Site Maintenance
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Bear with us as I troubleshoot some forum issues. I was debating whether or not to take the whole system down for maintenance, but it appears some parts are still working. Shouldn’t be too long before all is resolved. I apologize for the inconvenience.
It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on everybody. I must say, it’s an absolute honor to host such a great community of people. Thank you for all your support and contributions. And, of course, thanks to Guy for leading the nxtasy charge! Since I’m here for a few, I’ll also try to do a few touch-ups on the site — some major, some minor. In the meantime, please excuse the dust. Thanks!
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New Contributer to NXTasy!
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Joshua Heinzl has joined our list of contributers! Here are a few words by Josh:
I live in Southern New Hampshire. My interests include: Robotics, Programming, Scuba Diving, Underwater Photography, Martial Arts, HAM Radio, Piano, Clarinet, Saxophone, Soccer, and Baseball. I am a RoboLab Alpha tester and recently attended the 2nd Annual International Lego Engineering Symposium at Tufts University. I’ve been working with Lego Robotics for 5 years. I’m currently writing a book on RoboLab. You may have seen my in the past at the 1st or 2nd RoboLab Conference in Enfield, CT, or at either of the Lego Engineering Symposiums.
Josh
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NXTasy Challenge 4
Thursday, December 6th, 2007I apologize for not publishing all the nice video and photos of the previous challenge, but I decided not to delay the announcement of NXTasy.org challenge No. 4 - so here it is!
The mission is simple - make an NXT bot that moves around on the black oval circle in the NXT test mat. The fastest robot to make a complete circle wins 60$ coupon courtesy of mindsensors.com!
Oh, did I mention wheels are not allowed? =)
Deadline: March 1st, 2008
I encourage people to post any information they wish to share on their submission before the deadline to inspire others, but will not force anyone nor will I do so myself until the above date.
Comments/questions (and answers) and extra rules on-the-fly will be found in this forum topic.
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org Editor
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Parsing GPS NMEA message
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
After few hours of LabView coding, I finally made an NXT code (see larger image here) that can parse NMEA (GPS) $GPGGA message (i.e. GPS fix data). I thank Dick Swan for his RobotC code which inspired the algorithm. Timing tests show that the NXT using firmware 1.05 runs this code in around 92 milisecond. This would be good enough for update rates of few Hz.
Next I plan to design the NXT-G block for BT GPS. I was thinking of a block with two ‘action’ options - ‘update’ and ‘read’. The former delays the program till it reads a BT buffer (or a timeout occurs), and tries to parse the new NMEA message. It returns a Yes/No output which say if it was successful (so one can make a ‘Wait for’ block until a successful GPS data is read). Once a good data is read it is stored in a ‘global’ data holder. The later option ‘read’ returns the last stored value of lat. and long. position (maybe only seconds part?), #satellites and altitude. In this mode you can define a waypoint (as GPS coordinates) and a distance cutoff (in meters) and the block returns a Yes/No value if it is closer then cutoff. It will also return the heading and distance to waypoint (so with a compass sensor you can steer your NXT to the waypoint). The basic use principle would be having one ‘update’ GPS Block in a loop on one sequence wire, and your running program with ‘read’ GPS Blocks on a second sequence wire.
Comments/suggestion? Please use this forums topic.
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Two new contributers to NXTasy.org!
Sunday, August 5th, 2007NXTasy.org welcomes two new contributers - Paul Tingey and Rod Gillies.
A few words of intro by Paul:
Paul is a software developer from London, UK. Originally a Lego fan from many years ago, he rekindled his passion with the introduction of Mindstorms NXT. His interests lie in all aspects of NXT development - software (RobotC, LabView), firmware, electronics, CAD (Google sketchup) and mechanical design. Paul’s recent project’s include - Wii-Like controller, NXTShot, OneMotorNXT and some new sensor development (shhh - it’s still under wraps). Pictures & videos of his projects can be seen at - http://picasaweb.google.com/paul.tingey
A few words by Rod:
Hello. I’m 37 years old, working in marketing and living in Edinburgh. Although I only recently got myself a Mindstorms kit, I’ve always loved Lego, particularly Technic. Despite an educational background in computers, my robots tend to be about the construction rather than the programming. I am trying to get more instructions and building guides out there, especially for younger builders - I think we sometimes forget
how intimidating building can be for less-experienced builders once they start to move beyond the stuff in the box.
Rod also has some great constructions on his own blog.
Welcome aboard!
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Mindstorms Community Partners 2.0
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007As you all know, when the Mindstorms Developers Program (MDP) ended a year ago, LEGO chose 20 people as Mindstorms Community Partners (MCP). This year, they increased the number to 30 MCPs. I am privilaged to be accepted into the MCP 2.0 program which is starting nowadays. Of course, due to the prohibitive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) I just signed to join the MCP, I will not be able to say, well, almost anything about what surprises LEGO plans for mindstorms. However, I will continue posting public-domain NXT news as before. I will also continue review and moderate NXTasy forums, and pass on to LEGO your ideas and/or suggestions. Notice, however, that due to the above-mentioned NDA I cannot tell you if LEGO accept/appreciate/disregards anything you propose….
Yours,
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org Editor
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New contributer to NXTasy!
Saturday, July 14th, 2007NXTasy welcomes Mac Ruiz, aka 222doc in our forums, as a contributer to NXTasy.org. Mac is a retired construction superintendent from AZ. His personal website contains many creative NXT designs and he is an active member in our forums. Mac also wrote a chapter on robotic animals in the ‘Building Robots with LEGO Mindstorms NXT’ recently published by Syngress.
Welcome, Mac!
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NXTasy Challenge #3 - The ANxT!
Monday, July 9th, 2007
NXTasy challenge #3 if finally annouched! Your mission will be to build an NXT ‘Ant’ or ‘ANxT’ in short.
Ants are remarkable little creatures, capable of lifting weights several times their own body weight (if you search the net, you frequently find sites quoting that ants can lift 10, 20 and even 50 times their own body weight. However, I could not found a scientific proof for these values…).
The goal of your ANxT would be to move an object (the ‘weight’) a distance of 1 meter without touching the floor. The grade will be 50% determined by the object weight/ANxT weight ratio, 30% by the mass transfer rate and 20% by how much your ANxT is, well, ‘antish’…
Oh, and the object must be bigger then your ANxT in all dimensions, did I mention that already 
?
The full details, rules, submission procedure, deadline etc. are here.
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Pssst…
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
nxtasy.org has just turned one. Yes, it’s true: Eric’s first post dates back to June 28th, 2006. The site and the forums have been growing steadily ever since. Happy Birthday nxtasy.org! Thank you all for making it such a great community.
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NXTasy.org Challenge 2 results
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Challenge 2 is now over, and it is time to show some video of the participants. I hope next challenge we have more submissions! I’ve created a dedicated page for challenge 2 results, which is accessible from the Challenges link at the top of the homepage. A direct link to the page is here.
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Challenge #2 Winners!
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007NXTasy.org challenge #2 is over, and it is time to declare the winners. Unfortunately, we had very little participation this time - only 2 contributions in the NXT-G category and 4 in the ‘other languages’ category. I pledge everyone to answer my short survey here so I decide about future challenges.
In the NXT-G category only Larry Menor completed the task fully, with an average outcome of 54 seconds. Larry - you win 60$ for purchasing in mindsensors.com!
In second place we have Alex Dimitrov. Alex has almost made it to first place, with average time of only 28 seconds, but his robot fails to put back the ball (well, he says it does work when he doesn’t video it…). I’ve given him some extra days to prove his claim - but he didn’t reply.. For the sake of good will - you earned the second place, and win $35 coupon at mindsensors.com.
The ‘other languages’ category had some more participants. Here the second place goes to Michail Zampetakis whose NBC programmed robot score 31 seconds on average. Michail - you won $35 courtesy of mindsensors.com. I want to thank the ‘not-winning’ users (cheer up guys - at the end, it’s all about having fun!) Laurens Valk (RobotC, 33sec and VERY close to 2nd place..) and Victor Potenciano (NXC, 85sec).
Finally - Hip-Hip-Hurry to Allen McArthur for a NXC programmed robot which complete the task with an average of 16sec! Great job, Allen! You earned your first prize 60$ reward big times!
I’m preparing a dedicated page with photos, videos and codes of all participants. Hopefully this will come up soon, but patience is a blessing…
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org
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New Contributor to NXTasy.org
Thursday, May 17th, 2007NXTasy.org welcomes our new contributor Daniele Benedettelli. Danny (an MDP member) has made some great contributions to the NXT community, including an amazing Jhonny 5, Turtle, the Cube Solver (see below) and soon-to-come starwars AT-ST biped model. His website http://daniele.benedettelli.com/ is among the best NXT sites I’ve seen, with clear information and great graphical design. Danny also made contributions to the NXC Bluetooth library which is now part of the NXC package.
Welcome aboard!
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org
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