New 3rd Party Sensor

30 DAYS... and counting...

3rd party sensors are going to be hugely popular for the NXT. Jake Prooflios (MUP2) over at Bot-Meets-World gave me a sneek peak at one of the prototype sensors he's been working on. (He also sent me a picture of a new motor for the NXT that supports 802.11g and can receive directions/input wirelessly - but I'm not allowed to post it just yet).

I'm trying to figure out how to upload to my blog a video he sent me of his new sensor in action. (If any of my readers have the tech know-how, please let me know. It's a .MOV file and is about 9MB in size.)

For now, what I can tell you is that the video shows a 4-wheel bot with a small sensor mounted on an angled beam that sticks out about 2 inches in front of the bot. Jake is sitting on the floor and in front of him are two small plastic containers that are sealed. You see him turn and point to one container and say "Cheese" and then he points at the other container and says "Bacon" - he opens the lids, turns on the bot and it moves towards the bacon container. He then closes the lids, moves the bacon container behind the bot, and opens the lid again. The bot turns around and moves towards the bacon container again.

Jake writes "The olfactory sensor can be programmed to recognize and locate up to 10 different scents. My new sensor can detect the smell of bacon from up to 8 feet away."

Pretty cool. Jake says the sensor will probably run around $120.00 (US$) and should be ready by August 1.

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 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...

Ghostbusters R.T.V Remix

Nino Guba is from Torrance, California, USA. He played with LEGO as a kid, but growing up in the Philippines, it wasn’t something he had easy access to. He only got reintroduced to LEGO when he moved to the US and had kids of his own. When his sons were younger, they received LEGO sets as gifts, but as they grew older, the sets got put into storage as their interest faded. Fast forward a few years, he started coming up with his own product ideas and thought about how he could quickly prototype them. That’s when he discovered LEGO MINDSTORMS—and was hooked! He raided his kids’ old collection, got everything organized, and now he's designing and building his own creations, blending his coding skills with LEGO robotics to bring ideas to life. Tell us about your Ghostbusters Remote Trap Vehicle (R.T.V) project. This project is a LEGO Technic adaptation of the Ghostbusters R.T.V.—a ghost trap converted into a remote-controlled vehicle. Its companion build is a prop replica of the Futaba...

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