R.O.T.A

After getting my excavator set a few weeks ago and building the models, I started building something I've always wanted to build... A remote controlled mobile arm. After about 2-3 weeks of building and fine tuning I finished. I came up with the name ROTA (Remotely Operated Technic Arm) The programming took an additional day, shortly after I took some videos and put them together so here is the video explaining all the mechanisms:

I am going to split the description into a few sections: Driving Base, the Arm, the Hand, and the Conclusion.

Driving Base

The base is a basic skid-steer base that I strengthened as I built the arm.

The 2 NXT motors are geared down 1:667 and control the driving function. I reinforced the treads due to a slight amount of bending when the arm (weighing around 5 lbs) would try to lift something heavy. The base took the shortest amount of time to build only around 45 minutes with an additional 15-20 minutes fixing all the flaws.

The Arm

The arm was really fun to build but it also gave me the most trouble.

I used 3 linear actuators, two for the whole arm and one for the bend in the middle. You can see the gearing (4th picture) for the two actuators that lift the whole arm. I did not use any gearing for the bend in the middle (5th picture). I originally was going to use two actuators too lift the middle bend but instead I used only one because I needed the other one for the hand. The arm took me about 2-3 hours too build and perfect.

The Hand

The hand also gave me a lot of trouble.

At first I tried using a worm gear for the grabbing function but the worm gear kept on popping off whenever it tried lifting gripping something. So I switched it for the actuator which works like a dream. It also gives it alot more torque when gripping. The hand can spin around by an arrangement of gears that turn a worm gear which turns the turnable connected to the hand.

Conclusion

All in all I really enjoyed building R.O.T.A. I did run into a few challenges though, but I love challenges, they are what keep me going. It is really fun to build with all the parts I got with the excavator. I am planning some more creations and I should be posting more often.

-Michael

Ryan's Porsche 911

I am testing some car designs and Suspension so I made a Porsche 911. Over all the suspension and other test features worked out nicely with a top speed of 244 RPM (MAX.) it works good. It uses 700-1000 parts from the Super car and NXT kits. It is a fast chassis (1:2) with a light weight frame, the heaviest parts of this model are the NXT, Servo motors, PF battery box, and the PF M motor.

The main picture of the Chassis, you can see the ionic Porsche headlights. 

A picture of the side, you can see the angle of the back.

You can see the steering system, on the left you can see the clutch gear with a M motor spinning it.

The main drive, One motor spins forwards the other spins backwards. The small black gear on the far left is where it is geared to (1:2)

 

This is my video, the best parts are from about 0:00-1:00 then the rest is driving and suspension.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NXT Geek!!!

It has been one year since the start of this blog and ALOT has happened since then! Here are the most significant events that have happened since I started:

•  February 2012 - Name changed to NXT Geek 
• June 2012 - I became a beta tester for Mindsensors
• May 2012 - I moved 
• August 2012 - Ryan became a contributor to the blog
• Throughout the year creations such as: M.V.F.B, The Circualtor, Mobile Skid Steer Arm, and 4 Motor Multiplexer where featured on various blogs that helped this blog get noticed. 

Every year I will post my blogs stats. (If you think I should do it more often, comment) 

Here are the first year stats: 

October: 77 views 

November: 54 views

December: 39 views

January: 140 views

February: 401 views

March: 462 views

April: 715 views

May: 357 views

June: 1,108 views

July: 1,487 views

August: 1,192 views

September: 1,492 views

Pageviews by Countries Entry Pageviews United States 3075 Taiwan 450 Thailand 413 Russia 357 Germany 349 United Kingdom 233 France 173 Australia 143 South Korea 93 India 91

Pageviews by Browsers

Entry Pageviews Chrome 2768 (36%) Firefox 1996 (25%) Internet Explorer 1769 (23%) Safari 816 (10%) Mobile Safari 137 (1%) Opera 136 (1%) Mobile 34 (<1%) OS;FBSV 17 (<1%) chromeframe 8 (<1%) CriOS 7 (<1%)

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Entry Pageviews Windows 5746 (74%) Macintosh 1032 (13%) iPad 296 (3%) Linux 287 (3%) Android 175 (2%) iPhone 106 (1%) Other Unix 50 (<1%) iPod 42 (<1%) Windows NT 6.1 16 (<1%) Android 2.3.5 10 (<1%)

Well it has been a first good year for NXT Geek, Hoping for many more to come ;-)

Trial Truck Competition Results- Idkwhoyouare v.s. Nxtstep101

Hello, these are the results for the Trial Truck Competition that me and Nxtstep101 competed against each other in. We have the two videos that have the entries for the competition on (towards the bottom.) Over-all it seems like Nxtstep101's won in speed but mine won in design and features. A little about the competition, we had a course of 8 days to make our models and finish them, we had to use only M motors and no more then 4 in the process and we had to try to make the models resembling a trial truck. Although Nxtstep101 did make a Tank I didn't care too much it was just for fun after all.

The Unimog U500

Here is my entry into the competition, it uses four motors (two for driving, one for the turret, and one for the steering.) It also has a gear ratio of 1:24 which was a little overload but I thought it was needed for the use of M motors.

All Terrain Tank

Here is Michael's Tank, it uses 2 M motors (one for the right treads and the other for the left treads.) It has a gear ratio of 3:5 which as for as I could see worked well with the small chassis and lightweight construction.

As you can see we had very different entries but overall I think they both worked out nicely. Thanks for reading and if you have any Questions or Comments just ask them in the comments.

Thanks, 

Ryan

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Fall 2012 survey

The MINDSTORMS team has decided to start the MINDSTORMS newsletter up again, so they put together a short 9-question survey to see what all of us fans would like to see in the survey. Go and take a few minutes to answer the question. Here is the link:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LMSnewsletter

Here is the disclaimer:

Disclaimer: all information collected will be aggregated and used anonymously. No additional data other than your answers will be collected. LEGO will not sell or distribute collected information beyond the immediate purpose for which it was solicited. You will not receive any emails or other direct communication as a result of taking this survey. In order to effectively use the data collected, please answer the survey only once, but feel free to let your friends know about the survey.

Source: LEGO Mindstorms

Back to School!

Next Tuesday I will be starting school so I will not be quite busy but since I got the 8043 excavator :D I will be coming out with some bigger and better robots! I am also finishing up with my website so that should be out soon... Also there is some changes that I am making to this blog that me and Ryan (Aka: idkwhoyouare) are working on. So stay tuned I am planning a few big projects but they won't be ready for a couple weeks... If you want to see some videos of the excavator and B-model just visit my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nxtstep101

  

Math Game

Here is my robotic Math Game that I made for a school project back in June. Basically it is a game that you can play with 2-6 players, the object of the game is to be the first one around the track and beat the other players. The was you play is you press the Orange button and figure out the answer, then you press it again and click the A,B,C, or D button based on what your answer is. Then you move the spaces the Remote tells you to. If you get the answer wrong you go back the number of spaces the robot tells you to. There are three different objects to cross or go around they are The short cut going forwards, the shortcut going backwards, and the Ferris wheel.

 The Ferris Wheel is a creative way to keep interest in the game and keep the learning aspect. The Ferris Wheel is geared down so it rotates slower and smoother. It has 6 seats for the players that are big enough for the tokens!

The track is just spaces to move and place your token there is about 40 spaces is the whole track with the addition of the Ferris Wheel. The Shortcut is a belt that is you land on the  space that opens up, you will move either forwards or backwards depending on which side you land on.

Here is the video. Enjoy!

New Contributor!

Hey everyone sorry for not posting in awhile I have just been busy, But anyways I wan't you to meet my new contributor his name is Ryan (a.k.a idkwhoyouare) I have followed his creations on NXTLog for as long as he has been on. He is a very talented builder, he specializes in bigger robots rather then smaller (He has two NXT's plus a few Technic sets). He has built alot of robots but he personally thinks that his "Lightning McQueen" was his best! Anyway he will be posting here for and keeping this blog up and running while I am working on my website and learning labview. He is currently working on making a model of J5 (Johnny Five).


You can read his bio in the "about" page here.

Update!

Hey everyone I hope everyone's summer has been going well!
Anyway I just wanted to let you know that the big changes I talked about are still going to happen just not right now I have to finish up some details. My website is coming along slowly but surely it should be ready by the end of summer :D Some of my big projects I had planned are going to be postponed until I get the 8043 Excavator (I should have enough money by the end of this month xD) because I need some more parts. One of my previous POST's might have seemed sort of in uninformative or quick but it wasn't (You will understand soon enough :D).

Well I just wanted to let you know what was going on.

An image of the Technic set I will be getting.

Happy 4th of July!

              Hey everyone, I just wanted to wish everyone (in the US) a Happy Fourth of July!     

                                    Have a fun and safe time celebrating our Independence!