Mindstorm Trooper's RT1200

One of the two teams that tied for 1st place Robot Performance in the World Festival this year is the Mindstorm Troopers from Ohio. Composed entirely of homeschoolers, they had won the 1st place Robot Performance award last year. This year, however, they made history by becoming one of the second teams to get straight 3/3 perfect scores at a World Festival. This was also the first time two teams tied for top Robot Performance, and on top of that, the Mindstorm Troopers became the first team to win Robot Performance two years in a row. Talk about a lot of accomplishments! As you can see in the picture above, their robot is highly compact and stable. Below are the team's comments on it, which they named RT1200:

Our NXT robot, the RT1200, is designed for reliability and durability. Its streamlined differential-drive steering system avoids unnecessary friction points and gear interactions. There are only two drive wheels, each independently controlled by a motor. There is one drive wheel on each side of the frame, located about ¾ of the way towards the rear of the robot to achieve the right balance. The front of the robot is supported by two non-powered skid wheels. The motors of the RT1200 are directly connected to the drive wheels with no gear interactions. This not only minimizes friction and eliminates gear slack, but it also gives us the speed to be able to accomplish all of the missions in time. The RT1200 is based off of our winning RCX base from last year. It was hard to transfer our proven design into NXT, and we went through dozens of alternatives before arriving at the RT1200 base design. The base incorporates a unique frame system designed not only to add structural strength but also to allow the attachment of a variety of mission-specific implements such as bumpers and wedges to the robot base itself. To fit all of the necessary NXT components into our compact frame, we secured the drive motors under the NXT brick at a 45 degree angle to the chassis. We spent a lot of time making the base as durable and ruggedized as possible to be able to achieve the kind of reliability necessary for FLL.

You can also see videos of their robot on their Photos and Videos page.

Later on I'll post something about our team as well, so "stay tuned". :)

-Jonathan

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...

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