More High Mobility Vehices

Joining vehicles like LNE and 222Doc's TriTracks, I recently found out about two new "LEGO High Mobility" entries that I thought folks would like to see: Andreas Dreier's monsterous 3-NXT Crawler, and Michael Brandl's slightly smaller LCB (LEGO Chaos Bot). Both are really wonderful looking treaded vehicles, using a whole bunch of those new treads first seen on the #8272 Snowmobile set. Both look like they have an even greater terrain-tackling ability* then LNE, with four independant tread systems that each can be tilted. LCB can rotate the front of back flipper treads independantly, as well as drive the left or right side for conventional skid steering. Michael is working on detailed BT remote control, and can already drive it around some and is testing out its abilities. Notice how the old Mindstorms motorcycle wheels

act as super-large driving hubs for the treads, and the use of the new yellow large hubs in the flipper treads. I'm not sure as yet what the two touch sensors are for. Andreas's Crawler is a huge mobility platform, with a flat top formed by the three networked NXT's he needs to control the eight independant motors in the beast. In his solutions, he seems to have abandoned the stock hubs altogether, instead driving the treads using ganged 40t gears. Each drive tread can be driven and rotated independantly from the other three, allow it to lift just one corner of the vehicle or various other exotic options. The downside is I'm sure trying to control all eight motors - manually I think it would be too difficult a task, so some degree of automation will probably be required. But, then again, that's why using Mindstorms for this is ideal - these are not just remote control toys, but can be made autonomous or semi-autonomous to suit the situation (like when the human driving them lacks eight hands). Of course, that "free spirit" can get them into trouble as well... LNE was recently caught making an escape attempt, for instance.

Great work, and I can't wait to see more of them.

--
Brian Davis

*At least, they'll be able to tackle terrain better if the treads don't slip. Yeah, traction is still a problem, but with 222Doc's glue-on rubber and my use of PlastiDip, things are looking up. And I'm sure there will be other solutions as well.

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

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

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 2

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these summer and fall 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. Remote controlled material handle r by Jozua van Ravenhorst (aka Mr Jo) This remix combines the LEGO Technic Material Handler (42144) with MINDSTORMS EV3 (31313) It uses the power of pneumatic cylinders to move objects around. By using a bluetooth remote control, very precise movements can be made with this model. Touch sensors in the base chassis prevent the turret twisting the cables that go through the turntable to much. The program has several protections to prevent over pressurizing the system for each of the 3 individual pumps and valves that control the 2 booms and claws. The real version of this machine is mostly used in waste material sites to bring the material to machines that sort and

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