My Website and other News!

Okay so for the past week I have been working on my website! I still have alot of work but I hope to finish it soon! You can see what it looks like here (but there is nothing on it, I haven't published my changes yet, I will when I finish it). My website will be where I post my projects along with instructions, videos, ect.... Here will be where I post Mindstorm NXT news and other NXT related stuff!

Also just today NXTLog has released the winners of their "Crazy Contraption" challenge the one I entered "The Circulator" in, well I found out I won the "Best Technical Presentation" award xD! Here is what they said about my entry:

BEST TECHNICAL PRESENTATION:
  "We looked for NXTLOGs that best documented how the Crazy Contraption robot was designed, programmed, and functions in a clear, concise, and creative way."
"The Circulator"
Created by: nxtstep101
"The Circulator" is a minimalist designed GBC (Great Ball Contraption) that circulates small plastic balls through 3 different modules and ends up at the beginning, and starts all over again. nxtstep101 takes readers through each module in the NXTLOG with beautiful photos, descriptions, a video, and program file. Great work nxtstep101 on clearly documenting your robot's technical capabilities! "

To see the other winners click here.

One of the other winners was NXTLog and YT user: MySnailEatsPizza he entered a huge GBC into the challenge which he called "Circular Reasonings 2" here is the video of the GBC at work! I would say that this is one of the best GBC's on the web!

I am working on an entry into a car building challenge me and a couple of other people on NXTLog started it is a Car building challenge. Check it out and enter!

     After I finish entering I will get started on some of my more complex projects! So stay tuned ;-)

GBC Building Instructions!

After about 3-4 hours of building and and taking photos and another 30 minutes or so producing the video I present to you! "The Circulator" Building Instructions! So now you can build your very own gbc out of one NXT 1.0 kit and a 2.0 kit if you have extra gears and technic parts!

Enjoy!

Here is a link to the original project: http://nxtgeek.blogspot.com/2012/03/circulator.html

Tetrix and other updates!

A few weeks ago I got the Tetrix Education Base Set sold by Lego Education that is compatible with the NXT for my birthday! It is like a Mindstorm NXT on steroids! All parts are made out of aircraft grade aluminum (a strong lightweight metal) their is four motors and a ton of parts, it all hooks up to the NXT the controller. I will be posting some of the projects that I make with my Tetrix/Mindstorm on my blog, Although I won't be posting any projects this week because of a broken charger which should arrive sometimes next week.

Okay so my GBC "The Circulator" that I built got featured on the NXT Step(xD) and the blog editor asked me if I was going to make building instructions, I decided I would so I commented back and told him I would have them up in a couple of weeks. So as of right know I am putting the circulator back together from just the pictures I took and am aiming to finish building it by tommorow and hope to have the  instructions done sometime next week!

I have some awesome projects planned and am going to make them soon! So stay tuned for the next couple of weeks!


I was just wondering if anyone knew of a good RobotC tutorial that I could use? (I need it for programming Tetrix) Also how hard is it to learn the language?

New video on "Cyclops"

Here is a video that YT user "Semiaiceyam" posted of Daniele Benedettelli's Cyclops that he presented at the World Robot Olympiad this year! It looks pretty neat! I can't wait until he tells us more about it!

NXT Touch!

Late last night I got an email from one of LEGO Mindstorms lead technicians, that I know! Here is what he wrote:

" I just wanted to let you know that we just came up with a brand new NXT brick! It is just like an IPhone only it is a little thicker and has ports on both ends for the wires! It has twice as much memory as the current one, and the screen is a full color touch screen it also has a camera on the front to take pictures! It will be available for people to buy sometime this summer."   

He went on to say he wanted me to help out with beta testing! This will be awesome, He couldn't give me a picture because it had just been finished and he hadn't taken a picture yet! This is going to be the best thing LEGO has ever made!

More on this later!

"The Circulator"

I have finally finished my MOC! Presenting......... "The Circulator" 

 

  When I heard NXTLog was hosting a "crazycontraption" contest I couldn't wait to get started on an entry, but I only had one NXT set so I couldn't make a really big robot, but I started anyway and it turned out great. Okay now on too the details!

Overview picture.

Module 1: When the ball comes down the ramp it falls in between two technic beam liftarms with a 53 degree angle and will spin 90 degrees every 3.5 seconds. Then after 7 seconds it will be pushed of onto a ramp that goes to the next module.

Module 2: This one is based on a popular GBC module.  A motor geared down moves a beam with axles through the end in circles to push balls up a 45 degree angle, which pushes them onto another ramp that leads to the last module.

Module 3: This last module is one of the most common modules, all it does is wait until the ultrasonic sensor sees something pass by and waits 1 second to lift the arm up to start the chain all over again.

Conclusion: This has really been a fun project for me to build, and I hope to build an even bigger one when I get my 2.0!

Here is a bird's eye view of "The Circulator"

Video: You know the saying "a picture is worth 1,000 words Well I say this video is worth 10,000 words :P

Enjoy!

New website: Mindcuber

David Gilday is in the process of making a website for his NXT rubiks cube solver: "Mindcuber" He has made building instructions and video which you can see on his new website: http://www.mindcuber.com/

Here is one of the videos:

MOC update: I am working on the video and should have it all posted in a few days!

GBC: Beginnings

My next project is a GBC which stands for "Great Ball Contraption"  that I will enter into NXTLogs "crazy contraption" challenge. I have seen many different versions of the GBC some super BIG and some super small  but I wanted to make one using only one NXT set that could go constantly go around without me feeding it any balls. I am not quite finished yet but should be finished in about a week. I it will only have three modules (because I only have three motors) and is about 2 feet long. In other news my sister got a DSLR camera so she can get some HQ photos of all my robots that  make!

A break!

Have you ever worked on a robot for a long time and then got discouraged and everything seems to go wrong? Well if you have you know how I feel. I have been working on a project that I have kept top secret for about a month. I have finished building it but it seems that whenever I program it, it messes up in one way or another so I have decided to take a break from programming and work on my project that I will be entering into NXTLogs challenge. But don't worry I made building instructions for my robot and I still have the program so I can still finish it after awhile. This is what I do if I am stumped on an Algebra problem I just skip it and come back to it later. I will be uploading some pics of it in a week or so, so that you know what I was working on.

MOC release coming soon!

I will release my MOC in a few weeks but for now I am still working on the programming I hope to finish it soon!

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