ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

MINDSENSORS created a new sensor for the use with the EV3- home and EV3-education software, On their webpage they state the following: This is an array of 8 sensors with controlled light source, returning you values of the sensor readings. Your program can then decide if you wish to follow line with it or do something else. Easy to mount on your NXT or EV3 robot facing ground Reporting dark and light pattern from array of 8 sensors Detect and follow a line Write line follower programs with your own decision making Develop your own PID control algorithms or use built in PID control You can download a sample program and driver blocks for various languages. Enjoy following the line at high speeds! mb

We just had a good discussion over at theNXTclassroom.com mailing list about creating custom graphics for your MyBlocks. It turns out that the icons for the MyBlocks are in .png format and can be found in: .../Program Files/LEGO MINDSTORMS Edu NXT/engine/Icons/MyBlocks (or remove the Edu if you have the retail version) I needed to delete one of the existing icons to keep it to 72 files (6x12 grid of possible icons in the editor) before adding my own. Now I just need to figure out how to make this block actually work! :) *clipart from openclipart.org -- Damien Kee www.damienkee.com

While Lil’ Joe sports a fairly simple program, Gypsy ended up as one of the more complex programs I’ve written in NXT-G. The program (still named “Nadar”) really needed to handle several different tasks at once. Primarily a photographic platform, it had to be able to operate the camera in both still & video modes, and take interesting pictures while controlling the platform. As a secondary goal, it needed to datalog the numerous environmental sensors hooked up, as well as “engineering data” (like battery voltage, platform angle, motor noise, etc.). On top of this, it needed to monitor and control the payload temperature, critical to keeping the payload alive. And to complicate all of this, the program needed to be as small as possible, leaving as much memory as possible for datalogging. In order to handle the photographic challenge, the program uses the same approach as the original Nadar: following a script . It reads a series of timed commands from a text file (think of it as a “...

Readers and Programmers, The following is for NXT-G... Is it possible to remove a letter or section from a phrase, like an opposite to the "Text" block? If so, how? Also, is it possible to view all the files on the NXT? Again, if so, how? Also, my computer crashes everytime I attempt to use a MyBlock. I can successfully create and edit a MyBlock, but if I attempt to drag it out onto the work area, the software crashes. This gets annoying being the type that overuses them. I can't stand the huge programs I'm forced to write now! The next thing I'm going to try is to create a new user and see what happens. Ironically using NXT-G, Robolab 2.9 (Richard)