ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Wrap up of the last 4 missions for the teams still going. Objective: Pull the Ice Core out of the hole. For additional points, move it to Base. Point Worth: 20 points for pulling it out of the hole. 10 points for moving it back to Base. Mission Location: Center East, on the Reasearch Area. Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium - Hard Time Length Rating: 7/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This precision-required mission is conveniently placed on the far end of the table. Also, veteran teams may notice this Ice Core is actually smaller than previous "rings" used before - this possibly makes it even more difficult to pick up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Objective: Move the Ice Buoy to the Research Area (Ice crater), so that it ends upright. Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Starts in the North West corner (top right). Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium. Time Length Rating: 5/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: The Ice ...

Using a "Wiimote" to control the NXT has been done before; but Jordan Fitzpatrick did it using GlovePIE and my Bluetooth remote - very simple. You can watch Jordan's video here and download the GlovePIE scripts here . To connect your "Wiimote" to your PC please follow this link . Wii-power to Jordan

( Direct link ) This robot is from chapter 9 of the One-Kit Wonders book . If you watch the video, the robot may appear to be very simple. There are however, two things that make GrabBot special. One of these two is the grabbing hand. Using one motor, it grabs and lifts object, which is a cellphone in this case. The other is its autonomous behaviour. When I trigger the program to start by saying: "Get my cellphone", it starts searching for the closest object in range. While spinning around, it continously stores a sensor value along with a location in two variables. Then, it returns to the position where it measured the lowest sensor value and grabs the object. When doing so many redaings from the Ultrasonic Sensor, it functions relatively accurate. It still has a few problems detecting balls, but if they're not too far away, it does find them. P.S. Book reader Enrique has posted a call to action for One-Kit Wonders readers. Read it here .

During the last eight months, NXT fans from all over the world have have been following the progress of the two AlphaRex's, as they travel around the world as part of the 10 year celebration of LEGO MINDSTORMS. As this year draws to a close, I like to share the following behind the scene video of AlphaRex in New Zealand - which gives you an indication of the work many friends of LEGO, MINDSTORMS Community Partners and LEGO staff put in to make the AlphaRex Global RoadTrip into a success so far. The latest pictures of AlphaRex journey can be found on the MINDSTORMS home page . It looks like AlphaRex is going to be enjoying the scorching summer here in New Zealand over the Xmas break! This is my last post for the year. So I like to wish all The NXT Step readers a happy and safe Xmas and new year. I hope the Santa brings you lots of plastics and NXT's for Xmas. Happy Holidays AlphaRex, BlueToothKiwi and Family

Forum readers Ariel and Enrique have built and programmed The Hand from our book One-Kit Wonders . See the video they made here .

This rig is currently being used to film a stop-motion, animated film. The top two movie clips are of the rig in action. The bottom two photos are of the rig itself. More details are here .

There's a nice video on YouTube of the MINDSTORMS Blues band playing a Christmas song, led by an inspired OrganFairy : :)

Slightly more creepy version of the anthropomorphic legs that I posted earlier . I was able to get a more fluid motion out of the legs by not having the motor at the thigh wait for the completion of the motor at the knee.

You know, sometimes you just wish you could go back to college to take that ONE class... in my case, it would be this one . (This is, of course, assuming I went to MIT, which I did not). Kids - keep playing with your NXT and learning, learning, learning - the tools (okay, toys) you'll have access to when you get to college/university are going to be beyond anything I was ever allowed to experiment with - the video is funny, but the underlying truth here is that with enough skill and interest, you can make some pretty cool stuff. More details here . One More Thing: What would you pay for the chance to take a class called "How to Make (almost) Anything"?

The price includes a $20US electronic gift card, effectively making the price $159US. The price also includes free shipping to your local Walmart store in the US. (Shipping to your home will cost extra). The purchase link is here .

Having trouble with controlling the NXT with Matlab? Here is an introductory tutorial created by Gautam Vallabha, which goes over the topics of: - How to set up the Bluetooth connection - How to set up a connection between MATLAB and the Tribot - How to create Tribot programs in MATLAB Gautam Vallabha is a developer at The MathWorks who works on the development of classroom applications of MATLAB.

This omni directional robot made by jason701802 has a very user friendly remote control allowing much better control over the robot. The right joystick can be moved forward/backward/left/right to move the robot correspondingly forward/backward/left/right. This is not an easy task as all the wheels are spaced 120 degrees apart. The left handle controls the spin. Well done! The video that demonstrates how the remote control works can be seen here . Instructions to build the omni robot the NXT-G program can be found here . This is what jason701802 says about his controller: "I used a modified version of Philo's Joystick with a third axis to control the spin. The controller scales the values from the servos to numbers usable by the robot. The robot then converts the x,y, and rotational values into the outputs for the motors. I have condensed the program so that the controller and the robot both use the same program."

...things are going well. Power Surge competed at its first scrimmage and its alliance came in second. It was a lot of fun; the aspect of having four big, powerful robots all in the same field competing with each other made it very exciting! Now we're working on improving our robot for the state regionals coming up. We've also put up a team website at http://www.teampowersurge.org/ . -Jonathan

Since Built On The Rock decided not to compete in FLL this year, I was asked to be a head ref at the NJ State Tournament, which was held on Saturday. This was my first time reffing, and it was neat seeing all the different solutions that teams came up with for the missions. Here's a few thoughts about the tournament and season: 1. This year's challenge definitely seems harder than those in recent past years. The highest score at the tournament was a 300 by the Robo Invaders, as opposed to last year's 400 followed by a 395. Also, I haven't heard of any perfect scores being made anywhere else yet... has anyone heard of one? The difficulty of this year's challenge doesn't seem to be caused so much by hard individual missions - many are simple push-objects-to-the-right-zone missions - but more by the sheer number of missions. There are 18 missions this year: twice as many as the number of missions in Nano Quest, and 7 more than in Power Puzzle. Many of them aren...

This week's inspiration is to build a robot that can play against you in a physical game, such as connect four, checkers, etc. The challenges with such robots can include not only the programming challenge of giving the robot AI (Artificial Intelligence) so that it can play skillfully, but also the building challenge of enabling the robot to maipulate game pieces. Of course, both of these challenges can be greatly reduced if you want. For example, instead of making the robot play "smart", you may be able to program the robot to simply move randomly; it will most likely be easier to beat, but at least it could still play. To get the minimum building challenge, the robot could have the user input the game status, and then tell you where to play for itself. There are several great examples of game-playing robots. Bryan Bonahoom made a Tic-Tac-Toe playing robot that can "read" the board and make moves all by itself. You can see his robot on the MINDSTORMS website, h...

We are proud to announce a call for papers for the inaugural "Robotics in Education" e-Journal. Articles will be sourced from the community (that's you girls and guys) and will also feature short interviews with robotics teachers as well as robotics researchers and robotic engineers from around the world. With the Christmas break coming up for many, it is the perfect time to write an article. All articles will be reviewed by a small panel of robotics teachers and educators. Articles could be based around a variety of topics, including but not limited to: - Robotics in Junior / Middle / Senior School - Robotics in remote areas - Robotics with limited resources - Classroom resource management - Working with disadvantaged students - Working with Gifted and talented students. - Reviews of robotics resources - Robotics and girls / boys - Robotics and Text based languages - Robotics competitions - etc. Have you done something amazing / unusual with robotics in your ...

Here's the link for buying it. The rub is that it normally takes 5-9 days to receive the NXT after it ships. If you want it by Christmas, it may be better to apply the extra savings to expedited shipping.

This Santa and Rudolph project was from last year, but I added a video recently. Merry Christmas everyone!

Here's a fun project that simulates walking without the challenge of keeping the robot balanced and upright. Each leg is identical and is controlled by its own NXT. A leg starts off completely straight and when pivoted forward at the ankle, a touch sensor is activated which triggers a motor to bend the leg back at the knee and another motor to swing the leg forward at the hip. The process is repeated on both legs merely by leaning the robot forward so as to activate the touch sensor on the back ankle. I was thinking that a possible improvement would be to suspend the walker along a pulley.

Version 0.7 of the leJOS NXJ Eclipse Plugin is available now. It supports the most recent version of leJOS NXJ , the Java platform for the NXT, on Windows (XP or Vista), MAC OSX and Linux. With this plugin, you can use the popular Eclipse development platform for programming your NXT robots with Java . Use Eclipse's Update Manager to install it from the remote update site as follows: Name: leJOS NXJ (or whatever you like) URL: http://lejos.sourceforge.net/tools/eclipse/plugin/nxj/ For configuration and usage, consult the leJOS NXJ topic in Eclipse's Help->Help contents view after installation.

Dr. Stephanie Ludi has composed an excellent series of tutorials and lessons plans on NXC. They're available here and here . The lessons are targeted for grades 7-12 and assume no prior knowledge of programming in general or NXC in particular. They were underwritten in part by the National Science Foundation.

My current experience with outdated firmware and frustrating NXT-G programs reminds me that there are many things about the NXT I still don't know---and many more things new users don't know. Therefore, I would like to offer to organize and prepare a "Missing Manual" (a downloadable PDF file) for new NXT owners. In this effort, I've set up a new topic in the general section of the Forum--- Compiling a "Missing Manual" . Please use it to suggest information which should be included in such a manual. Remember to include solutions---with illustrations, if possible.

In my current effort to find a solution to a problem we had with my team's FLL robot, someone chose to remind me that the NXT is "just a toy". But I'm not so sure I agree with that view anymore---not when it is a required competition vehicle for thousands of FLL teams....not when schools are encouraged to spend thousands of hard-to-come-by dollars to use it in the classroom. Don't get me wrong, I love the NXT, and "evangelize" for it everywhere I go; but what I'm not loving is LEGO's seeming lack of commitment and responsiveness to NXT owners. Even as a member of the MCP (MINDSTORMS Community Partners), nothing I've seen has changed that view. The primary reason I've stayed on the MCP (as the only woman, mother or non-professional scientist) is to speak up for "everyperson." But, I have to tell you, I don't think I'm making much headway. For "rocket scientists" this may be just a toy, but for parents it's a...

Mike Brandl from Austria has visited the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of LEGO® MINDSTORMS in the LEGO® headquarters in Billund, Denmark, alongside with some other MCPs; he has published a lot of photos of the event in his web site. Have a look and enjoy: there are many prominent robot members of the MINDSTORMS history to be seen.

Here are test results comparing the life and power of two different battery types: the NXT rechargeable vs. conventional AA batteries. (Your mileage may vary, as they say). Which type do you use and why? Has anyone compared the life and power of AA rechargeables with non-rechargeable AAs?

This week's inspiration is to design a robotic candy or soda dispenser (or a whatever-you-want-dispenser). Can you make a robot that holds your candy/soda/snacks and dispenses them on demand? Such a robot can be as simple as a container with a door on it, or as complicated as something that requires coins or a password/secure card and drops items one-by-one onto an output tray while keeping the rest protected. And of course, after accomplishing such an engineering feat, surely your mom wouldn't mind donating some... "contents"... for your robot, right? :) -Jonathan P.S. The rest of the posts in this series can be seen here .

From reader Max V: Have you heard about the new First Lego League Open Championship? The website is here: http://edoutreach.wpafb. af.mil/championship/index.html The info from US First: http://www.usfirst.org/ community/fll/content.aspx?id= 11066 THANKS, Max!

Transforming Transportation Can FIRST LEGO League teams transform the way we look at transportation? The key to the 2009 “Smart Move” Challenge is accessing people, places, goods and services in the safest, most efficient way possible. In this journey, teams will consider many modes of transportation beyond their daily routine and streamline their options by making smart moves! [link]

This past week, before our FLL competition, one of our FLL teams had a number of errors saving My Blocks. At this weekend's competition, we experienced having a robot ignore the simplest of programs---rotate motor C 100 degrees. Instead, motors B and C both rotated forward 100 degrees, randomly. We coaches assumed the student had picked the wrong program; but after repeated demonstrations on the practice mat (between rounds) we were convinced that the error was not hers. (sometimes it worked correctly, other times it didn't. Some NXT "experts" have never experienced these problems, but I'm hearing from others that some teachers have been reporting these errors. I'd appreciate hearing if you have experienced similar problems, so I can get some productive assistance (if it exists). We are using new Dell laptops (Vista), purchased and managed by a computer professional from our sponsoring company. The software was a group license of NXT-G, purchased from LEGO Edu...

"We will do for robotics what iPod did for music." If you're not familiar with this quote, it was apparently posted in numerous places at LEGO during the development of the MINDSTORMS NXT. It's a grand statement, so my question to you is this - has LEGO done it? I'd like to point out that many students have now entered college/university (or will be shortly) who have had access to these kits. Whether they're choosing robotics as a career or not, it could be argued that having access to MINDSTORMS may have sparked an interest in math and science that will follow these students into their chosen careers. The iPod has definitely shaken up the music world. I own one and have converted every CD I own so I can listen to them on my iPod. I continue to buy music from iTunes at 99-cents each. Yes, there are other products out there that play MP3 and other formats, but... I'll be honest here... the look of the iPod, combined with how easy it is to use, is what ...

Joe Meno has posted them here .

This is another three-in-one mission review. Objective: Move each of the objects - insulation, bike, and computer - to the green grid area. Point Worth: 10 points apiece. Mission Location: Start somewhat scattered on the southern (bottom) half of the table; they need to be moved to the green grid area (the property around the house) Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy Time Length Rating: 3/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: Be careful of how small those things are, your robot might run over them! Also beware of the CO2 balls in the way. Richard

Tonight I heard that there have been quite a few perfect (400 point) competition scores at qualifying FLL events this weekend. This, I've got to see! Does anyone have a video of their perfect run taken at an FLL qualifying event that they would be willing to share? Fay

Objective: Move the core drilling machine to the research area (bottom right corner). For additional points, raise the drill assembly. Point Worth: 20 for moving the drill marchine to the research area. 10 more for raising the drill. Mission Location: Starts top right corner. Needs to be moved to bottom right corner. Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Time Length Rating: 5/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission is placed nicely in a corner, but on the other side of the table from the Base. This is a mission I can see having many solutions on how to move it: picking it up? pushing it? and how to get it into the research area: dragging it? pushing? And whether teams find a way to raise the drill or not. Rated 5/10 for time length because it's on the other side of the table, and medium difficulty for finding a way to move that drill. Richard

As many of you would remember, as part of the 10 year celebration of LEGO MINDSTORMS, two AlphaRex robots set off in April 2008 starting with the Atlanta world Festival , USA. Since them the two robots have been clocking up the frequent flyer points as they manage to travel around the world and meet really cool people and stunning places. One of the two AlphaRex robots made it to Auckland, New Zealand this month and he just loves it here. Part 1 of his pictures just went up on the LEGO MINDSTORMS web site : More pictures of AlphaRex coming soon to the LEGO MINDSTORMS web site .... In the mean time here is couple of pictures from the LEGO web site of the AlphaRex in Auckland city at lunch time:

TIOBE Software, the coding standards company, has just ranked NXT-G as the 37th most popular programming language in the world. (Click on the above graphic for an enlarged view of the rankings). The methodology for their rankings is imprecise, to say the least. But it supposedly serves as an indicator of the increasing/decreasing popularity of particular languages. See a description of TIOBE's ranking methodology here . See TIOBE's complete rankings here .

Pictured above are the two FLL teams from Perry, Oklahoma, leaving today for their regional FLL event in Amarillo, Texas. As time allows, we'd like to hear from teams around the world as they progress to the finals.

Teacher and NXT coach Jessica has been busy: "I taught your Mystery Warehouse modules last Saturday and 17 kids had a blast. Kids came in from the Kansas City and Overland Park areas (3-4 hour drive) to attend. We did it on super high-speed (5 hours total); all the kids got the beginning of the story, then two teams of three each worked on the module pre-challenges and main challenge. For the last half-hour, the entire group began with Mod 1, recapped the story, explained and demonstrated the robot, went on the Mod 2, did the same, Mod 3, etc., finishing with the end of the story. While not perfect (there's never enough time for testing), it was a great success thanks to your creativity and ingenuity." Jessica was kind enough to also provide a handful of documents she developed, including technical notes for each module as well as a summary of her experiences and suggestions for anyone else who might like to try and run these 3 challenges. A 55Kbyte zipped file can b...

The article is an introduction to the NXT and other robotics kits. The NXTStep Blog and the "NXT Idea Book" are mentioned within the article. Read it here .

April 15-18, 2009 in Atlanta, GA, USA! More info on the USFirst site .

You've heard the saying "Don't forget the batteries!" That saying certainly still applies, but if there is an NXT kit for someone on your Christmas/Holiday gift list, I would also encourage you to not forget the instructions! The LEGO NXT kit comes with minimal instructions, so by adding a book or a CD to your gift, you can open up many, many more doors for the recipient and provide for much more fun and enrichment. This is similar to "Don't forget the software" when buying a computer. And if your special someone already has an NXT set, adding a CD or book can really help re-energize their existing NXT set, so a CD or book gift for them is a great value. In my experience teaching hundreds of kids robotics over the years, and feedback from their parents, when the the kids are at home working on their own set, the majority of kids need some help with building instructions, and almost all kids need help with the programming. Providing the extra instruct...

Scarlett D. sent over a link to a fun video - it's a nice little 60-second diversion. Try it out here .

Have you ever picked up your NXT kit and decided to build just a robot with no sensors, no autonomy and pure fun? That is what I did over the weekend. Inspired by a Monster Truck in the latest 'V' energy drink advert , I decided to build a remote controlled monster truck robot. The picture on the left is the real remote controlled monster truck from the advert, and the one on the right is the NXT version ! The only thing the NXT is doing in the truck is to provide power to the motors and act as a Bluetooth receiver for my my mobile phone I was using to control the robot! To get the real feel of a Monster truck, I used 4 TECHNIC tractor wheels, and 4 PF-XL motors. You can use the adopters available from the LEGO Shop @ Home to connect the 4 PF motors to the 2 motor ports. The second picture shows how the two left hand motors are connected to the same port in the NXT. With 4 direct drive wheels, the vehicle can handle any terrain. The giant tractor wheels are amazing - it is grea...