BrickFest ‘06 - Dave on DominoBotNXT
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
I hung out with Dave Astolfo a bit last weekend at BrickFest and he took some time to tell me about DominoBotNXT. A project that was initially created for a pretty successful Mindstorms book, Dave has since put the robot through several revisions. In this video, he talks about its evolution and gives it a spin.
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Ars Technica Reviews NXT
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson has reviewed the new LEGO Mindstorms NXT. The good, he says, is that the “programming system [is] easy enough to let Grandma build a ‘bot.” He was disappointed, however, that it did not come with a death ray. Me too! Perhaps we’ll someday see a certified third-party death ray. Until then, I guess a spring missle launcher will suffice.
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First Looks: HiTechnic Compass Sensor
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
I’m a HUGE fan of Filip’s writing over at bNXT. He has recently updated his site with a great preview of the new HiTechnic compass sensor.
The new HiTecnic Lego brick adds value to my NXT set, and I believe sensors like these will bring more people to buy the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT set. Users will have a wider range of sensors to build robots with. So everyone wins.
- Filip Verhaeghe
Likewise, Brian Davis over at theNXTStep has also given its readers a first look at this exciting new sensor.
I took a HiTechnic compass sensor and mounted it on JennToo, and then went ahead and wrote a program to keep the compass sensor pointed due south. The result is a fun and impressive robot that consistantly points in one direction (it’s a $250+ compass… OK, I need to make something more practical someday).
- Brian Davis
As you’ll notice in both articles, Filip and Brian highly praise the seamless integration of LEGO and HiTechnic hardware with this compass sensor. I wholeheartedly agree and cannot wait to see what else is on the horizon as the result of this terrific collaboration.
REMINDER: After all this praise to the new HiTechnic Compass sensor - the winner of the NXTasy Challenge will get one of these new sensors free of charge from HiTechnic! Click here for details.
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