A good way to go crazy...

Back on April 11, I wrote about the "NXT Black Book" written by Yoshihito Isogawa. If you take a close look at the cover of that book, you'll see a walker demonstrated.

The book does NOT provide the building instructions for this robot. What it does provide are 10 full-color photos of the robot from various angles. I was able to "reverse-engineer" this walker after a couple of hair-pulling hours - lots of mistakes and realizations and Ah-Ha moments. Finally, I was able to duplicate the walker.

Well, that was the good news. The bad news? I can't get the thing to actually walk. I've played around with this robot enough and have had it. I can't provide you with the building instructions because I don't know if that's legal or not. The author doesn't provide them, so you're forced to do what I did if you want to try and duplicate it.

What it comes down to is a robot that for all purposes APPEARS to actually walk, but doesn't. I've made appeals to the public to try and track down the author for a video or some technical help, but no such luck. I'm not saying the author doesn't have a real working-walking robot, but what I am saying is that if I've built the exact same robot from the photos, then this thing is just for looks. Maybe it's possible I missed some small secret part that makes the whole thing work, but I doubt it. If anyone else has the book, I'd LOVE to hear from you regarding if you were able to build the walker and get it walking.

I want to believe.

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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