Robot Sundae Maker

The good people over at Tufts University (the home of the RoboLab software) have created a nifty Robotic sundae maker as part of their summer intern project.








More info on the trials and tribulations to make it happen can be found at their website
http://sites.tufts.edu/robosundae/

It also has a great collection of photos documenting the process.

Review of Technic Unimog 8110

Conchas at TechnicBricks has posted an excellent review of the new LEGO TECHNIC 8110 Unimog. It's the largest set in TECHNIC history. Find the review with plenty of pictures and videos here.

The Unimog itself looks like a great model with lots of functions. And once you're done playing with the main model, it seems this set will be a very useful parts pack for your NXT robots, like making it completely autonomous or making the scoop at the back to detect objects and scoop it up....... 

Brickworld 2011 - postscript

The definition of a good LEGO convention is one with amazing MOCs, great events & contests, fun friendly people, and innovative ideas at every turn.

The definition of a great LEGO convention is all the above, with a lot less sleep.

Brickworld 2011 has come and gone, and Brian Davis wasn't able to blog from the event, because to be honest he said,  there was just too many other interesting things going on. There was a huge model of The Love Boat (with hidden scenes from other movies... like Jaws, Snakes on a Plane, and The Poseidon Adventure), Shep's amazing Flex-Picker, many other amazing constructions large and small... and, of course, robots.

They had Monster Chess there again, as well as a preview of a future project, a LEGO robot based version of RoboRally(even bigger than Monster Chess). The NXT-based Space Shuttle was there, robots like PackBot (kids played with it all day long), a huge number of sumo robots (around 70+... they had a multi-hour teach-in for people new to it), a bunch of entries for a "Build-On-The-Spot" (B.O.T.S.) challenge, and boat races again. I've got a bunch of pictures Brian need to get up, but so far Brian's only put together one video, a collection of clips of the LEGO boat race (including underwater)

Pancake Robot

This is awesome!!!

More details on his blog - http://makermig.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-pancake-bot-works.html

Brickword

Brickworld 2011 has recently wrapped up in Chicago.

Shep won the 'Best Mechanical' build for his awesome Flexpicker.

You can read all about the flexpicker here, as well as all the fine details about how it was put together etc.

Theo Jansen inspired robot

Guest Post from Oschoe.  Not strictly an NXT robot, but as it uses PowerFunction motors and receivers it wouldn't be difficult to automate it!

I am fascinated with designing and building mechanisms that move, favorably without the use of wheels... I love stepping, folding, rotating, walking, jumping, flying and squirming mechanisms that move. This blog shows one of my tries in building a bot moving in an unorthodox way...

When I started actually building my designs I looked around for easily available, reusable components with sufficient technical components and controller possibilities and I ran into the LEGO Mindstorms series. After a few try-outs I started building simple multi-legs steppers with synchronized leg-movement. If you are interested; check my youtube channel

The design

A while ago I ran into the moving artwork by a Dutch artist named Theo Jansen, "het strandbeest". After re-watching the various (mostly lousy quality) movies on the web I decided to take the basics of the design and build my own version of a walking-bot.

The build

I started off with a very simple drawing of the legs and the motion required. After some trial and error with the ratio's of the legs I managed to get the basic movement just right. After collecting enough of the right pieces  I tried to build a 6legged version but getting that to run stable proved difficult. I decided to add two more legs and that made it run much more smooth. After a couple of runs of the 8-legged version it was obvious the legs did not have enough grip on the surface of the test area (my table :-)) I added 'feet'; the parts touching the surface are made of rubber and that did the trick.

For anyone interested in more building details ; check the 'stills' halfway the movie for hints.

Thermal sensor

Hi,
Dexter Industries have just released their latest sensor for the NXT, the Thermal Infrared Sensor.

From their webpage -

The Dexter Industries Thermal Infrared Sensor reads surface temperatures of objects. It is a non-contact thermometer based on the MLX90614. Detecting the infrared radiation from an object, the sensor can read object temperatures between -90°F and 700°F (-70°C and +380°C). The sensor has a high accuracy of 0.5°C and a resolution of 0.02°C. 
The Thermal Infrared Sensor reads both the ambient temperature (the temperature of the air around the sensor) and the surface temperature of the object that the sensor is pointed towards. 
The sensor can detect a flame at a range of 2 meters.

Xander has already done some cool things with his sensor.

How would you use this sensor?  Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Random Robots

Hello,
These are two robots that I have selected because of what they can do. It also might inspire some NXT ideas.
First Justin, a robot built by the space agency of Germany demonstrates how it can catch balls and make coffee.

Then a butler robot that brings cups of water over to judges. It was made in a contest to see how fast and
much much water was left in the cup. So do it fast and don't spill anything!

Posting

Hello all,
I will now be only posting over the weekend so it will only be updated on Sat. or Sun.
Thanks!
Enjoy

GPS Thing

Jim Kelly has teamed up with Dexter Industries to produce a new book aimed at the using the dGPS sensor.

Satellite GPS systems have become more and more integrated in the way we live.  As our world becomes increasingly dependent on the Global Positioning System, it was obvious to us that the next generation of scientists and engineers will need to know how to use it and what its limitations are.     This workbook was written to bring to life the GPS system that we often take for granted, and help students understand it, explore it, and find new ways to use it.