Skip to main content

Super Car

Image
By

Hello All,

I am going to make a series of blog posts about a LEGO NXT car that I am building. This is the first of several. As the car progresses I will blog about its progresses.


The car has several requirements:

rear wheel drive

front and rear double wishbone suspensions

front wheel steering

2 gear transmission

“cool” looking

FAST


At Brickworld, I purchased two Ferrari F1 racer sets. These sets has a lot of really great car parts. The extra wide tires and suspension links are ideal for making a super car. In fact, a motorized F1 set would work really well. It is very will built, and has room for motors and maybe a well placed NXT. But I want to do more than just motorize an already built set. I want to build something from the ground up that can achieve higher performance.

For power I plan on using 4 Extra Large Power Function motors (XL PF). The XL PF motor has lots of torque. It is also easy to integrate into a design because of the placement of the Technic holes. To control the motors, I will use a HiTechnic, www.hitechnic.com, infrared link. The infrared link allows the NXT to control the Power Function infrared receiver, which intern will controls the motors.

4 PF XL motors will produce a lot of torque, and this toque needs to be managed properly. For this, I will need to install a transmission. This will allow the car to shift when the motors reach their maximum RPM, and maintain acceleration. I designed a transmission for this purpose. You can download the Lego Digital Designer file from my website: http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~KINZIEJH/lego/. Click the link “High Torque 2 Gear Transmission” to download the file.

More To follow soon!


-Jay Kinzie

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
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...
Read more

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 3

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
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...
Read more

Ghostbusters R.T.V Remix

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
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...
Read more