BrickFair 2014 in Virginia, USA

Here's another guest blog entry by Ian Warfield, Mindstorms Theme Leader for BrickFair VA:

"BrickFair VA will be holding four separate contests for LEGO MINDSTORMS enthusiasts this year. The long-running favorites Stock Sumo and Unlimited Sumo will be held as usual, and the Capture the Flag contest is returning from last year. There will also be a new contest for this year: the Pole Vault.

Pole Vault is a event that tests your robot's gymnastic ability. Contestants must travel to a one foot high wall in the center of the table, jump or climb over it, and reach the other side safely. This contest is recommended for KFOLs and TFOLs, although FOLs of all ages are welcome to compete.

In Capture the Flag, two robots will face off from opposite sides of the table, and the winner will be the first robot that can locate the flag, grab it, and find its way back to home base. The flag is represented by an infrared HiTechnic ball, and as an added complication, it starts out on a flag carrier robot that is wandering randomly around the arena. This contest is recommended for AFOLs, although FOLs of all ages are welcome to compete.

The official contest rules can be found at the following links:

Pole Vault

Capture the Flag

Stock and Unlimited Sumo

BrickFair VA will be coming to the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, VA from July 30 to August 3, 2014. Public hours are on August 2nd and 3rd from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM."

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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