Projects

Hello all,
I decided to start posting projects that I made myself.
There will be videos.

LabVIEW for LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT

National Instruments, the Texas-based manufacturer of the official programming environment for the NXT, based on NXT-G, has recently introduced LabVIEW for LEGO® MINDSTORMS.

LabVIEW is the the company’s professional LabVIEW graphical system design software and well established in the industry for controlling machines and robots; the new version for LEGO® MINDSTORMS is focused on the educational sector and is thus meant to be used with the Education version of the NXT set:

"Developed specifically for secondary school students to use with the LEGO Education robotics platform in classrooms or competitions, LabVIEW for LEGO MINDSTORMS is a teaching tool that helps students visually control and program MINDSTORMS NXT robots, while learning the same software used by scientists and engineers"

as the company states.

Consequently, the new programming platform well be sold exclusively  through LEGO Education and its authorised resellers.

Demo at Robo Cup Jr.

Xander Soldaat and Larens Valk did a LEGO NXT demo at the Nemo Science center in Amsterdam. Here's a video that features some of the robots they showed, including two robots from The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Inventor's Guide: The front wheel driven Jeep and the Printer.

Lego Help

Hello all,
I have made a new tab on my blog at the top.
It will help you when you don't know what Lego set your child would like.

Thanks!

WiFi NXT

Xander Soldaat has set up an interesting interface that uses the new Dexter Industries WiFi sensor. The idea is simple: control Xander's NXT from anywhere in the universe that's connected to the internet.

Before I post any spoilers, have a look at his NXT live with this link.

Then, in a different window, send a command to his NXT with the WiFi sensor using this link:
http://xammy.demon.nl:81/MOTA=-99
Replace "-99" with any value between -100 and 100 and see what happens.

New Model from Hitechnic

HiTechnic have released the building instructions for a new model, this time a small go-kart. This go cart is controlled by a Power Functions remote, that sends commands to the HiTechnic IR-Receiver sensor which in turn communicates with the NXT.

It looks quick and I'm sure would be a blast to play with. Also a nice bonus that it can be built with both the 1.0 and 2.0 NXT sets :)

I Love how they get around not needing a differential (you'll have to watch the video to find out!)
More info here - http://www.hitechnic.com/models

Moonbots 2.0

The Lego Group and The Prize X Foundation has released the second annual Moonbots challenge:Moonbots 2.0, A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Challenge.



Free registration and Phase One of the contest will be open from May 9th through June 13.

Lego in Space

Last Monday, the Space ShuttleEndeavour lifted off to its last journey to Space, and on board she has a very special pay-load: a bunch of LEGO® kits.
These are be the very first LEGO® kits that ever have travelled into space (there have been some pre-glued models so far only) as engineers were scared of loose parts floating around and getting sucked into the Shuttle's ventilation; Astronaut Cady Coleman (well-known for her recent ISS-Earth flute duet with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson) will build some models from them in a clear glove box on board of the ISS in order to demonstrate to children the effects of zero gravity, both on single parts as well as on some simple LEGO® machines.

I'm looking forward to the videos!

The building instructions for these models will be available for download on LegoSpace.com so we earthlings can create them also on the ground.

 Joe Meno from Brickjournal hinted me to the fact that these are not the first LEGO® kits in space: on board of an earlier mission there were two CITY Space shuttle kits. However, the kits of the mission at hand will still be the first ones ever built in space.
Thanks, Joe!
 The information that all of the pre-built models that have been sent to Space so far have been glued seems to be unconfirmed also. Does any of our readers have additional knowledge about that fact? If so, please tell us.

Programming in Plain English VOTE!!!!

Luke Taylor developed a software to program the NXT in pure English language, and his project has been selected by the Google Science Fair as semi-finalist!

Click here to vote for him!

New Motor Block

HiTechnic has released a new motor block for NXT-G using the servo motor that comes with the set.
Here is the description of the block as said on the Hitechnic Website.
Why the HiTechnic Motor PID Block?
This block is an alternative to the standard LEGO Motor Block. Unlike the Motor block, which when used with a duration of degrees or rotations, gives you relative control over the position of the motor, the PID Block is designed to give you absolute position control. With the standard Motor block, you might use it to go forward 45 degrees, go another 45 degrees, then go backward 90 degrees. Each time the motor turns an amount that is relative to the position that the block starts in. With the PID Block you specify an absolute position. For example, if you want the motor to go to position 45, you can pass in that value to the Set Point input of the PID Block and it will drive the motor to that position. If the motor starts at position 100, then it will go backward to 45; if it starts at 0 then it will go forward.

This type of control makes sense when your motor has a limited range of motion. For example, if you are using the motor to control the position of a robotic arm, you will likely want to make the arm go to a certain position and then have it do something. Since you may not want to keep track of the current position, it is often easier if you can just specify the position to go to. That is what this block lets you do. If you use the standard Motor block, then the direction and duration needed to get to a certain position will depend on the current position.

Here are some possible uses for the Motor PID Block:

- Steering mechanism on a car
- Linkage control system to follow the input from a sensor
- A selector mechanism for a sorter.
- A gripper mechanism that has multiple positions that you want to select between. Perhaps: Open, Closed, Crunch.
- A panning control mechanism where you want to accurately control the direction something is pointing.

Gus Jansson from HiTechnic demonstrates the block in the video below. Find more information and a download link here.

NXT Elevator

Nice construction of an elevator. It has four floors (I think!), it can open and close doors and has the intelligence to remember the order of buttons pressed to go to which floor!

Lego Microwave

This is a video of a Lego Mindstorms microwave. I know it uses a older type touch sensor but by pressing it by a certain amount of times it will set the time by adding 5 seconds. Really cool!!!

World Plotter

This robot draws nearly the entire world on a blank white ball. For this robot the coordinates of the continents were prepared as a zigzag line, drawn with a green felt tip pen. After the continents are drawn the robot switches colors from green to black. With this pen the continents are labeled, AS for Asia, AF for Africa, NA for North America, SA for South America and EU for the European Union. After switching to the blue pen the oceans are labeled, PAC for the Pacific, ATL for the Atlantic, IND for the Indian Ocean.








This is a really cool post on the Lego Mindstorms webpage about a robot that draws out the continents and labels them. Go to the link to see more info!
Also Mike (the person that made the robot) has made many, many other plotters. They are all cool in their own way.

Useless Machine

Hello,
This is a machine though it is not related to mindstorms it may help in gearing and clockwork for robots
It uses a series of gears to work.

Serendipity NXT boat

Hello all,
I stumbled a really cool video and post about Serendipity.
Here's the post:
Claude Baumann and his students have produced yet another outstanding combination of LEGO engineering, digital hardware prototyping, and innovative programming. Taking inspiration from some of the LEGO boats that have come along in the past, the team set out to make a LEGO boat that could cross a significant sized lake. The result was Serendipity, a autonomous waypoint-navigating craft with a custom GPS sensor.

In their normal fashion, they've provided

a detailed log of their progress on this project, from beginning to end - and it's something I'd really suggest any budding engineer (LEGO or otherwise) read. A lot of people look at an end result and are amazed by it... but the really amazing thing to me is the process to get to it. The inspiration, the wrong turns, the problems anticipated and the surprises learned the hard way. Claude's team has done an admirable job documenting all this, and for anyone who's been involved in such a project it's enlightening to see (and a great way to teach young engineers).

The basic boat was a simple catamaran using two of the stock LEGO motors at the rear on a pivoting mount as a sort of "powered tiller". With a compass to determine the boat heading the only thing they lacked was an absolute positioning system... so they made their own GPS sensor. With this they programmed the boat to do a waypoint navigation on the surface of a large reservoir... it work work flawlessly! To put this in context, the Serendipity is about 38 cm long, and traveled an 800 meter course from shore to shore.

That's the equivalent of a 16' boat traveling more than 16 miles (2,100 boat lengths). Not too shabby, especially considering that waves to not "scale down" nearly as nicely, so while it seems to have been a calm day... those are still significant waves for such a small boat! It also points out the efficiency of the LEGO boat motors: two of them (each running on a single AA battery) had enough power to thrust continuously for 40 minutes. I'm not sure what the total running time is... but it's clearly significant, and that was pushing the boat at good speed!

There's also a nice YT video of it up, if you want to see the "movie version". Now, if I could just get a calm enough lake and a GPS sensor... well, if I didn't have ideas before, I certainly would now :).

PS- There will be a series of boat races again at this years Brickworld event in Chicago, so there may be more of this "risking LEGO inches above the water" coming in the near future.