New Blocks & Pinging the US sensor

Steve Hassenplug has just put up two more nice custom blocks developed using the LabVIEW Toolkit. One is a block that will take the output of a NXT-G timer (a number of milliseconds) and display it on the LCD in terms of minutes and seconds. The second was developed by Steve and a wider group of folks bouncing ideas off each other. It is a bitwise logic block, that will perform binary operations on numbers (instead of just logical wires), such as performing an AND between two numbers, etc. This can be really handy for dealing with low-level things on the NXT. Visit Steve's NXT page for these and actually a whole lot of other custom blocks: line following blocks, display blocks, array blocks. Take a look. To install these blocks, you need the dynamic block update installed (there's a lot of other good updates on this LEGO page, check them out).

Another fun thing that has come out is a tutorial from Guy Ziv over at NXTasy about how to use the I2C read/write blocks to "ping" the US sensor, allowing it to be used in an on-demand fashion. He also discusses ways to access some of the deeper functions of the sensor, such as the ability of it to return not just the distance to the nearest object, but essentially the distance to the nearest eight objects. Those I2C blocks open up a lot of deep calls into the NXT digital sensors.

"and, uh, get the machine that goes... ping!"

--
Brian Davis

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by Coder Shah in our MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity. 1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT...

ROBOTMAK3RS Review: LEGO River Steamboat

I thought the LEGO River Steamboat would be an interesting set for a ROBOTMAK3R review for a few reasons. First, the LEGO designer of the model is Marina Stampoli, a long-time collaborator of the late ROBOTMAK3R Vassilis Chryssanthakopoulo s. From earlier collaborations with Vassilis, I knew Marina was incredibly talented, with an eye for aesthetics and functionality. Her background in architecture is particularly useful for her relatively new position at LEGO. Her other sets include the Magic of Disney (21352), Message Board (41839), and Red London Telephone Box (21347). Second, watching Marina's reveal video and reading her designer interview made this set even more tempting to build. The gearing mechanisms running through the model gave way to many opportunities for automation using LEGO robotics elements. Since ROBOTMAK3RS is all about adding interactivity and automation to LEGO brick, I thought it would be fun to see where and how LEGO robotics could be added to this s...

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 3

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these Fall and Winter remix projects. Each ROBOTMAK3R was tasked with selecting one LEGO set of their choice and combining it with a MINDSTORMS set. Below are the five amazing models they came up with. Braill3 by Jerry Nicholls Braill3 is an EV3-based LEGO Braille bricks reader. This robot uses its fingertip, made from three touch switches, to read messages written using the LEGO Braille bricks and will speak out what it detected. If it sees a simple maths problem it will attempt to solve it and give the answer as well. To learn more about the process of creating this machine, read Jerry's blog . Braill3 can be viewed here . Set Review: The Braille Bricks set is well thought out. The ratios of the letters is suitable for general use and the addition of some punctuation and arithmetic operators is excellent. There is a card showing what bricks there are and their quantities, but no form of sort...

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