ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

And here's another video on the LEGOWOLRD 2012 which takes place presently in Zwolle, filmed by Anika and Jorim from the MINDSTORMS booth:

THE NXT STEP live from the World Robot Olympiad in Abu Dhabi: Yesterday was Saturday and the second day of the WRO. Teams were strongly competing in the different tournaments and we also had a busy and most successful day at our booth with many many visitors. On the picture you see my favourite model amongst all the fantastic ones around here: the Fĺying NXT Blimp made by Robotics Experts Lasse and Kenneth from Denmark.

Starting next Friday the 18 th of November, a great event will take place in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates : the World Robot Olympiad 2011 . For three days, hundreds of teams from all around the world will take part in the competitions there. Next to that, a lot of additional activities, events and talks will add spice for the visitors, last but not least a large exhibition of NXT robots by members of the community. Some of them are also contributors to THE NEXT STEP (and I'm happy and proud to say that I will be one of them, displaying my NXT Hubble Telescope there  :) ). So, stay tuned! Expect to see a lot of movies and pictures next week and in case we find time and web access, we intend to post even some on-the-spot reports from there.

Fana'Briques 2010 's topic was "Space", so I brought along two LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT astronauts, the NXTronauts :

Here is some good news strait from Greece!!  Since the 19th of May,  the first LEGO Festival at The Mall Athens has started... Why post about it here you ask? well because a famous  Mindstorms master builder has helped organize the Mindstorms section of this huge event! Indeed NeXTSTORM can be spotted in the video below showing off his latest creation 3it3ot along with Alpha Rex, HoloEyedBug (his new holonomic bot) and many other NXT robots.   More good new?   ...it is going on till June 6th.   So jump in a plane, a train or out of the blue sea and head down to The Mall to play and enjoy all of the LEGO Themes and Mindstorms robots. NeXTSTORM & Greek LEGO Market Officer For more info visit http://www.themallathens.gr/ Visit http://web.me.com/NeXTSTORM for more of his projects & pictures.

Austrian MCP Mike Brandl has published a travelogue of his six days sojourn at the FLL world finals in Atlanta in mid of April. Have a look at his site where you will find a lot of interesting photos and videos. Besides, it's a good opportunity to see how some of the people that are posting here actually lool like... ;) 

Last weekend, the RobotChallenge 2010 took place in Vienna, allegedly Euope's largest robot challenge event, in connection with the Robot Sumo European Championship 2010. MCP Mike Brandl made European Champion in the category "Humanoid Robot Sumo" with a NXT Robot called Evil Bill (while Bill's brother Evil Ted made Third): Two more NXT robots by Mike made Second and Fourth in the Humanoid Robot Sprint challenge. Hail Mike, European Humanoid Robot Sumo King! Have a look at his elaborate web site on the event - in German, though, but there are a lot of pictures and movies.

Some weeks ago, we posted some announcement for the SteinCHenwelt already. On next weekend, the 12 th and 13 th of September, it finally will take place in the Swiss Technorama Science Center in Wintherthur, Switzerland, hosted by the Swiss LEGO® Users Group . Next to a lot of LEGO® stuff there will be also some NXT robots attending, including a GBC and a soccer pitch where the visitors can match against each others with two remotely controlled NXT 2.0 robots (created by me). And, of course, questions can be dropped to the present NXT experts (including three MCPs). The event will start at Saturday 9:00 AM and last until Sunday around 5:00 PM. A very special feature of the SteinCHenwelt is the possibility to inspect and try out the fantastic gadgets of the Technorama also in the same run - and that is always worth a visit!

On Saturday 19 April, a group of high intelligent people were gathering for a special weekend to do all sorts of activities. I’ve been asked to do a special workshop on LEGO MINDSTROMS. 14 kids in age 8 to 16 were challenged to build a robot that could collect 9 bars standing in the middle of an arena. Mindstorms was new to all the kids. Initially I explained how to build a small base robot (the 30 min retail box model) and how to do the base actions in NXT-G. 7 teams were building and programming robots for almost 5 hours. The goal was to collect the pillars, of one color and bring them back to their base(corner). Points were given: -1 point for pushing/ tipping the pillar over. -3 points for bringing the pillar back to the base. -30 points bonus, for bringing only one (of the three) colors back. -12 points bonus for not toughing the walls of the arena. - extra bonus points could be earned for added value (like sounds). The best team was the Blue Bot Team with 15 points. Considered th...

Claude Baumann from a Luxembourgian robot team has published some NXT-related photos from the Cirque de Sciences that took place in Luxembourg on 21st and 22nd of September. Not only some prominent NXT creations could be seen there, but also some contributors to this blog. Enjoy!