New GBC module

Although I wasn't the first to come up with the idea of a module like this, I believe I was the first to come up with the idea of inverting the treads and using them to make the wheel. Let me know if someone else had the idea first.

Bare Bones Electronic Fun

Ingredients: cellphone "vibrate mode" motor, watch battery, hot glue, toy car. Keep in mind that in this video clip the battery is almost dead.

SimplySim Update

Earlier I posted about an NXT simulation package created by SimplySim.
They just posted a demo video on their webpage, so I have posted it below.

Trebuchet

This isn't exactly MINDSTORMS, but it's technic, which generally qualifies for posting.
This trebuchet can fling a 1x2 brick 5 meters, or 8m if you count the bounces.
The weight box has a weight brick, AA batteries, and lead fishing weights that I found at a garage sale.

Lights OUT!

Sometimes you just aren't sleepy, but you'll get in trouble if you stay up past your bedtime... Lights OUT to the rescue! It sits in the hallway and when your parent comes down to check if you're asleep it turns off the lights!


YouTube distorted it...So it looks weird.

Flexpicker

I don't normally post other people's robots, but this is just awesome.



Designed and programmed in RobotC by Chris Shepherd.

FLL State Competition

We just had our FLL State competition, and unfortunately we didn't get an award, although our robot scores were significantly higher than at Regionals. We scored a 165, a 205, and a 160. Interestingly, in the 205 point round we got 25 points on accident because the robot accidently nudged the house and completed the "Turn off lights" mission.

Congratulations to the Co-Champion Award winners, The Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies and the Hobbots.
A coin toss determined that the Hobbots would proceed to World Fest and the Duckies would be diverted to the US Nationals.

NXT Simulation

A reader, Hugo Vivier, has told me about a very cool program that simulates the NXT on the computer. Here's what he says.

I would like to share something interesting with LEGO NXT Mindstorms and the MS Robotics Developer Studio, it is a package which contains a 3D simulation of the TRIBOT.

You can use this package to practice with 3D robotic simulation.

The MSRDS will allow you to design programs that you will be able to test both on your computer (in the simulated version) and on your real Tribot, via the package interface.

Almost all the sensors are implemented in the simulation.

Demo programs and tutorials are already done, you can also control your robot with a Xbox pad if you have one.

For the moment, only the TRIBOT is available, but if people discuss about new robots on the forum, maybe we will create new ones.

The Simply Sim website

Xmas Xpress

A lot of kids like to put a miniature electric train around their xmas trees. We have one and we would like it, BUT... The track always comes apart so it barely ever works. So I made a line follower instead. I know the train cars are kind of ridiculous, but I really don't like building LEGO trains.

FLL Regionals!

Whew. We just went to our FIRST LEGO League regional competition and it went pretty well! Overview:
Technical Judging: Great!
Teamwork: OK
Presentation: Pretty good!
Mat: Our top possible score in 2 and a 1/2 minutes is 175 but we got 75, 75, 90. (The, um, battery was low?)
Nevertheless, we got 5th place Champion's Award, and an invitation to State!!!

Hopefully we'll make the robot more reliable by then. We sort of had no missions that worked a week ago, so we really pulled it all together at the end.

Go, Star Trek The NXT Generation!

Stupid XP

We have a Windows XP machine and two Leopard Macs, But I use the XP one for NXT-G because the software seems to be designed for Windows. Unfortunately XP has managed to mess up and NXT-G doesn't work anymore. I guess I'll be using the Macs from now on!
Here's a screen shot of the erroneous operating system:



Click it. It's even better enlarged!

Thief Detection (and Elimination)

This is a LEGO/NXT creation I made that features a lego person "running" toward some money that he wants to steal. Luckily there is a state-of-the-art LASER-based security system that takes out the would-be thief with a missile.

It's a little distorted... YouTube's fault!

Another animation

In Mac OS X there is a setting you can turn on that magnifies the dock around your cursor, like this:



Although it is a nice bit of "eye candy" it can get very annoying after a while. So I made this Quicktime movie of it's first practical use.

PuddleWorks v1.5

(My entry for Action_Puny's Trialtank contest)

This is a robot I just made with my new treads designed to go on all terrain. Most treaded robots can do that. But this one can go through water! It can go in up to 7 cm deep water; Probably it could do better but I don't want to risk getting the NXT/motors wet.


Sorry for the mediocre quality of the video. Because of testing it in the bathtub I had to shoot it with indoor-quality lighting.

Flash Infinity

This is an interesting animation I made, it represents infinity. How cool is a never-ending sentence?




In case it doesn't work, the sentence is "NXTMonger builds because NXTMonger builds because...."

MouseBot

This is a creation that takes advantage of our old trackball mouse. It uses a motor to spin the trackball either this way ↗ or this way ↙. If you connect it to someone's computer you can annoy the heck out of them by gravitating the cursor toward the top right or bottom left corner!

It's especially good on Macs, as you can see in this video, because in System Preferences you can set the screensaver to start when the cursor goes to a corner of the screen...

David's Robots

My cousin David sent me some video clips of a few creations he made, so I am posting them. I guess they aren't LEGO, but one's k'nex and the other is Capsela or something, both great alternatives to LEGO. Here is a collection of the clips:

Strobe-Bot II

Here's a clip:



And here are some pics.



The best part? While spinning it whacked a fly.

The Rolling Terror

This is certainly a menacing creation...



...most of the time.

The Robot of Many Names

I'm not quite sure what to call this robot... it has been dubbed "Cute-bot", "Drunken", and "Hermit Crab" (My favorite).

Okay, I'll call it the Hermit Crab.

Anyways, it's original main purpose was to be cute.  Here's a vid: