ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Who wouldn't want a NXTBee and USB adapter? Dexter Industries is running a giveaway with an NXTBee and NXTBee USB adapter as the prize. So how can you win the $120 of hardware next week? Check out our NXTBee Album on Facebook here . Give our post or a picture in the album  a thumbs up (“Like” it . . . ), OR (even better) write a quick comment on the picture. And that’s it.  Do it and you too could be tethering your LEGO MINDSTORMS robots to a computer! On Wednesday, October 17th, we’ll announce the random winner from those that have given a thumbs up.  We will get in touch with you through Facebook, and ship it to you anywhere in the world. Two basic rules: you can’t be a Dexter Industries Employee to win and you can’t win if you’ve won one of our contests before. Be quick, the comp finishes next wednesday! via -  http://dexterindustries.com/blog/2012/10/10/nxtbee-usb-for-lego-mindstorms-giveaway/

Ohhh...  NXT's underwater :) This video shows a maneuverability test for an underwater NXT.  The NXT is sealed quite nicely with leads heading out to standard PowerFunctions motors.  Apparently there is no problems immersing the motors directly in water, as long as they are thoroughly dried after use to prevent corrosion. A pair of NXTBees provide communication between a laptop with XBOX 360 controller and the NXT. Via -  http://dexterindustries.com/blog/2012/07/05/underwater-robot-with-the-nxtbee_lego_mindstorms_nxt/

Yaya Lu (the teen who has been featured on here before ) has another project up. In this project, she uses the sound sensor and some RobotC software to tell the difference between a 'dit' and a 'dah'  (effectively Morse Code).  That then sends a signal via a NXTBee sensor to her wheelchair (teddy bear included of course) to make it move around. As she points out, there are over 7000 languages, so rather than an expensive solution to learn all of them, simple long and short sounds are a better way to go. Check out her video, it does a great job of explaining how she went about solving the problem. More info here -  http://www.yayalu.net/Yaya-Lu-2012/Yaya-Lu-2012.htm

There's a new project by  Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Academy  (known as creators of the NXT programming language  RobotC ): swarm robots that are communicating via the  NXTBee  hardware by dexter Industries. In the following  video , the NXT robots collaborate to group around a leader robot: More details can be found on the associated entry in the RobotC blog.

Andy over at Milluzzi Labs -  http://08milluz.wordpress.com/  has just released some NXT-G blocks for use with the Dexter Industries NXTBee sensors. Not sure what the NXTBee is? Basically it's Wireless communication for the NXT! Fast, long distance wireless communications for the NXT. Communicate Far: Send data over 1 KM away. Communicate Fast: High speed communication between NXT's and other devices. Communicate Wide: Talk to multiple NXTs, other devices and robots. Soooooooo... What can you do with an NXTBee?  Here are a few quick videos of what some people have managed.  What would you do?