ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Dexter Industries have come out with another sensor for the NXT, this time a compass. A compass is an excellent way of figuring out which way your robot is pointing.  Especially handy for things like navigating around or playing a game of robot soccer! This particular one can measure along 3 axis (so I guess that means heading as well as tilt?) As with all compass sensors, you need to be very careful around other magnetic fields (power cables, motors etc) but according to the manual, you can do some calibration to reduce any offset from true north. At $29, it's one of the cheaper sensors available for the NXT :) More details including code samples for NXT-G, RobotC and Labview can be found here. http://dexterindustries.com/dCompass.html (via Bot Bench )

I've received a ton of emails about The Mayan Adventure over the past year or so, and I'm glad to hear that so many people have enjoyed the book. I've heard from students, teachers, and parents about the different ways they've used the book - classroom, camps, and parent/child activities. (I've even been asked to teach a camp class this summer that will use the book.) Teachers have been the most vocal - asking for more information, more activities, more of everything! Well, here's what I've got so far... I've developed a 3-part module series for teachers/coaches called "Mystery Warehouse." Like The Mayan Adventure, it uses a fictional storyline to encourage more activity (building and programming) with the NXT kit. Each module is broken down as follows: * Instructor Resources -- Two Pre-Challenge Activities - These give the students experience using and programming each sensor used by the robot in a particular module -- Module Main Challenge - ...

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine has a story on his UAV and other flying vehicles that are taking advantage of the current technologies becoming available for hobbyists and beyond. (Just a few seconds into the piece, you can see "HiTechnic Compass Sensor" written on the underside of the sensor attached to the plane!) Check out the video here .