. Thanks to our reader Dirk for the information.

Today CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research , has successfully started its collimators that are used in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider or LHC. The LHC is the biggest supercollider in the world and is also be largest machine in the world. Scientists around the world will be watching closely today when their colleagues in Switzerland flip the switch on what is being touted as the world's grandest experiment in particle physics. If all goes according to plan, the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator underground near Geneva, could re-create the very moment 13 billion years ago when scientists believe a tremendous explosion known as the "big bang" created the universe. "It could be the most exciting thing since Einstein," said Yale Professor Paul Tipton, part of a multinational research team, including physicists at Yale and Fairfield University, that has spent years designing and building the collider. Now what has that to d

I know this is another OT post, but I want one of these . :)

I try to keep my blog posts as relevant to NXT as possible, so I hope you'll forgive me if I go off topic for a few minutes of your time and tell you about an organization that I support and ask you to consider helping. If you're not familiar with Kiva.org, you can visit them at www.kiva.org and learn more about what they do and how they do it. In a nutshell, though, they take small donations (as little as $25.00) and use the funds to create small "micro-loans" to businesses in poor countries around the world. You make a donation, browse the businesses that are trying to raise funds, and select as many as you want to support. I currently support 5 businesses, and have made donations of anywhere from $25 to $100 to each. Other donors make similar contributions and that's how these small businesses get their loans - usually anywhere from $250 to $5000. Each business is required to make regular payments on their loan and as payments come in, your account is cred

Koldo from Euskadi ( Basque Country ) hinted me to his MINDSTORMS-related web site that contains a nice video on a GBC that he created together with his son: The modules might be part of a GBC that will assembled on the 2 nd Hispabrick that is going to take place in Barcelona on 6th and 7th of December 2008.

Once the marvel of modern communications technology, Baudot was the high speed internet of its day, now its sadly neglected. But by using the power of LEGO you too can now re-live this wonder of wireless telegraphy. Explanatory notes can be found here: http://www.g7smy.co.uk/?lego/baudot

This past June, legoengineering.com updated their "2.0" manual of NXT building instructions, showing basic construction techniques for beginning builders. The download page for Constructopedia 2.1 is here .

From www.techbrick.com: Yesterday (Friday) almost 1000 unique visitors from all over the world downloaded about 6000 documents from TechBrick.com. We received many enouraging comments. Thank you! This week teams all over the world will be meeting to evaulate the Climate Connections missions. You'll want to show the mission videos. We've converted the 'All Missions' Flash movie to WMV so you can play it on your local computer and project it if necessary. You can download it here... http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/LEGO2008/Resources/FLLVideo/download.html Your teams can watch individual videos online at: http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/Lego2008/Resources/FLLVideo

See the FLL Home Page for Project and Robot Game details. The Robot Game also has video examples included with each mission description.

During his travels around the world on the occasion of LEGO® MINDSTORMS' 10th anniversary, AlphaRex has made station at Salzburg , the famous Mozart city in Austria.

You know the old saying, "Build a better mouse trap...". Well, this NXT Mouse Trap tries to continue in the tradition of the classic spring mouse trap, by snapping closed when the mouse steps on the plate with the bait on it. But having a motor and NXT brain, this improved trap can automatically reset itself if it misses or if the mouse escapes. Maybe you will think of something better still, using more sensors, or maybe using an entirely different strategy... Here is a video of the trap in action:

Better late than never, right? Click here to be taken to the registration site - preference for filling classes will be given to registered teams, so be certain to include your team # and list the names of those members attending please. Email link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s. aspx?sm=pBQW4ne9hb2_ 2fZQp9lEoFHA_3d_3d

I keep ending up with a list of things to mention, but not enough time to do it (or not enough material for a full post), so here's a brief roundup of a few things. So in no particular order... The HALE mission has put out a nice YouTube video, showcasing some of the video as well as the still photos from the ground team end of the mission. It also gives (at the end) a run-down of some of the faces & names involved. Take a look, and enjoy the music & presentation. HALE YouTube Mission Steve Hassenplug has come up with a novel robotics game he's named "PSumo" (for "programmable sumo"). The idea isn't to make fantastically complicated or fast sumo robots, but instead to make a series of nearly equal robots that casual observers can "program" by using RFID cards swiped by a sensor on the robot. It was a huge hit at the recent Brickfair event on the east coast, and I'm sure we'll see it a lot of other places. We'll probably have

Reader Dino pointed me to one of his very interesting designs - a freefall for minifigs... read all the details here .

Reader Alex from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group emailed the following: The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has launched a competition for fans to design a robot from the Lego Mindstorms NXT kit that uses Bluetooth technology to connect to other devices like mobile phones or PC’s. Using components available from the NXT kit (and also creative additions if you like), all you need to do is capture your robot on video with its Bluetooth capabilities in action. The most impressive entry wins the competition, which has cool Bluetooth products for prizes. More information here

In course of preparations for the 10 th anniversary of LEGO® MINDSTORMS I've rebuilt Leonardo da Vinci's Armored Car from my book "Advanced NXT: The daVinci Inventions Book" (Apress 2007) and created a movie on it:

Reader DTAAX submitted the following: After building a robot that fired Bionicle balls at a light, my son suggested I use the same platform to build a Sundial Robot. The robot uses the NXT brick, 3 motors, Compass Sensor, Light Sensor, Touch Sensor and ~270 other parts. Three non-standard parts are used: The big wheel from the Star Wars Hailfire set, a cardboard tube to enclose the light sensor, and a PDA. The PDA is used to perform the trigonometric calculations required (because I was too lazy to implement trigonmetric functions on the NXT). In operation, the robot rotates 360 degrees to calibrate the Compass Sensor. It then rotates in 5 degree increments, the light sensor is swept from vertical until the Touch Sensor is pushed. During the sweep the maximum light level seen is recorded. Once the robot rotates from 70 to 270 degrees magnetic, the NXT sends via bluetooth the magnetic heading where the maximum light level was seen. The PDA then calculates the time and sends the

The first RCX climber was slow and unbalanced. The second NXT version was much faster, but still not very stable since it used the same techniques. This third version is a new design, made so that it will automatically balance itself on one axis. Balance on the other axis is achieved with an acceleration sensor. Imagine a line from the left wheels to the right wheels, through the middle of the robot. On this line, the robot tilts when it gets unbalanced. Unlike in the older versions, the main weight is now below this line. This means that it will keep itself balanced without help. However, there is another possibility for the climber to crash. That happens when either of the sides loses a bit of grip or if both sides do not go as fast as each other. You can correct this error by making one of the sides go slower, so it will achieve balance again. You would only have to know how big the error is, and in what direction. This is what the Mindsensors Acceleration sensor measures. A relat