Tribot Sumo and others...

Beside building Bulldozer-based sumo robots, the "Robotics Posse" also built a few other sumo robots during our sumo event, starting with a speed Tribot build-off. LEGO claims you can have a working robot in 30 minutes... so we tested that. The fastest Tribot build was Steve Hassenplug, with a time just a shade over 10 minutes... and everyone in this picture completed a working Tribot in 20 minutes or so. I'd say the LEGO claim is a fair one. In case you think this was stacked in favor of adult builders, the young man in the background is my son: Ben is 10 years old, and had never put the Tribot together before.

Once we had five brand spankin' new Tribots, we immediately reprogrammed them for sumo, and did slight modifications to them, adding front attachments or modifying the back caster, but that was about it. "Semi-stock" Tribot sumo was actually a very good time - some had wicked-looking front weapons, some tried to flipped the opponent, and some actively looked for targets. But of course, we didn't stop with Tribots. How about Tribot vs. Alpha Rex? Or Tribot vs. a Bulldozer? Or other odd match-ups? Well, here's a video, showing the results of some fun (if chaotic and always unpredictable) NXT-based sumo:

Steve Hassenplug will be putting some more up about this event on his website here over time. Perhaps some of you will be inspired by this to enter the NXTlog Sumo event as well. I certainly am...

--
Brian "Cameraman" 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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