Lego Biped Walker

Another great construction from 222Doc.  I love these monstrous creations.  At about 1:20 into the video, the thing starts to walk and it's just about the best walking movement I have seen from a Mindstorms robot of this type.

LEGO 4-legged Linear actuator walker (v2)

Yet another reason why I love the PF systems so much.  It's slow, but very effective.

Anybot Explained

This is a cool idea.  Do you think we could make something like this out of Mindstorms?  Of course you would need some non-Lego items, but I think it could be done.



Someone likes flying in airliners so much that they sent their Anybot on a trip for them...

Image from Gizmodo

Mechanical Principles (1930) by Ralph Steiner

Do you like interesting mechanisms?  If you do, then here's ten minutes of bliss.



I only wish that Lego made some of these parts.

LEGOWORLD Copenhagen 2011

bazmarc has uploaded a video from LEGOWORLD Copenhagen 2011.  It makes me pretty envious of him.

A Reflection of Mine

When I was a kid, I had gotten a whole bunch of old comic books free from a store that couldn't sell them.  I remember going through the back of the books looking at all the crazy ads that they used to have, you know, the X-Ray glasses, all the spy stuff, the gadgets that every kid wanted.  But I remember really wanting one thing that I kept seeing over and over in the ads, and that was the Lego Car Chassis set number 8860.

At that time I didn't own any Lego and didn't get to play with them very much at all; maybe a couple of time at friends houses.  Little did I know that a good potion of my free time would be devoted to building with Lego and that my Lego collection would grow so huge.  Looking at this set now, it is ridiculously ugly and barely useful, but I would absolutely love to own it just to say that it was the set that got me interested in Lego Technic.

Making the LEGO® MINDSTORM® Rosetta Lander

There's nothing better than watching a bunch of grown, educated men sitting around trying to figure out how to model a spacecraft accurately in Lego.


Making the LEGO® MINDSTORM® Rosetta Lander from Lightcurve Films on Vimeo.

M1 Mobile Manipulator

I think I would like to have one of these to mess around with.


Meka M1 Mobile Manipulator vimeo from Meka Robotics on Vimeo.

High Bay Storage

Now this robot looks to be far from finished, but I love this test.  FAST FAST FAST!!

IBM's Watson

I know it's not a true robot, but have you seen IBM's Watson play Jeopardy?  I watched it last night and the computer smashed two of the best players of all time.  A computer like this can really make you think how good things can be, and how bad things can get.  This video shows Watson not playing well.  In the second day of play, he completely dominated.

8071 Lift Truck

Here's an image that I stole from From Brick to Bothans.  The 2011 8071 Lift Truck, and it's in white!.

Blog Roll

I bet some of you wonder where I get some of the stuff I post.  It's no secret that the internet is chocked full of stuff, you just have to know how to find it.  Over time I have compiled a long list of robotic pages that I check on a fairly regular basis.  I thought I would share them with you.

Keep in mind these pages are regular robot pages that cover everything including industrial robots, hobby robots, hacks and electronics and much much more.  If you get into most of these pages and search "Lego" or "Mindstorms" or something similar, you will get some great stuff.

BotJunkie
Make:
Hack a day
Gizmodo
Scientific American
Singularity Hub
Popular Science
Go Robotics
Society of Robots
Lets Make Robots
Engadget
Robot Dreams
Trossen Robotics Blog
Robot Box
Robots.net
IEEE Automation
Get Robo
Hizook
Pilot Presence
Plastic Pals
Robot Stock News
Robotic Trends
Robot Pod Cast
Robots That Care
The Robot Report

DigInfo News 2010 - Robot Edition

No information is given about these robots, but DigInfo put out a video that shows about 3:23 of purely awesome robotics.  Click the arrow on the screen at any time to see more details of any robot while it's playing.

Awesome PF "Thingy"

This video illustrates my favorite parts about the PF motors.  They are strong, easy to mount and with the eight channels you can create some very sophisticated creations with lots of functions.  Show me any other construction medium where you can build something like this in a short time.  It's just awesome.

Interview with Sariel

Here's a great interview with the prolific Technic builder Sariel.  It's in Polish (I think) but the entire video has English subtitles so it's easy to follow.  He answers tons of great questions from his fans and talks about some of his incredible MOCs.




You can see his creations at sariel.pl

Brick Bash

Here's an event that I have been meaning to attend.  I have never been to this one, and it's not too far from my house so I think I might give it a try.  It's a Lego event, but in this case it's more targeted to the Robotics people (Hooray!!!).  It's scheduled for Saturday, March 19, 2011 from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the Morris Lawrence Building on the campus of Washtenaw Community College.

Here's a link to the event.  They also have a Facebook Event page, and from the looks of it, it might be a pretty big event.  There are even a few names on the site that I recognize.

Future Power Source

OK, all we need to do is breed bazillions of hamsters, build kazillions of Theo Jansen walkers, and build up a stock of hamster food and wood shavings...

Yuki-taro. Snow Recycle Robot.

Here's an interesting concept that comes from Japan.  There's no video of the robot in action, just a short AP story.  I'm not sure if it will be a success.  It doesn't get rid of the snow, it just "packages" it.

My Dark Side

I admit, I have a dark side.  But it's a dark side that I probably share with at least a few of you.  It's not really even a dark side, it's just something that I have come to despise, hate, fight against and destroy.  That thing is advertising.  Advertising has come to be way too invasive and it's a form of pollution.

They pollute the sides of roads with billboards.  They pollute our homes with raised volume commercials on TV and radio.  You can hardly open a web page without an "in your face" ad.  Your inbox is full of spam.  Your snail-mailbox is full of wasteful junk mail.  It's everywhere and unfortunately it has become a normal part of life around the world.  I have actually stopped using products because of their advertising campaigns.

Here's a video that got my imagination going.  This company is using robots with ads on them to chase shoppers around.  The shoppers are forced to look at the ads because the robots are following them around and actually getting in their way.


This is where my "dark side" erupts.  I have imagined several things I would do, and I would definitely do a few of these things.  The nicest thing I would do is knock it over so it couldn't chase anyone else around and at least force the remote operator to come out of hiding to fix it.
Other ideas.
- Throw it in a fountain
- Hide it
- Deface it, as in write on it "Don't buy a..." or "I have a....    .... and it doesn't work"
- Ruin the ad.
- Take the batteries or the wheels.

The worst thing I would do is hijack it, take it over to a bench as sit with it until the controller was forced to come and "answer" for what I believe he has done wrong.

And by reading some of the comments written on the YouTube page, I am comforted to know that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Lego Remote Controlled Nerf Gun

Someone else (wpavalko) has taken on the task of creating a Nerf Shooter controlled by Lego NXT.

Robot + Fireworks.

AWESOME!

Lego Pendulum Clock

Here's a great working pendulum clock by pmroskelly.  But the colors hurt my eyes....ahhhhhh!

Great work!