Big Robot on Campus
Thursday, September 7th, 2006LEGO has updated the Mindstorms site with a bit of Big Robot on Campus coverage. Check it out!
You’ll get an inside look at some of the most talented minds at WIRED magazine, GAP Kids, Microsoft, AOL, Reebok and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And you’ll see NXT bots created by other leading groups!
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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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BrickFest ‘06 - mindsensors.com Controls a Skull Bot
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
For yet another look at the new mindsensors.com PlayStation wireless controller for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT, check out this video from last weekend’s BrickFest. The guys hook it up to a skull head robot built by Philip Eudy. Spooky, yet totally awesome! I want one!
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BrickFest ‘06 - Man Meets Machine
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
You thought Kasparov vs. Deep Blue was epic?! Well, witness as I, a self-proclaimed tic-tac-toe virtuoso, squared off against Bryan Bonahoom’s W.O.P.R. at last weekend’s BrickFest. It was a great battle that ended in a draw, but even more impressive was the robot itself.
See the video.
In describing the robot, here’s what Bryan told nxtasy.org:
W.O.P.R. is a robot that exploits the advantages of NXT over RCX. I previously constructed an RCX based robot to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Obtaining the accuracy required (1/2 a stud in two directions) to play cubes was very difficult and it required many pieces and sensors. With the NXT, I simply used the built in motor encoders. Additionally, it was difficult to get the required dynamic range out of the RCX light sensor to distinguish between filled cells and empty cells on the board. The led to much more complicated solutions to detect the cubes on the board. The NXT light sensor is able to consistently distinguish between cubes and empty cells.
All of this led to an ability to construct a much simpler robot. I also changed the cube size from 4 studs with the RCX robot to 2 studs. Simpler robot and smaller cubes allowed me to construct a much smaller and portable robot. Additionally, this led to a higher reliability. The WOPR ran through BrickFest without any physical breakdowns. The only time it had difficulty playing consistently was when the batteries were extremely low.
The NXT display also enables the inclusion of instructions to the user on resetting the robot. This allowed WOPR to run unattended. I just wish I had included a game counter in the code.
As a side note: Some of the readers may not be old enough to remember the movie War Games from the early 1980’s. This is where the name of my robot came from. WOPR stands for War Operations Planned Response. If you look at the NXT carefully, you will see that it is named Joshua.
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BrickFest ‘06 - LEGO Ambassador Slideshow
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006
Tormod Askildsen, head of Community Development at the LEGO Group, discusses the LEGO Ambassador program during his BrickFest keynote address.
View the presentation.
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BrickFest ‘06 - New mindsensors.com Products
Monday, August 28th, 2006
I stopped by the mindsensors.com booth at BrickFest to get a sneak peek at some of their exciting new products for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT.
Deepak first showed me a robot using their new magnetic compass sensor (now shipping). With logic to maintain an orientation to the north, the robot quickly compensated as he turned the platter beneath it. He also told me about an RCX-NXT communication adapter that hooks up to the NXT and is capable of controlling RCX motors and sensors with its IR link.
Finally, I watched Nitin demonstrate remote control of a vehicle using a wireless PlayStation controller adapter. With the ability to program both analog joysticks and all 14 buttons, there are plenty of options available to builders to control their NXT creations remotely.
See the video.
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BrickFest ‘06 - John Brost’s Camera Bot
Saturday, August 26th, 2006
MDP member John Brost was kind enough to tell me about his LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot on display for BrickFest. The robot uses two intelligent bricks, one for the vehicle and one for the controller, communicating with each other via bluetooth. With a Kodak EasyShare V570 mounted on the front of the vehicle, John is able to send streaming video back to his laptop with a wireless transmitter. It also comes equipped with a BIONICLE Zamor sphere shooter that he demonstrates by pegging a kid in the leg. Awesome.
See the video! At one point, he has a run in with another robot. He should’ve pegged that one to death with spheres. Muhahah…
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BrickFest ‘06 - LEGO Announces HiTechnic Collaboration
Saturday, August 26th, 2006
During the BrickFest 2006 keynote on Saturday, LEGO announced a pilot collaboration program with HiTechnic to offer ‘certified’ third-party LEGO Mindstorms NXT sensors. Per Stephen Barker, certified sensors will use official LEGO casing and undergo rigorous quality testing. Sold via Shop@Home, the program will allow worldwide visibility and accessibility to HiTechnic products.
Click here for a video of the announcement.
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BrickFest ‘06 - Open-Source Firmware Soon?
Friday, August 25th, 2006During a LEGO Mindstorms NXT Q&A session with the MUP/MDP/MCP members, it was briefly mentioned that LEGO may be releasing the NXT firmware source code within the next two weeks. We will keep you posted if we find out more.
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BrickFest ‘06 - MS Robotics Studio
Friday, August 25th, 2006The first NXT-related session of the day featured a presentation by Geoff Gray on Microsoft Robotics Studio. Geoff was fortunate enough to not only work with Microsoft to develop Robotics Studio, but also with LEGO as a Mindstorms Developer Program participant. Knowing early on that both projects were in the works, he commented on the interesting challenge of avoiding the acknowledgment of the other’s existence due to concurrent nondisclosure agreements.
Equipped with a laptop, a beta of Windows Vista, and the latest CTP of Robotics Studio, Geoff gave us an overview on each of the component files provided with the installation. He explained how Robotics Studio essentially allows a developer to build services and expose them through a web interface. With Fantom handling the low-level commands to the intelligent brick, the high-level programming becomes much more simplified.
Geoff was unable to perform a drive-by-wire demonstration with his robot (probably due to the inability to access the manifest without internet connectivity), but he will certainly let us know later this weekend if he gets it to work. Stay tuned.
The final release of Microsoft Robotics Studio, including the simulation package, is slated for sometime in October. It looks like it will remain as a free download.
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Eric Arrives at BrickFest 2006!
Friday, August 25th, 2006
I woke up pretty early this morning to make the 200 mile journey up to the Washington, D.C. area for BrickFest 2006. Thank goodness I was able to avoid morning rush hour traffic as it’s usually bad on the route I took. After about 3.5 hours, I finally made it to the Sheraton Premier.
A nice big sign greeted me when I walked through the door. So far, the event looks well-organized. This is my first BrickFest, but it looks like the turnout is really good. The people I’ve met have been very friendly. I can’t wait to meet some of the MDP members!
All registered attendees are given LEGO parts to build their own badges. I, unfortunately, lack the creativity to put together anything cool and original, but I did see one guy with a NXT sensor and those orange claw tips attached to his badge.
I was in a bit of a hurry to make the Microsoft Robotics Studio speaker session, so I wasn’t able to see everything on display. I did manage, however, to take a quick shot of W.O.P.R. - a NXT Tic-Tac-Toe game by Bryan Bonahoom (hence, the B-squared). Click on the thumbnail for a higher resolution photograph.
More coverage to follow!!
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BrickFest 2006 Schedule
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
BrickFest 2006 is just around the corner!
nxtasy.org hopes to bring our readers full coverage of the event — keynote presentations, AFOL creations, LEGO Mindstorms challenges, and more!
Click on the thumbnail below to view latest published schedule -
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NIWeek ‘06 - Keynote Presentations
Thursday, August 17th, 2006
National Instruments has uploaded quite a few videos of the keynote presentations from last week’s NIWeek 2006. Enjoy.
NXTasy.org’s Dick Swan attended the conference and published a great article about his trip. If you missed it, be sure to check it out!
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“NI Week” Trip Report
Friday, August 11th, 2006NI Week is National Instruments annual sales conference held in Austin, TX. There was a very strong LEGO and Mindstorms flavor at this year’s conference with several significant Mindstorms announcements. There was great attendance by many influential people in the Mindstorms community.
The contents of this post include not only the “formal” NI Week activities but also describe advanced Mindstorms “sensor” technologies that I was quietly demonstrating at NI week — including interfaces to a wireless SONY Playstation Controller and (an almost complete) video camera connected to the NXT high speed sensor port.
Posted in hardware, news, hacking, events | 6 Comments »