The book signing last Saturday at the Barnes & Noble in Round Rock was a success and incredibly fun. It was great meeting everyone, answering questions, and signing copies of The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide. A lot of parents showed up with their children who are MINDSTORMS maniacs, but some adult fans of LEGO came by as well as someone from National Instruments (the company that developed NXT-G). Not surprisingly, I heard more than one person say, “We got the NXT set for Christmas!” I’m sure a lot of people got the NXT set for Christmas.
And, yes, I managed to keep Guard-Bot and Tag-Bot on the table. I programmed Guard-Bot to walk in a square and Tag-Bot to sit still and turn its head every seven seconds. Tag-Bot, of course, appeared as if it was examining its surroundings, and I got some funny responses from people walking by.
I’m planning on having another signing at a location in Austin–more on that later.
I recently sat down and rebuilt Guard-Bot (see below) for the book signing Saturday. As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be taking this bot and Tag-Bot with me to the signing. Since I’m not going to have that much space on the table for Guard-Bot to walk around on, I’m having to figure out how the robot can walk around without falling off the table. Since I’m not demonstrating how to break a robot into a million pieces, I really don’t want any robots falling off the table. Guard-Bot is a sturdy robot, but it’s not exactly invincible. Not quite.
For the details about the book signing January 12th, click here to read a previous post. I hope to see you there!
All LEGO fans, no matter what aspect of the LEGO universe they may participate in, are faced with one common challenge: storage. Being able to effectively store one’s collection of LEGO pieces is important, especially as that collection grows.
And here’s one possible storage solution: The Stanley Professional Organizer (model# 014725M). I do not personally own one of these organizers, but I’ve read some positive reviews from other LEGO fans. Although I believe it’s not possible to store an entire NXT set in one of these, this organizer could prove helpful for storing the smaller pieces from the NXT set. Of course, getting the tiny pieces properly organized can be a big help.
Currently, Amazon is selling these organizers for about $15.
Did you enter the MINDSTORMS NXT Sumo competition? If so, you’ll be excited to hear that the results are in! At the MINDSTORMS website you can find all the details and some great sumo-related resources, but here are the winners:
The official MINDSTORMS website has announced another contest or “building challenge,” and this time the theme is winter. What kind of robot should you create for this contest? The website has this to say:
It’s January and most of the world is making snow angels or sitting by a fire to stay toasty and warm. That’s why we are looking for YOU to design a robot that would work or play in in a winter wonderland! This can be a robot that relates to winter in any way. It can be a snow plow, a robot skier or ski lift, or even a NXT robot designed to deliver you hot cocoa.
Get building! The contest deadline is January 31st. You can read the full contest details here.
A trick commonly employed in TECHNIC/MINDSTORMS building is using an axle to push another axle (or some other piece) out of a tight spot. I’ve found it helpful to use another trick, however, that involves the flexible axle joiner (see below). The NXT set includes eight of these pieces, and you can actually use them to help pull axles and other pieces out of very tight spots. Unconventional, perhaps, but it works since the flexible axle joiner is rubber, offering more grip than if you were just using your fingers.
Try running a 7M axle through several double cross blocks and split cross blocks and then attempt to pull the axle out. Not that easy, is it? Next, take a flexible axle joiner with two fingers and “grab” the axle as shown in the picture below. Now try to pull the axle out of the cross blocks, aided by the flexible axle joiner. You should find the task much easier. This little example demonstrates how the flexible axle joiner can significantly increase your ability to pull out pieces, such as axles, from difficult areas.
I’ve had great success with this trick, but you should be warned that it could possibly lead to “ripping” your flexible axle joiners. With that said, I’ve never had one of these pieces rip as a result of doing the trick. LEGO pieces are the strongest elements on earth, right?
I’ve added video of Claw-Bot, the robot from Chapter 13 of The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide, to the “Pages” section of the blog. You can also watch the video below.
Claw-Bot is based on the Zippy-Bot model from Chapter 11, adding a claw-like subassembly with an ultrasonic sensor and a light sensor. Claw-Bot moves toward the center of the NXT test pad, spins in a circle until it detects an object with its ultrasonic sensor, and then drives forward to push the object until its light sensor detects the black line. The robot is programmed to find three objects, but it’s easy to change the number to more (or less) than three. Go Claw-Bot!
The official MINDSTORMS NXT Sumo competition I mentioned earlier now has 109 entries! You can no longer enter sumo-bots into the competition since the deadline was December 15th, but it’ll be interesting to see the outcome. You can read the official news release here, and you can see all the entries here. The judges will select robots from the entries, build and program the robots, and then hold a sumo match.
That’s one sumo match I’d love to attend. Good luck to all the contestants!
Creating building instructions for NXT robots can be a lot of fun. And it’s a great way to “preserve” your robots after you’ve taken them apart. There are now a variety of ways to create virtual NXT robots and building instructions, but a quick and easy way to begin for either Windows or Mac OS X users is with the official and free LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) software. Since the capability to create NXT robots with LDD is relatively new, there are still some bugs to work out. But it does work. Version 2.3 of LDD was recently released, and you can visit http://ldd.lego.com/ to download the latest version.
Note that I did not use LDD to create the building instructions in The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide. Rather, for my book I used a set of tools based on the LDraw system.
After receiving an email from a reader who had put together one of the programs shown in Chapter 8, “Advanced NXT-G Programming,” I decided to make the programs available to everyone. Although the programs shown in that chapter were only supposed to clarify the concepts being described (i.e., the reader is not expected to test the programs), experimenting with the programs is fun! You can download them from the following page on the book’s companion website:
I am the author of "The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor's Guide" (No Starch Press, 2007) and "Competitive MINDSTORMS" (Apress, 2004). I enjoy reading, writing, MINDSTORMS robotics, and spending time with my family. Currently, I am pursuing a degree in Management Information Systems.
