Skip to main content

How is everybody doing?

Hello, everybody - just a personal blog item here. I've been very busy with my "real job" and have missed playing and building new bots. But I've got some free time coming up and I plan on getting back to it. I've got one idea I'm anxious to test out... more on that later.

FLL teams next week will be getting the "written" details for the challenges in this year's contest - most teams already have the pieces and have built the challenges, but some of them are vague. I'd like to hear from those of you involved in FLL - tell me about your teams, about the challenges, and after next week, tell me about these strange contraptions that the teams will have to deal with...

I hate to say it (and I'm sure LEGO doesn't want to hear it), but I'm ready for some expansion kits! We've already got some 3rd party sensors available, but I'd like to see some new sensors that we haven't seen before... any ideas? maybe some different size/shape motors (and not all necessarily servos).

My wife's uncle just bought a Roomba. I'm very impressed with the newest version. I'd like to start seeing some "real world" uses for the NXT. Steve H has his SwifferBot out there, but are there more? Filip posted over at bnxt.com some things he'd like to see in the future - I'd like to add one small item: the ability for the NXT Brick to come out of sleep mode or possibly turn itself on. With this feature, you can almost see the alarm clocks, programmable coffee makers, and other automated items that require a timer or the ability for the Brick to "stay awake." (I haven't tested this, but I guess with the AC adapter and turning off the default sleep timer on the Brick, you could keep it alive... can someone verify this? I don't have my Brick handy to see if I can completely disable the sleep timer.)

We need more content. I know of 3 or 4 books that are coming out, but I'm not seeing any more on Amazon at this time. Next week, the RIF starts providing missions to its "agents" but are there other groups or companies offering stuff like this that I'm not aware of? If so, let me know...

There are a handful or robot builders that post their stuff... we all know the links and websites. But are we missing some of you? Are some of you documenting your robots but don't have a place to share it? Would you like to share your designs? We're always interested in pictures and videos, so don't hold back!

Anyone have a guess as to how many NXT units have possibly been sold? Over a million RCX/RIS units were sold... it would be nice to see the NXT sell even more. If LEGO sees the NXT as successful, it will put more money into expansions and, most likely, a new version in 5 or more years (8 between RIS and NXT... will it be the same or a shorter wait between NXT and the next version?)

If you have comments, questions, videos, pictures, problems, and/or answers, please let us know. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Jim

Popular posts from this blog

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 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...

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...