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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

I'm back, and with a new creation!

Camp was great fun! But as soon as I got home I got out the ol' bricks and this is what was created:

Music Composed by Ben Dane

TP-bot

You know when the president lands in his chopper and they unroll the red carpet? Well, I don't have a carpet like that so toilet paper will have to do.

Last Post (for a while)

Well, I'm leaving tomorrow so I thought I'd try to write one last post. I was not inspired at all and after staring at my lego pieces for a while I decided to make a stop motion video. Here it is:

StringThing

The StringThing uses one motor to spin a string. That's it. Oh right: it spins it in a sine wave. Cool, huh?

TugBot II

Finally, a new robot!!! This is my entry to NXTCentral's Move That Weight challenge. It can pull 10.3 pounds, and it is shown in the video pulling it 5 feet in 39 seconds. Now that I've entered my robot, I'll get some new bots built.






Also, did you notice the random header images? Reload this page a few times and they should change. Feedback on them please!

Maker Faire 2008

I'm back from the Maker Faire! It was really fun, and I hope I can make it next year.
Anyways, I took some photos and movie clips there, and iMovie'd together a slideshow/video. It's mostly about the LEGO exhibit, but there is a bit of other stuff too.
Note: This does not cover the whole Maker Faire! There is way, way more than this. But most of the time I was looking at stuff and forgetting to take pictures, so this is what I have.

The NeXT Bus

This is my first entry for the Earth Day Building Challenge: The NeXT Bus! It is one of the first robotic public buses, and possibly the first made out of LEGO.
So here is how it helps the Earth:
This bus uses the same amount of energy as a TriBot, right? Well, maybe a little more, but about the same. So what's the point? I'll tell you. This bus easily carries 8 minifigs, but these minifigures are traveling alone, so if they weren't on this bus, they'd be in 8 different cars! So with this bus, you would be using approximately 1/8 of the energy that would have been used.
Admittedly it doesn't look much like a real bus, but at least it is functional! It has rack-and-pinion steering like a real bus, windows etc.

NXTrain - a LEGO Monorail

This is a lego monorail I made that ferries Storm troopers over the ravine between... um ... stoolistan and chairville. Hope you like it. The stop motion isn't that great, but that might be because of my lack of any animation software. Still, I think it's good! The music is by my friend Ben and his dad Mark.

NXTyper

This robot can type "NXT" on my MacBook! Take a look at the video below.