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How is everybody doing?

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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

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