Details: This spectacular and self-explanatory video has started making the rounds lately on tech blogs. It's a great idea that seems like it should have been tried sooner - taking a LegWay* and trying to use unusual (but more intuitive) devices to drive it. They try a cell phone before settling on a Wii Balance Board, which turns out to be just the thing to give you that SegWay experience - as long as you don't mind not going anywhere.
*: So apparently we've never actually blogged a "LegWay" before. The term is a portmanteau of "LEGO" and "SegWay", and is used to describe any LEGO-based robot that balances itself on two wheels. Some quick Googling turns up one of the earlier ones as Steve Hassenplug's design, but for some reason the photos on that page no longer load. Naturally, we should have covered that RCX-based robot first, but from what I gather nobody reads half the things I say and you're all here for the pictures anyway (so dedicating a whole "day" to a model only documented in text form probably wouldn't be a great move). The next step would then be the NXT-basedLegWays, which I honestly cannot find any good excuse for not having blogged previously. In a way, that's really the model of the day, since the actual LEGO construction here is similar to any other LegWay design using a HiTechnic Gyro.
Of course, a robot is only as good as its programming. Anyone could have built a LegWay and connected something else to it via BlueTooth, but the maker of the 'bot shown up above actually did.
Details: Every once in a while, someone builds something that actually breaks new ground in the field of what can be done with LEGO parts. This machine is one of those revolutionary moments. For as long as we've had CAD programs that could be used to create virtual LEGO models, we've had problems with parts not being available. Sure, you can make do (especially if you're a robot that doesn't have those parts either), but it seems inevitable that you'll eventually come up with something that just cannot be modeled on the computer. Parts repositories for LDRAW are filled with elements created from primitive shapes by volunteers, so it's not all that surprising that difficult, more organic shapes that LEGO makes are often unaccounted for. That is, until now. This setup is capable of generating LDRAW parts from scratch, using nothing but an NXT kit, a small amount of other LEGO parts, a laser component, a webcam, and some software. While the process is not entirely automated, it's a huge step forward in making part creation for complex parts simpler, which in turn will allow the rest of us to design in LDRAW with a wider variety of parts.
Details: Today's obligatory "cool LEGO robot everyone is talking about on the internet" is this NXT-based Roomba replacement. Although a good deal of custom electronics were involved to make it happen, I believe this is the first NXT-based robot capable of connecting itself to a recharging station (if you're unaware: only the education edition NXT kits come with the rechargeable battery by default, but you can buy the battery and charger separately through Shop at Home). A top-mounted dFlex sensor determines when it is as far as it can safely go under furniture. The expected differential drive and touch sensors are there too - for once I can actually say that the robot is very well documented by it's builder, so if you are interested in this (or want to build your own), please follow the links above to learn more.
The video I've featured above is just of the recharging action. A video of the "swiffering" can be seen on the site listed above.
Details: It seems like just a few weeks ago that we were talking about an NXT robot that could print LDRAW designs. We've also seen an NXT-based warehouse for gathering parts, based on the LEGO company's own warehouse. Now, we see a bizarre combination of the two - a 5-NXT factory (staffed with minifigures to "drive" the various motorized parts) that gets parts out of a warehouse and then builds with them using designs generated from LEGO Digital Designer files. The choice of LDD instead of LDraw (like in the previous model-building 'bot) does limit things in a way, but any loss there is made up for by the ability to handle a large and easily changed set of parts. The warehouse contains 95 different types of bricks - over 1500 pieces total to build with. Most impressively, this entire thing was built and programmed in less than 5 months - it was only started in June of 2010. To see some work-in-progress and behind-the-scenes footage, look at the builder's other YouTube uploads.
Here's what the whole LEGOWORLD set-up of this factory looked like (click to "enbiggen"):
Details: As seen in Zwolle recently, there is a new LEGO Mindstorms NXT-based version of Wall-E. This version tries to be strictly purist and true to the NXT system - not only does this not use any third-party robotics components, but this doesn't even use Power Functions motors (unlike the first great Wall-E we covered)! 8 NXT motors and 3 NXT programmable bricks were crammed in here to get this realistic and surprisingly expressive range of motion. While it doesn't transform, it seems to have every other Wall-E behavior down. Color sensors were even used to allow his eyes to light up in different colors. Don't miss the second link above, which has some photos of the internal mechanisms.
Details: In this video, this giant rover base is being run by remote control. At LEGOWORLD in Zwolle right now, it's operating autonomously, controlled by 9 NXT programmable bricks. Although the video and links above don't show the full version, they're impressive enough already and give you a sense of the sheer size of this 'bot. There's a close-up of the treads that shows that they're actually made out of hundreds (or more likely, thousands) of 3-stud long Technic beams. Another video from the event shows the completed robot driving around taking pictures from inside the crowd.
I'm guessing that we'll be seeing many more photos of this (and taken by this) model after the event is over...which I'll be rounding up here as I see them.
Details: The day has finally come. A LEGO robot is now capable of assembling a variety of LEGO models on its own, working off of LDRAW instructions generated in MLCAD. Would you like a robot like this? You can download instructions and programs for it in a number of formats, including MLCAD. That MLCAD file will be handy when a later version of this robot needs to know how to make other robots.
For now, though, this robot is limited to various 2xX sized bricks - 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, and 2x8. This limits it to fairly simple models, but the concept has been proven. Actually, the concept, in a way, had already been proven by the robots that this LEGO 'bot was inspired by. MakerBot and RepRap can print any shape three-dimensional shape using extruded plastic. The plastic? It's frequently a type of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) - the same sort of plastic used to make LEGO bricks (naturally, LEGO uses a variation on the ABS formula that is kept fairly secret). We already knew that the possibilities were endless, this was just the variation on this sort of robot that we all wanted to see.
...and speaking of which, if you want to see this in person (without building your own or a robot that can build one for you), you can see it at LEGO WORLD 2010 in Zwolle, The Netherlands, from October 22nd to October 26th, 2010.
Apologies for the late posts the past few days - I've been feeling very sick and having a hard time focusing. Things should be back to regular speed for the rest of the week, although I'm still pretty stuffy.
Details: A dutch family with three generations of LEGO enthusiasts recently built this set of animals. A brilliant mix of NXT robotics and more traditional LEGO sculpture techniques, these life-size animals act out the action in the video above. It seems like there are never enough animations that use this technique instead of stop-motion. Here, we see the animals run around in a fairly realistic manner, down to the mother duck laying an "egg" (a ball from the NXT 2.0 kit, previously known as a Bionicle Zamor sphere) and the rat taking it to eat. A surprising amount of detail went into the robots here - check out the MOCpages links above to read more about them and see photos of the source material. Also of note (but I'm not aware of more of a close-up than in the video) is some of the background scenery - the life-size squirrel sculpture and duck's nest look great too.
Some tape (vinyl) was used to cover some of the NXT parts and make the NXT colors blend in well with the rest of the models. Further "cheating" was used to make the smaller ducks work with power functions motors and a battery set-up small enough to fit inside them (they're controllable through IR - which presumably is controlled by a third party NXT IR adapter). There's another video that explains how the ducks are made.
It's been a strange week in the LEGO robotics world. It appears that community hub http://nxtasy.org/ is not going to be coming back online. http://www.mindboards.net/ has now surfaced as a potential replacement - and frankly, it's got enough of the Mindstorms community's "stars" involved that it should have no problem bringing in most of us from nxtasy. These new forums are tied to a SourceForge project that aims to gather information, tools, and software for use with the NXT (presumably other LEGO programmable bricks as well, but NXT is the main focus). The site is still in it's infancy but worth a look if you're into Mindstorms.
Details: I'm generally not a big fan of custom sensors (or so-called "lie detectors", which are notoriously unreliable), but the simplicity of this project makes it stand out as the sort of homebrew electronics activity that pretty much anyone can handle. This custom sensor can be used with RCX or NXT (although I do recommend that you use other cables instead of cutting your LEGO 9V cables - it's relatively easy to connect other wires under a LEGO 9V connector, and LEGO will not be making any more 9V cables) - it takes advantage of the fact that raw resistance is trivial to measure using the LEGO hardware. Additionally, some extra activities that can be done with this custom sensor are suggested at the same webpage linked above.
Details: Not too long ago, the Spanish-language LEGO Mindstorms NXT blog electricBricks wrote about holonomic robots. Holonomic driving systems are systems in which a vehicle has no turning radius - it can travel in direction without needing to have a "front" that is specifically powered. In the post I'm featuring today (as well as the video above), you can see a fully-functional, stable, and practical design for one made out of LEGO. While a three-wheeled version (as suggested in the earlier post) seems like a better idea at first glance, the difficulty of getting multi-directional wheels to work (and LEGO to fit into triangular shapes) makes it surprisingly complicated and often unsturdy. This one is fairly easy to build, with only turntables as a hard-to-find part you don't have enough of in the standard NXT kit.
Details: It's rare that I see something that I can immediately understand all the mechanics of, but want to build one of my own anyway. This is one such model - it's a relatively straightforward construction making heavy use of beams and gear racks, and yet it looks like a ton of fun. Apparently it's even durable enough for the builder's kid to play with. Another great thing about this is that the programming is relatively simple - both an RCX and an NXT are used, but they don't actually need to communicate with each other. The end user's controls are fairly directly connected to the motors that move the claw. Do you want to try it too? Great news: the builder has posted a parts list, the instructions, the programs, and a CAD file of the complete model.
Details: Remember those scenes in Wall-E when the robotic protagonist adorably "transformed" into a little box? They've now been captured in LEGO form. How, exactly, the 3 NXT motor outputs were multiplexed into 5 9V motors, I don't know, but I think we can agree that the final effect is fantastic. One motor for each set of treads drives Wall-E around, while the other motors handle the head and arms. The process for folding the treads underneath is particularly great - three worm gears in series drive a system that actually changes the placement of the sprockets for the treads on the way underneath. Making that process one smooth mechanism is no small feat, but it works very well and adds a surprising amount of realism to this Wall-E. What makes this trickery with the tracks so realistic is that cutting-edge rescue robots that need to travel over rubble today. Being able to move the treads closer together like this allows a robot to turn around in a smaller amount of space - making it easier to navigate unpredictable terrain.
Figures that I can't find a good link to a non-LEGO robot that does that uses just two sets of treads and changes its steering geometry now, doesn't it?
Details: I've previouslybloggedafew great Transformers models, but there is a need to up the ante now. See, LEGO has been making it easier to build Transformers-inspired models by introducing a variety of new hinge elements over the past decade or so (gosh, it's really been 12 years since I tried this when I was little, before the invention of click hinges? I guess I am gettting old). Now, people of my generation who feel like it was just yesterday when we tried and failed to build transformers regularly see young kids effortlessly handle the task of creating vehicles and other random objects that turn into mecha "robots". So now it is time to increase the challenge, preferably in a way that will require us to learn some new techniques instead of just needing to buy newer parts. It is time to try our hands at building machines that can transform on their own, and perhaps have other motorized functions as well. Today's model, shown above, serves as a proof of concept - it is possible to build vehicles that can transform using only one motor.
Send in your attempts to create motorized (or at least crank-powered...) transformers to legomodeloftheday@gmail.com - if we get enough of them, we'll turn this into a proper contest.
Details: This batch of semi-autonomous NXT androids was also at this year's FANABRIQUES event. It's pretty common for LEGO conventions to have "themes" that are very loose and only attract a handful of theme-specific models. This year's FANABRIQUES theme was Space (which actually happens to be a popular theme that people tend to build in anyway). Taking up the challenge to bring the theme to the NXT, Matthias Paul Scholz built these two cute "astronauts" with one Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit each. You can see in the video both a remote control mode (probably implemented via Bluetooth) and an automatic mode that passes out pamphlets.
Details: Remember the Pinball Machine we featured back in 2007? Someone inspired by that model has now created a Mindstorms NXT version. This one is also purist - all LEGO except for the ball (I suspect they could have used a LEGO ball too). Only 6 NXT bricks were used, compared to 13 RCX bricks in the original. A substantial amount of instructions are up at the site above, including source code (you know, for all of us with 6 spare NXT programmable bricks and over 8000 spare LEGO pieces to turn into a pinball machine).
Details: I've previously featured Sariel's first "hand" model, but he has now created a second one. This one makes use of the WeDo Educational Software. LEGO WeDo is only sold through the LEGO company's educational division (see http://www.legoeducation.us/store/), and is designed to work directly with the Power Functions motor system. A USB hub allows a computer to directly control two of the PF motors. Up to 3 hubs can be controlled with the off-the-shelf software, and 2 hubs were used for this particular model. One motor controls the pneumatic hand itself and the pneumatic compressor for that hand, using an autovalve. Two more motors are used for the turntables (one per turntable) to power the wrist and the base of the arm. The fourth motor controls the elevation of the hand through a linkage that does not tilt the hand. Software-wise, there's a task programmed for the arm and the ability to use the keyboard to control the motors individually.
Details: We've seen plenty of control systems that use cell phones, computers, or various LEGO-built joysticks, steering wheels, and other traditional set-ups, but we haven't seen that many creations that use form-fitted input devices. This "robotic hand" copies the movements made by someone wearing a "sensor skeleton". Three RCX's translate the sensor input into motor actions on the hand. That makes it a nice little project, but as an unexpected twist, there's a very organic and unexpected mechanism for controlling the fingers: two degrees of freedom are controlled by a "tendon" made out of flex system casings. I feel a need to build my own copy of this to determine how well this sort of system can handle lifting heavy objects.
In lieu of a regular model for Monday, here's some interesting food for thought. I'm just pointing out this post on the NXT blog The NXT Step - it's about using mechanical solutions either in combination with or instead of using multiple motors, sensors, and a microprocessor. The post itself is excellent, and the comments are constructive and provide some additional ideas. It's well worth a read for Technic and Mindstorms fans.
Details: While mulling over the thought of trying to put together a boat for a LEGO boat race (an increasingly popular challenge at Adult Fan of LEGO gatherings), it occurred to me that using the off-the-shelf remote controls wouldn't be terribly effective due to light distortion near the water's surface. The obvious solution is to use bluetooth instead, and devise some sort of remote control to steer the boat. Here's a spectacular implementation of that idea. Two small propellers steer the boat, and the motors are safely on board the boat (which is the only way I'd recommend trying to build something like this, although I understand some builders have had luck with risking their motors and other electronic parts touching the water). This design actually changes the angle of both propellers to steer - a nice trick I wouldn't have thought of.
, which turns out to be just the thing to give you that SegWay
experience - as long as you don't mind not going anywhere.
.
replacement. Although a good deal of custom electronics were involved to make it happen, I believe this is the first NXT-based robot capable of connecting itself to a recharging station (if you're unaware: only the education edition NXT kits come with the rechargeable battery by default, but you can buy the 
when the robotic protagonist adorably "transformed" into a little box? They've now been captured in LEGO form. How, exactly, the 3 NXT motor outputs were multiplexed into 5 9V motors, I don't know, but I think we can agree that the final effect is fantastic. One motor for each set of treads drives Wall-E around, while the other motors handle the head and arms. The process for folding the treads underneath is particularly great - three worm gears in series drive a system that actually changes the placement of the sprockets for the treads on the way underneath. Making that process one smooth mechanism is no small feat, but it works very well and adds a surprising amount of realism to this Wall-E. What makes this trickery with the tracks so realistic is that cutting-edge rescue robots that need to travel over rubble today. Being able to move the treads closer together like this allows a robot to turn around in a smaller amount of space - making it easier to navigate unpredictable terrain.
-inspired models by introducing a variety of new hinge elements over the past decade or so (gosh, it's really been 12 years since I tried this when I was little, before the invention of click hinges? I guess I am gettting old). Now, people of my generation who feel like it was just yesterday when we tried and failed to build transformers regularly see young kids effortlessly handle the task of creating vehicles and other random objects that turn into mecha "robots". So now it is time to increase the challenge, preferably in a way that will require us to learn some new techniques instead of just needing to buy newer parts. It is time to try our hands at building machines that can transform on their own, and perhaps have other motorized functions as well. Today's model, shown above, serves as a proof of concept - it is possible to build vehicles that can transform using only one motor. 
