Name Poll

I have put up a poll on the side bar to name the bot.  All these names would be great, so when the poll closes on Sunday, the results will be final.

iPhone Steeting Wheel

This gets my for "Best Technology Use Where It's Not Needed."  It's still cute tho.



From TechEBlog

Name that Bot!

I have been working on the big monster for a few weeks now.  Everyone I have shown it to has asked "What's its name???"  Frankly, I haven't put much thought to it, I have been working to hard on the guts and the brains.  I have a couple of ideas, but none are really good.  I have high hopes that the video will be seen by lots of people, so I want to make sure the name fits.  The bot has 4 NXTs, 15 motors, 16 sensors and all will work in concert (so far, so good).

I would like to ask you, my faithful readers what you think.  Do you have any ideas what I should name this giant?  I should tell you, he will definitely have a personality.  Let's just say that he will be the class clown.

Robotagger

I found this video over on BotJunkie.  It's a video of an industrial robot that has been programmed to do some graffiti.

Communicating with Light

I just discovered something really cool!

I use RobotC and one of the major drawbacks is that the people at RobotC haven’t released a way for the NXT bricks to communicate with more than one brick at a time. So while I am building this big robot with 4 NXTs, I have to come up with a way to communicate between them. My idea was to use a PF LED as the transmitter in a motor port and a Lego light sensor as a receiver on two bricks. As it turns out, this is a very effective way to communicate.

My first thought was that I could turn the light on for 100 ms and the light sensor could read how long it is on and that time length would be the signal. Then I could string together several blinks as a “code.” For example, one signal with three messages may be 100 ms, 250 ms, and 150 ms. My thought was that it takes time for the LED to come on and turn off, plus the light sensor has some lag time too.

But it turns out that the light sensor and the PF LED can be operated faster - MUCH faster. The LED can be turned ON full strength and completely OFF very quickly and the light sensor can read it nearly instantaneously. I am able to consistently send and receive a five digit code that looks like this: {15, 20, 15, 20, 15}. The message that is typically received is something like {16, 21, 16, 22, 16} I have never had a time reading error of more than 3ms! Not bad!  The ON/OFF cycle can't be seen with the naked eye, so all I see from the LED is one short blink that shimmers a little bit.

Each blink is separated by a 15 ms “off” time, so the total send time is 145 ms. So it’s not nearly as fast as Bluetooth, but it’s not far off. Plus I sent 5 messages in that time period.

New Cool Invention

If anyone has ever built one of these, please let me know where I can find some pictures, I would love to see it.

Another Musical Robot

Here's yet another cool musical robot.  This one is probably the most involved yet.  But be warned, you are about to hear 40 seconds of smooth Jazz.

Lifelike Pong Game

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the greatest game ever, you know, Pong.  Someone has built an incredibly lifelike version.  They even when so far as to calculate and incorporate the physics as if the ball were real and the game table was uneven.



On a serious note, this would be a cool yet silly build.  There are several games like this that could be built.  One of my favorite would be an interactive pinball game.

Notes About The Bot

I have some very ambitious goals with this bot. Some emotions or actions I will be trying to produce in the programs; Frightened, greeting, angry, cheering, Peek-a-boo, eating, yawning, stretching, laughing, sneezing, in pain, woops, burp, watch out…..etc, etc.

I also hope to be able to make the bot react to stimulus it encounters. For example, loud noises, bright lights, people approaching, etc.

One thing I learned early in this project is that I absolutely need to take good notes. In that process I noticed that my port list got long….VERY long. I thought I would share it with you.

NXT #1
Sensor Ports
1. HiTechnic IR Link, Operates drive motors and eye brows
2. HiTechnic COMPASS
3. Lego Sound
4. HiTechnic SMUX
  Port 1, Lego Ultrasonic, Left
  Port 2, Lego Ultrasonic, Middle
  Port 3, Lego Ultrasonic, Right
  Port 4, Lego Light
Output Ports
A. Servo, Mouth
B. Servo, Eyes, up and down
C. Servo, Eyes, left and right

NXT #2
Sensor Ports
1. Lego Touch, Bumper, Left
2. Lego Touch, Bumper, Middle
3. Lego Touch, Bumper, Right
4. Open
Output Ports
A. PF LED Light, signal
B. Open (likely will be lights for show)
C. Open (likely will be lights for show)

NXT #3
Sensor Ports
1. Open (Possibly be HiTechnic Acceleration)
2. Lego Sound
3. Lego Light, Signal Receiver
4. HiTechnic IR Link-Operates Grippers
Output Ports
A. Servo, Left Shoulder Extend
B. Servo, Left Shoulder move out
C. Servo, Left Elbow

NXT #4
Sensor Ports
1. Open
2. Lego Sound
3. Lego Light, Signal Receiver
4. Lego Ultrasonic
Output Ports
A. Servo, Right Shoulder Extend
B. Servo, Right Shoulder move out
C. Servo, Right Elbow

PF IR Receiver #1
Left: XL PF Motor, Left Drive Motor
Right: XL PF Motor, Right Drive Motor

PF IR Receiver #2
Left: XL PF Motor, eyebrows up and down
Right: Two micro motors, Tilts eyebrows in and out.

PF IR Receiver #3
Left: Open (likely will be lights for show)
Right: Open (likely will be lights for show)

PF IR Receiver #4
Left: Med PF Motor, Opens and Closes Left Gripper
Right: Med PF Motor, Opens and Closes Right Gripper

Leaked Image.

So I was tinkering around with a bunch of mechanisms, and before I knew it I was into another project and it kept getting bigger and bigger. Take Omnibot, throw in some Kismet with some Lego Lips, and this is what you get.

It’s far from being done. Right now, it has 4 NXTs, 9 servos, 3 Ultrasonic sensors, 3 touch sensors (bumpers), the compass sensor, 5 PF motors, the HiTechnic SMUX, and on and on. More will be added soon. I'll give full details along with a video when it is done.

OK, I know I said I was going to build a car factory. I still have a bunch of pieces lying around waiting to be worked on. I am trying to design a cool car that can be handled by the grippers and that is an unforeseen problem. I have bunches of Technic pieces, but not a lot of small car parts.

Robotic Competition

I just stumbled upon this 10 long minute video.  I thought is was inspiring, so I want to share it.



I had a chance to go to the Case Western Reserve EECS/BIOL 375/475 Easter Egg Hunt competition a couple of times and really enjoyed it.  Nothing brings out the best more than friendly competition.

Cleaning bot

Robots do the three "D's" (dangerous, dull, and dirty work) .  This bot covers at least two of those categories.

Lego Domino Row Building Machine

I checked the stats of some of my YouTube videos today.  I got to the Domino Printer and found that the views had exploded from about 300 in about 2 months to nearly 4,000 in the last day or two.  Then I found out why.  Someone has posted this video and it went viral.  The vast majority of my views were from the "Related Video" link.  Still, I will take nearly 4,000 hits.

I have messed around with building a bot that sets up dominoes, but this guy takes the cake.  It's a dumb machine that works perfectly.  I have a feeling that people will take this idea and add some steering and some domino storage and make some really cool stuff (please do!)

Lego Report on ABCs Nightline

I was looking around Robotique NXT Québec and found this interesting link to a report done on ABCs Nightline.  It’s a 6 1/2 minute report on Lego just about loosing the company and then pulling it out of the toilet. It's an interesting report.

Plus they talk about some weird adults who build with Lego. Strange.

Cool, functional Lego Furniture

OK, completely not robotic related, but too cool furniture.  They are from a company called LunaticConstruction.  They are callled LunaBlocks.  They have been around for a couple of years, but I somehow missed them.

Here is a gallery of just 54 of the infinite possibilities.  Man, I wish Christmas wasn't so far away!!!

More documents: Sales flyer and the accessories.

Lego Airships.

The other day I posted some video of Lego below the surface. Now I would like to showcase some Lego above the surface. Flying Lego.

Strapping a six foot helium balloon to a few hundred dollars of Lego electronics is equally cool, and equally as hazardous as putting them in the drink. You risk the chance of dropping the robot from very high, getting it tangled in a tree or a telephone pole, or even worse watching the prevailing winds accept your gift and running away with your prized possession.

Anyway, here are a few cool videos of people who have accepted the challenge. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this, but the ceilings are far too low in my ranch style home.

The first video is at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The video quality is poor, but the message gets through. It’s pretty cool.


This video is now one of my favorites. It shows great innovation by using cheap garbage bags as the balloons.  Not to mention the father-son interaction is note worthy.


And probably this riskiest of all balloons, the H.A.L.E. project, which sent NXTs up to 100,000 feet (almost 19 miles!)


More can be found about the H.A.L.E. project.