ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

The NXTAVATAR  is a Tele-presence robot which is visually remote controlled using the internet. It is easily build. You need: a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® 2.0 set, an iPhone® 4 (or other Smartphone) with Skype® installed, a Windows PC with Skype® installed, 2 Skype® accounts and 2 NXTAVATAR programs (which are open source). You can download building instructions & NXTAVATAR programs at www.nxtavatar.com . You can easily adjust the robot and programs to fit your own demands. Have fun! Below are the controls as seen on the PC side, The frame in red is what is shared on the mobile device via Skype screen sharing. Features - Remote control using the internet - Face to face interaction - Full audio & video communication - Moves forward & backward - Turns left & right - Looks up & down - Gets & drops small objects It was created by Andreas (NXTwallet) the father of the first transformable NXT WALL-E, and a good friend of mine, I was t...

YouTube user lesswire1 has posted a nice video of a robot who finds self-fulfillment in looking at its creator wherever he goes. Remarkable here is the chain of technologies used: an attached IPhone tracks the person and appropriately controls the movements of the NXT robot by sending light signals to the robot's light sensor.

With Apple's new magnification software that comes with iOS 4.1 and later, I found it easy to build NXT models using my iPod Touch. (Click the above photo for a larger look). Has anyone else built models by displaying documents on your mobile device? If so, what was your experience? What software works best when importing PDFs into your mobile device?

Daniel Siemer made a NXT remote for the IPHONE. It uses the same principle as my network-server which means that you can control the NXT from anywhere in the world by sending commands to a server running on a PC. Daniel wrote a server for MAC OS called OSX server. INXT can be use with either the MAC OS versrion or my Windows version . The servers are free but you need to buy the IPHONE remote though ITunes by following this link ; the remote is 4.99 USD. You will find the support site here , if you need help to set up either the windows or MAC OS server. It looks really cool great job.

The on-board camera makes for a fun video. More details here .

The guys from battlebricks managed to control a NXT robot using an iPhone. How is that possible I hear you ask? First, build a robot that performs different movements based on the light sensor looking at different shades of grey. Then build a web application that displays those different shades on a website. Load one iPhone on the robot, and use another to remotely update the shade of grey on the other. Now why didn't I think of that? -- Damien Kee

This is vaporware at the moment. But it IS a cool concept: LEGO rendering software for use on the iPhone and iTouch. A brief discussion of some technical hurdles is here .