FLL Virtual Setup - somewhat?

I recently came across this on Youtube.



and the second part, that shows you how to setup the enviroment.



This seems really interesting, and I think could be a big help to FLL teams... if anyone tries it, let us (or the poster at least) know how it goes!

Happy New Year to everyone,

Richard

FLL Mission Overview Part 11 - Extract an Ice Core, Deliver an Ice Buoy, Study Wildlife, Beat the Clock, and Conclusion

Wrap up of the last 4 missions for the teams still going.



Objective: Pull the Ice Core out of the hole. For additional points, move it to Base.

Point Worth: 20 points for pulling it out of the hole. 10 points for moving it back to Base.

Mission Location: Center East, on the Reasearch Area.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium - Hard

Time Length Rating: 7/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This precision-required mission is conveniently placed on the far end of the table. Also, veteran teams may notice this Ice Core is actually smaller than previous "rings" used before - this possibly makes it even more difficult to pick up.

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Objective: Move the Ice Buoy to the Research Area (Ice crater), so that it ends upright.

Point Worth: 25 points.

Mission Location: Starts in the North West corner (top right).

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium.

Time Length Rating: 5/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: The Ice Buoy itself is an interesting shape. Its round shape may make it difficult to grip, and it is somewhat difficult to get to, surrounded by the Levee Tester, the Underground Reservoir, and the Levees.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Objective: Move the polar bear and/or snowmobile to the Research Area.

Point Worth: Polar Bear - Upright: 15 points, Asleep (fallen over): 10 points; Snowmobile: 10 points, no matter upright or on its side.

Mission Location: Research Area (bottom left corner).

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Easy.

Time Length Rating: 3/10.

Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission provides a good oppurtunity to combine challenges to save time. Balancing the polar may provide a little difficulty for some teams, but it is only an extra 5 points.

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Objective: Move the robot to the research area or yellow grid area.

Point Worth: 15 points if the robot is in the research area. 10 points if the robot is in the yellow grid area.

Mission Location: Research area (bottom right corner) and yellow grid area (center top).

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Time Length Rating: 3-5/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: For the research area aspect, this is a reintroduction of an all-terrain mission. Also, beware the ice blocks that are floating before the actual research area - the robot may slip! Note how the Ice crater doesn't actually touch the wall; the robot cannot directly follow the wall as was done in years before. The yellow grid area is not as tricky to get to, but worth only 5 points less.

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Conclusion

I hope everyone has found these Mission Overviews useful. I would like to wish all the teams who are finished with this season a congratualations - and those who have not yet competed or have advanced to the next round: good luck!

There is still a forum dedicated to FLL here on The NXT Step - discuss your teams' results, share ideas, talk about acts of Gracious Professionalism.

We're still looking for that first 400 team... has anyone see one yet?

Richard

Wiimote The Easy Way

Using a "Wiimote" to control the NXT has been done before; but Jordan Fitzpatrick did it using GlovePIE and my Bluetooth remote - very simple. You can watch Jordan's video here and download the GlovePIE scripts here. To connect your "Wiimote" to your PC please follow this link. Wii-power to Jordan

GrabBot from One-Kit Wonders

(Direct link)

This robot is from chapter 9 of the One-Kit Wonders book. If you watch the video, the robot may appear to be very simple. There are however, two things that make GrabBot special.

One of these two is the grabbing hand. Using one motor, it grabs and lifts object, which is a cellphone in this case.

The other is its autonomous behaviour. When I trigger the program to start by saying: "Get my cellphone", it starts searching for the closest object in range. While spinning around, it continously stores a sensor value along with a location in two variables. Then, it returns to the position where it measured the lowest sensor value and grabs the object.

When doing so many redaings from the Ultrasonic Sensor, it functions relatively accurate. It still has a few problems detecting balls, but if they're not too far away, it does find them.

P.S. Book reader Enrique has posted a call to action for One-Kit Wonders readers. Read it here.

AlphaRex's RoadTrip: A behind the scene look

During the last eight months, NXT fans from all over the world have have been following the progress of the two AlphaRex's, as they travel around the world as part of the 10 year celebration of LEGO MINDSTORMS.

As this year draws to a close, I like to share the following behind the scene video of AlphaRex in New Zealand - which gives you an indication of the work many friends of LEGO, MINDSTORMS Community Partners and LEGO staff put in to make the AlphaRex Global RoadTrip into a success so far.

The latest pictures of AlphaRex journey can be found on the MINDSTORMS home page. It looks like AlphaRex is going to be enjoying the scorching summer here in New Zealand over the Xmas break!

This is my last post for the year. So I like to wish all The NXT Step readers a happy and safe Xmas and new year. I hope the Santa brings you lots of plastics and NXT's for Xmas.

Happy Holidays

AlphaRex, BlueToothKiwi and Family

Tic-Tac-Toe Playing NXT

The Hand from One-Kit Wonders

Forum readers Ariel and Enrique have built and programmed The Hand from our book One-Kit Wonders. See the video they made here.

Camera Panning Platform Using the NXT

This rig is currently being used to film a stop-motion, animated film.

The top two movie clips are of the rig in action. The bottom two photos are of the rig itself.

More details are here.

OrganFairy plays the Christmas Blues

There's a nice video on YouTube of the MINDSTORMS Blues band playing a Christmas song, led by an inspired OrganFairy:

:)

Crazy Legs part 2

Slightly more creepy version of the anthropomorphic legs that I posted earlier.
I was able to get a more fluid motion out of the legs by not having the motor at the thigh wait for the completion of the motor at the knee.

DIY project combining programming and construction

You know, sometimes you just wish you could go back to college to take that ONE class... in my case, it would be this one. (This is, of course, assuming I went to MIT, which I did not).

Kids - keep playing with your NXT and learning, learning, learning - the tools (okay, toys) you'll have access to when you get to college/university are going to be beyond anything I was ever allowed to experiment with - the video is funny, but the underlying truth here is that with enough skill and interest, you can make some pretty cool stuff.

More details here.

One More Thing: What would you pay for the chance to take a class called "How to Make (almost) Anything"?

Walmart: $179US for NXT

The price includes a $20US electronic gift card, effectively making the price $159US.

The price also includes free shipping to your local Walmart store in the US. (Shipping to your home will cost extra).

The purchase link is here.

Matlab NXT Tutorial

Having trouble with controlling the NXT with Matlab?

Here is an introductory tutorial created by Gautam Vallabha, which goes over the topics of:

- How to set up the Bluetooth connection
- How to set up a connection between MATLAB and the Tribot
- How to create Tribot programs in MATLAB

Gautam Vallabha is a developer at The MathWorks who works on the development of classroom applications of MATLAB.

Omni Directional Robot

This omni directional robot made by jason701802 has a very user friendly remote control allowing much better control over the robot. The right joystick can be moved forward/backward/left/right to move the robot correspondingly forward/backward/left/right. This is not an easy task as all the wheels are spaced 120 degrees apart. The left handle controls the spin. Well done!

The video that demonstrates how the remote control works can be seen here.

Instructions to build the omni robot the NXT-G program can be found here.

This is what jason701802 says about his controller:

"I used a modified version of Philo's Joystick with a third axis to control the spin. The controller scales the values from the servos to numbers usable by the robot. The robot then converts the x,y, and rotational values into the outputs for the motors. I have condensed the program so that the controller and the robot both use the same program."

And in the FTC world...

...things are going well. Power Surge competed at its first scrimmage and its alliance came in second. It was a lot of fun; the aspect of having four big, powerful robots all in the same field competing with each other made it very exciting! Now we're working on improving our robot for the state regionals coming up. We've also put up a team website at http://www.teampowersurge.org/.

-Jonathan

NJ State FLL Tournament

Since Built On The Rock decided not to compete in FLL this year, I was asked to be a head ref at the NJ State Tournament, which was held on Saturday. This was my first time reffing, and it was neat seeing all the different solutions that teams came up with for the missions. Here's a few thoughts about the tournament and season:

1. This year's challenge definitely seems harder than those in recent past years. The highest score at the tournament was a 300 by the Robo Invaders, as opposed to last year's 400 followed by a 395. Also, I haven't heard of any perfect scores being made anywhere else yet... has anyone heard of one? The difficulty of this year's challenge doesn't seem to be caused so much by hard individual missions - many are simple push-objects-to-the-right-zone missions - but more by the sheer number of missions. There are 18 missions this year: twice as many as the number of missions in Nano Quest, and 7 more than in Power Puzzle. Many of them aren't all that short, either. It seems that the key to scoring high this year is to combine multiple missions per run.

2. I refereed half of the matches, and of all the robots I saw during that time and all the other time at the tournament, I only recall seeing one RIS robot. It's nice to see that just about all teams have been able to make the switch over to the NXT system.

3. One interesting change of rules this year allows teams to accomplish missions before they leave Base! So theoretically, a team could make a robot that stays in Base during the entire match, and uses some sort of extending arm to accomplish all the missions. However, I only saw one team make use of this rule change; this team had a scissor arm set up in Base aimed at a mission model, which the robot activated as it went to complete a different mission. The scissor arm then pressed a bumper on the model, accomplishing the mission. BTW, I should note that this rule change does not make it possible for teams to grab their robot without getting penalized... a Q&A (Ruling 14) specifically states that using any kind of "leash" that "tethers" the robot to Base for this purpose will not keep the team from getting penalized.

4. Probably the most unknown rule at this tournament was part of the Active Robot Touched rule. Because of the confusion with this rule, I thought I'd post about it here so that reading teams could make sure they don't get an unhappy surprise at their tournament. This rule first states that once an active robot (one that has been started) is touched, it immediately becomes inactive and must be taken back to Base. Then the rule says the following:

"If any models or strategic objects were being strategically moved by the robot at the time of the touch:

• Those being moved from Base go back to Base with the robot, eligible for continued use.
• Those encountered out of Base are taken out of play (off the field)"

This rule is quite simple... any object your robot is strategically moving from Base goes back to Base with the robot. Any object the robot started moving when out of Base gets taken off the field, if it's still being moved by the robot at the time of the touch. So for example, if a robot drives over to the Insulation models and starts pushing them towards the green grid, but then a driver grabs the robot and brings it back to Base, the Insulation models do NOT come back to Base, but must be taken off the field and therefore cannot be scored in that match.

5. The two-team mission this year seems to encourage the use of sensors, which is nice, especially since it's possible to find clever ways to solve it without sensors. However, not many teams attempted it, and I didn't see anyone use sensors to determine how to align the arrows. The one team I saw accomplish the mission used a mechanical solution; they added or removed pieces from their robot to make it turn one of the arrows the right number of times - great idea!

What are your thoughts about this year's challenge?

-Jonathan

Robot Inspiration Series #17: Board Game Robots

This week's inspiration is to build a robot that can play against you in a physical game, such as connect four, checkers, etc. The challenges with such robots can include not only the programming challenge of giving the robot AI (Artificial Intelligence) so that it can play skillfully, but also the building challenge of enabling the robot to maipulate game pieces. Of course, both of these challenges can be greatly reduced if you want. For example, instead of making the robot play "smart", you may be able to program the robot to simply move randomly; it will most likely be easier to beat, but at least it could still play. To get the minimum building challenge, the robot could have the user input the game status, and then tell you where to play for itself.

There are several great examples of game-playing robots. Bryan Bonahoom made a Tic-Tac-Toe playing robot that can "read" the board and make moves all by itself. You can see his robot on the MINDSTORMS website, here. Steve Hassenplug made a robot that plays Connect-4, which you can see on his website, here.

-Jonathan

Calling all Teachers - Robotics eJournal

We are proud to announce a call for papers for the inaugural "Robotics in Education" e-Journal.

Articles will be sourced from the community (that's you girls and guys) and will also feature short interviews with robotics teachers as well as robotics researchers and robotic engineers from around the world.

With the Christmas break coming up for many, it is the perfect time to write an article. All articles will be reviewed by a small panel of robotics teachers and educators.

Articles could be based around a variety of topics, including but not
limited to:
- Robotics in Junior / Middle / Senior School
- Robotics in remote areas
- Robotics with limited resources
- Classroom resource management
- Working with disadvantaged students
- Working with Gifted and talented students.
- Reviews of robotics resources
- Robotics and girls / boys
- Robotics and Text based languages
- Robotics competitions
- etc.

Have you done something amazing / unusual with robotics in your class?
We love to have an article about that as well.

Once compiled, it will be available for free as a pdf download to anyone who is interested.

Deadline - 31st of January
Length - Approximately 4 pages
Formatting - Single column
- Times New Roman 12pt
- As many photos / graphs as you wish
Attribution - Please let us know if you would like us to also acknowledge your school. Please also ensure any photographs of children have the relevant permission to be published on the internet.

Please seriously consider writing an article. This community (and many other teachers around the world) possess an amazing amount of knowledge that can benefit so many others out there in the field. The success of such a journal will be heavily dependent on contributions from the community.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

--
Damien Kee
www.domabotics.com

Amazon: NXT for $199US, Free Shipping

Here's the link for buying it. The rub is that it normally takes 5-9 days to receive the NXT after it ships. If you want it by Christmas, it may be better to apply the extra savings to expedited shipping.

NXT Santa and Rudolph

This Santa and Rudolph project was from last year, but I added a video recently. Merry Christmas everyone!

Crazy Legs

Here's a fun project that simulates walking without the challenge of keeping the robot balanced and upright.
Each leg is identical and is controlled by its own NXT. A leg starts off completely straight and when pivoted forward at the ankle, a touch sensor is activated which triggers a motor to bend the leg back at the knee and another motor to swing the leg forward at the hip. The process is repeated on both legs merely by leaning the robot forward so as to activate the touch sensor on the back ankle.

I was thinking that a possible improvement would be to suspend the walker along a pulley.

Eclipse plugin for leJOS NXJ

Version 0.7 of the leJOS NXJ Eclipse Plugin is available now. It supports the most recent version of leJOS NXJ, the Java platform for the NXT, on Windows (XP or Vista), MAC OSX and Linux.

With this plugin, you can use the popular Eclipse development platform for programming your NXT robots with Java.

Use Eclipse's Update Manager to install it from the remote update site as follows:

Name: leJOS NXJ (or whatever you like)
URL: http://lejos.sourceforge.net/tools/eclipse/plugin/nxj/

For configuration and usage, consult the leJOS NXJ topic in Eclipse's Help->Help contents view after installation.

Lesson Plans, Student Tutorials for NXC

Dr. Stephanie Ludi has composed an excellent series of tutorials and lessons plans on NXC. They're available here and here.

The lessons are targeted for grades 7-12 and assume no prior knowledge of programming in general or NXC in particular. They were underwritten in part by the National Science Foundation.

A Missing Manual

My current experience with outdated firmware and frustrating NXT-G programs reminds me that there are many things about the NXT I still don't know---and many more things new users don't know. Therefore, I would like to offer to organize and prepare a "Missing Manual" (a downloadable PDF file) for new NXT owners.

In this effort, I've set up a new topic in the general section of the Forum---Compiling a "Missing Manual". Please use it to suggest information which should be included in such a manual. Remember to include solutions---with illustrations, if possible.

Is the NXT really just a toy?

In my current effort to find a solution to a problem we had with my team's FLL robot, someone chose to remind me that the NXT is "just a toy". But I'm not so sure I agree with that view anymore---not when it is a required competition vehicle for thousands of FLL teams....not when schools are encouraged to spend thousands of hard-to-come-by dollars to use it in the classroom.

Don't get me wrong, I love the NXT, and "evangelize" for it everywhere I go; but what I'm not loving is LEGO's seeming lack of commitment and responsiveness to NXT owners. Even as a member of the MCP (MINDSTORMS Community Partners), nothing I've seen has changed that view. The primary reason I've stayed on the MCP (as the only woman, mother or non-professional scientist) is to speak up for "everyperson." But, I have to tell you, I don't think I'm making much headway.

For "rocket scientists" this may be just a toy, but for parents it's an expensive investment in their child's future. The corporation that invested thousands of dollars in kits for my local schools doesn't look at it as a toy. Yes, it's a fun way to stimulate interest in engineering---but that doesn't make it a toy. (And they don't want to see their HUGE investment in the team's travel turn to ashes because of an glitch in the system.)

If LEGO and LEGO Education didn't actively encourage its use in competition and education, they might be able to use the argument that it's just a toy, but even so, this mother doesn't think that's an excuse for ignoring the consumer.

Why can't I buy replacement or supplemental parts for NXT and TECHNIC kits? After two years on the MCP, I still don't know! Why does LEGO depend solely on volunteer advocates for problem solving?

I'd like to hear from the whole NXT community (not just the MCP). Is the NXT "just a toy?" Are you happy with LEGO support? Is it no big deal if a robot inexplicably fails during an FLL competition? Do anyone else feel taken for granted---or put down, for raising an issue or complaining?

JimK would like to add: As a former MDP and now MCP member, I have used the "it's a toy" argument before, but that was typically used to remind my colleagues that we should always keep in mind the major audience for the NXT - kids. It is a toy... and it isn't. It's an exceptional learning tool and we SHOULD speak up when it doesn't work as desired (meaning NXT-G or something as simple as a Touch Sensor). One of our jobs on this blog is to encourage discussion and point out the GOOD and the BAD in our favorite robotics kit. I'll join Fay in asking our readers to chime in here and talk about the NXT and its life-cycle - is it a mature product? Does it have problems? Where can the kit go from here? What can LEGO do to increase the success of the kit? When will we have micro-commerce (official, not BrickLink) for replacing not just electronics but that single, lost 15L beam? Where is Waldo? (Oops... wrong blog.)

More images from the MINDSTORMS 10th anniversary celebrations

Mike Brandl from Austria has visited the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of LEGO® MINDSTORMS in the LEGO® headquarters in Billund, Denmark, alongside with some other MCPs; he has published a lot of photos of the event in his web site.
Have a look and enjoy: there are many prominent robot members of the MINDSTORMS history to be seen.

NXT Battery Use Comparison

Here are test results comparing the life and power of two different battery types: the NXT rechargeable vs. conventional AA batteries.
(Your mileage may vary, as they say).

Which type do you use and why? Has anyone compared the life and power of AA rechargeables with non-rechargeable AAs?

Robot Inspiration Series #16: Dispensing Machine

This week's inspiration is to design a robotic candy or soda dispenser (or a whatever-you-want-dispenser). Can you make a robot that holds your candy/soda/snacks and dispenses them on demand? Such a robot can be as simple as a container with a door on it, or as complicated as something that requires coins or a password/secure card and drops items one-by-one onto an output tray while keeping the rest protected.

And of course, after accomplishing such an engineering feat, surely your mom wouldn't mind donating some... "contents"... for your robot, right? :)

-Jonathan

P.S. The rest of the posts in this series can be seen here.

FLL news - Guest Blog

From reader Max V:

Have you heard about the new First Lego League Open Championship?

The website is here: http://edoutreach.wpafb.af.mil/championship/index.html

The info from US First: http://www.usfirst.org/community/fll/content.aspx?id=11066


THANKS, Max!

2009 FLL Challenge Introduced!!

Transforming Transportation

Can FIRST LEGO League teams transform the way we look at transportation? The key to the 2009 “Smart Move” Challenge is accessing people, places, goods and services in the safest, most efficient way possible. In this journey, teams will consider many modes of transportation beyond their daily routine and streamline their options by making smart moves!

[link]

Anyone had this experience with NXT-G?

This past week, before our FLL competition, one of our FLL teams had a number of errors saving My Blocks.

At this weekend's competition, we experienced having a robot ignore the simplest of programs---rotate motor C 100 degrees. Instead, motors B and C both rotated forward 100 degrees, randomly. We coaches assumed the student had picked the wrong program; but after repeated demonstrations on the practice mat (between rounds) we were convinced that the error was not hers. (sometimes it worked correctly, other times it didn't.

Some NXT "experts" have never experienced these problems, but I'm hearing from others that some teachers have been reporting these errors. I'd appreciate hearing if you have experienced similar problems, so I can get some productive assistance (if it exists).

We are using new Dell laptops (Vista), purchased and managed by a computer professional from our sponsoring company. The software was a group license of NXT-G, purchased from LEGO Education in September 2008. (We own multiple copies, but used one on all of the computers.) Also, there were two teams using the same equipment. The other team did not have the same problem, but, of course, wrote different programs. (They used three My Blocks, while my team used seven My Blocks.)

MINDSTORMS' most famous quote

"We will do for robotics what iPod did for music."

If you're not familiar with this quote, it was apparently posted in numerous places at LEGO during the development of the MINDSTORMS NXT. It's a grand statement, so my question to you is this - has LEGO done it?

I'd like to point out that many students have now entered college/university (or will be shortly) who have had access to these kits. Whether they're choosing robotics as a career or not, it could be argued that having access to MINDSTORMS may have sparked an interest in math and science that will follow these students into their chosen careers.

The iPod has definitely shaken up the music world. I own one and have converted every CD I own so I can listen to them on my iPod. I continue to buy music from iTunes at 99-cents each. Yes, there are other products out there that play MP3 and other formats, but... I'll be honest here... the look of the iPod, combined with how easy it is to use, is what sold me. Can the same thing be said for the NXT?

Has the NXT (and RCX) done for robotics what the iPod has done for music? I think we can all agree that MINDSTORMS has definitely sold well and has achieved media attention (magazines, TV, newspapers) and contests such as FLL and FTC continue to introduce robotics to students, parents, and teachers around the world. Other kits exist - VEX comes to mind - but has any other robotics kit done more to increase interest and awareness of the field than MINDSTORMS?

Photos of the 10th Anniversary Mindstorms Event

Joe Meno has posted them here.

FLL Mission Overview Part 10 - Insulate a House, Ride a Bicycle, and Telecommute and Research

This is another three-in-one mission review.




Objective: Move each of the objects - insulation, bike, and computer - to the green grid area.

Point Worth: 10 points apiece.

Mission Location: Start somewhat scattered on the southern (bottom) half of the table; they need to be moved to the green grid area (the property around the house)

Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy

Time Length Rating: 3/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: Be careful of how small those things are, your robot might run over them! Also beware of the CO2 balls in the way.

Richard

Perfect FLL Runs

Tonight I heard that there have been quite a few perfect (400 point) competition scores at qualifying FLL events this weekend. This, I've got to see!

Does anyone have a video of their perfect run taken at an FLL qualifying event that they would be willing to share?

Fay

FLL Mission Overview Part 9 - Deliver the Ice Core Drilling Machine

Objective: Move the core drilling machine to the research area (bottom right corner). For additional points, raise the drill assembly.

Point Worth: 20 for moving the drill marchine to the research area. 10 more for raising the drill.

Mission Location: Starts top right corner. Needs to be moved to bottom right corner.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Time Length Rating: 5/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission is placed nicely in a corner, but on the other side of the table from the Base. This is a mission I can see having many solutions on how to move it: picking it up? pushing it? and how to get it into the research area: dragging it? pushing? And whether teams find a way to raise the drill or not. Rated 5/10 for time length because it's on the other side of the table, and medium difficulty for finding a way to move that drill.

Richard

AlphaRex's RoadTrip to City of Sails, New Zealand

As many of you would remember, as part of the 10 year celebration of LEGO MINDSTORMS, two AlphaRex robots set off in April 2008 starting with the Atlanta world Festival, USA.
Since them the two robots have been clocking up the frequent flyer points as they manage to travel around the world and meet really cool people and stunning places.

One of the two AlphaRex robots made it to Auckland, New Zealand this month and he just loves it here. Part 1 of his pictures just went up on the LEGO MINDSTORMS web site:


More pictures of AlphaRex coming soon to the LEGO MINDSTORMS web site .... In the mean time here is couple of pictures from the LEGO web site of the AlphaRex in Auckland city at lunch time:

NXT-G Ranked 37th In Popularity by TIOBE

TIOBE Software, the coding standards company, has just ranked NXT-G as the 37th most popular programming language in the world. (Click on the above graphic for an enlarged view of the rankings).

The methodology for their rankings is imprecise, to say the least. But it supposedly serves as an indicator of the increasing/decreasing popularity of particular languages. See a description of TIOBE's ranking methodology here.

See TIOBE's complete rankings here.

FLL: It's "Regionals" Time

Pictured above are the two FLL teams from Perry, Oklahoma, leaving today for their regional FLL event in Amarillo, Texas. As time allows, we'd like to hear from teams around the world as they progress to the finals.

Mystery Warehouse Resources

Teacher and NXT coach Jessica has been busy:

"I taught your Mystery Warehouse modules last Saturday and 17 kids had a blast. Kids came in from the Kansas City and Overland Park areas (3-4 hour drive) to attend. We did it on super high-speed (5 hours total); all the kids got the beginning of the story, then two teams of three each worked on the module pre-challenges and main challenge. For the last half-hour, the entire group began with Mod 1, recapped the story, explained and demonstrated the robot, went on the Mod 2, did the same, Mod 3, etc., finishing with the end of the story. While not perfect (there's never enough time for testing), it was a great success thanks to your creativity and ingenuity."

Jessica was kind enough to also provide a handful of documents she developed, including technical notes for each module as well as a summary of her experiences and suggestions for anyone else who might like to try and run these 3 challenges. A 55Kbyte zipped file can be downloaded here and contains 5 Word documents and 1 Excel spreadsheet.

I'd like to thank Jessica for providing these documents and her feedback - and I'd love to hear from any one else who tries out the challenges.

Mystery Warehouse Parts 1, 2, and 3 can be purchased directly from LEGO Education here or from The NXT Step storefront here. Each module provides a minimum of 2 Pre-Challenge activities that provide a basic understanding of a specialty sensor and 1 Main Challenge. Part 1 covers the Compass Sensor, Part 2 the Color Sensor, and Part 3 the Acceleration/Tilt Sensor.


MARS BASE COMMAND UPDATE: I appreciate the patience from all of you regarding the 2nd module in the series. As a freelance writer, I take paid writing assignments (book and other) when they come - the current economic situation has been bad for others, but for freelance writers, graphic artists, and other "creative" types, business booms in this type of economy. The downside to it is that I'm slightly overwhelmed with the amount of writing work I have at the moment - okay, not slightly... majorly! I have about 5-6 more hours of work on Mars Base Gamma and it'll be ready to go, but I need to finish a new book project (due Dec 15) before I can dedicate any time to Gamma. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

New York Times Article on the NXT and This Blog

The article is an introduction to the NXT and other robotics kits. The NXTStep Blog and the "NXT Idea Book" are mentioned within the article. Read it here.

FLL World Festival 09 Announcement

April 15-18, 2009 in Atlanta, GA, USA!

More info on the USFirst site.

NXT for Christmas? Don't forget the instructions!

You've heard the saying "Don't forget the batteries!" That saying certainly still applies, but if there is an NXT kit for someone on your Christmas/Holiday gift list, I would also encourage you to not forget the instructions! The LEGO NXT kit comes with minimal instructions, so by adding a book or a CD to your gift, you can open up many, many more doors for the recipient and provide for much more fun and enrichment. This is similar to "Don't forget the software" when buying a computer.

And if your special someone already has an NXT set, adding a CD or book can really help re-energize their existing NXT set, so a CD or book gift for them is a great value.

In my experience teaching hundreds of kids robotics over the years, and feedback from their parents, when the the kids are at home working on their own set, the majority of kids need some help with building instructions, and almost all kids need help with the programming. Providing the extra instructions with the gift (or after the gift) can really make the difference between that gift that gets used for a week, or one that gets used and grows with them for years.

For a CD guide with lots of building instructions and programs, take a look at:
50 Fun Projects for your LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, and for a great selection of books, take a look at this NXT Book List.

By buying one of these products, you are also helping to support the NXT community. I use the money from 50 Fun Projects for your LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT to donate to FIRST LEGO League teams and FLL in general, and for many of the authors of the NXT Books, book revenue allows them to put a dent into their day job to also spend time and resources providing help and information to the NXT community on the internet and in person. Thanks for your support!

You as a Minifig - Guest Blog

Scarlett D. sent over a link to a fun video - it's a nice little 60-second diversion. Try it out here.

NXT Monster Truck - Part 1

Have you ever picked up your NXT kit and decided to build just a robot with no sensors, no autonomy and pure fun?

That is what I did over the weekend. Inspired by a Monster Truck in the latest 'V' energy drink advert, I decided to build a remote controlled monster truck robot.
The picture on the left is the real remote controlled monster truck from the advert, and the one on the right is the NXT version !

The only thing the NXT is doing in the truck is to provide power to the motors and act as a Bluetooth receiver for my my mobile phone I was using to control the robot!


To get the real feel of a Monster truck, I used 4 TECHNIC tractor wheels, and 4 PF-XL motors. You can use the adopters available from the LEGO Shop @ Home to connect the 4 PF motors to the 2 motor ports. The second picture shows how the two left hand motors are connected to the same port in the NXT.

With 4 direct drive wheels, the vehicle can handle any terrain. The giant tractor wheels are amazing - it is great to watch it climb over rocks, mud and ride through long grass - that normal NXT robots struggle with.

Check out the video ...


In the coming weeks, I will be extending this vehicle with more autonomy, more features .....

Deals on NXT Sets?

Right now, LEGO sets are on Sale at Toys R Us---at least online. (I don't know how long the sale lasts.)

The Good News — Their offer is "Buy 1, get 1 half price".

The Bad News - The full price is $290!!!

In the end, if you want two sets, or can share they deal with someone else, you end up paying $217 for each of the two sets---which is an unusually-good discount.

Anyone know of other special deals right now?

FLL Mission Overview Part 8 - Fund Research or Corrective Action

Objective: Move the money (yellow ball) to the research area (the top left corner) or the research area (bottom right corner) so it's not touching any of the mat outside it.

Point Worth: 15

Mission Location: Ball starts near the house, somewhat in the top right corner. It needs to be move to the research area (top left corner) or the research area (bottom right corner).

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Time Length Rating: 4/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: Watch out for the house! Also - is it just me, or does the yellow ball roll more freely than the gray ones?

Richard

NXT Peg Sorter

This NXT Peg Sorter will sort long black NXT pegs from long gray pegs, into two separate bins. A conveyor feeds pegs down in a chute, then the light sensor is used to see the color of the peg as it is sliding down the chute, then a hitting arm hits the black pegs to the side while allowing gray pegs to fall straight down into the other side.

Here is a video of the machine in action:

There are simpler and more reliable ways to sort pegs, but with this project I wanted to do something similar to the way some modern high speed mechanical sorters work in factories. In some of these machines, the items are thrown quickly past a gap in the conveyor belt, where an optical sensor looks for rejects, and then air jets are used to knock the rejected items down through the gap into a reject bin, while the good items continue past the gap to the other side. The challenges are to quickly detect a reject and then to get the right timing between seeing the reject and pushing it out of the fast moving stream. An example is this machine for sorting vegetables (see also the video at the end of the page). Another example that is simpler and closer to how this peg sorter works is seen in this video of a colored pencil sorter.

In this NXT Peg Sorter, the gray pegs are the "good" pegs, and the black ones are the "bad" (e.g. burnt) ones that need to be rejected. The speed of this sorter is limited by how fast the hitting arm can recover after hitting one black peg (not nearly as fast as an air pressure jet can recover), but the rest of the machine is capable of sorting much faster. I didn't put that much time into designing a good hitting arm, so there is definitely room for improvement here. How fast can it get?

Gaze following robot

Here is another example of how the NXT can be so much more than just a toy. A group of researchers from Technical University of Denmark and the IT University of Copenhagen have built a robot that goes in the direction that you look.

Here's how it works; You sit in front of a computer that has sophisticated eye tracking software (that's right, it knows where you're looking!) It then sends commands via wifi to a robot that has it's own laptop. This laptop then calculates how much power needs to go the motors, and sends appropriate commands to the 2 NXT's onboard. These then drive the motors appropriately. A webcam connected to the laptop streams back video of where the robot is travelling.



I'm thinking it might be possible to bypass the onboard laptop completely, and have the main PC send commands directly to the NXT. You could then put on a cheap wireless video camera to give you the robot's point of view.

--
Damien Kee

NXT Plotter

This fantastic plotter uses the Eclipse development environment to process an image. It then send the information to the NXT via bluetooth, which is running lejos.

I quite like how it drives backward for each newline, as opposed to having a fixed workspace. In theory it could do whole banners (although I'm sure it would be quite slow :D )



More pics at http://www.xframe.com.br/printer/

--
Damien Kee

Happy Thanksgiving

For those celebrating today, Happy Thanksgiving!

Celebration of 10 years of LEGO® MINDSTORMS

You might have already noticed that LEGO® is celebrating 10 years of MINDSTORMS presently (not last by Alpha Rex's journey around the world): the first MINDSTORMS Set was launched in 1998.
On occasion of that, a celebration took place last week at LEGO®'s offices at Billund (Denmark) with lectures held, videos and models shown and a lot of persons taking part that played a key role with LEGO® MINDSTORMS. Amongst others, also a bunch of community members of the MCP program for the NXT were present.

Have a look at LEGO®'s announcement on the event.

AlphaRex's RoadTrip to Stockholm, Sweden

Alpha-Rex enjoyed Ice-skating in Stockholm.



Find out about his recent visit and view the picture album here.

Martyn

FLL: How Do You Practice at Home?

Some FLL teams face a challenge: how do individual team members practice at home without a mat?

FLL teams can purchase extra mats by buying additional field kits. However, these kits aren't available to individual teams after the registration period closes.

What creative ways do your team members use to practice at home?

New NXT Robot - Guest Blog

Alexandre writes:

I have just built a new version (only partially in Lego), aiming
at more serious goals (testing gaze-interaction to control electric
wheel-chairs). If you are interested, you can read about it on:
http://alexandre.alapetite.net/divers/robot/mobile-laptop2/

Click here to read more... and the first version can be found here.

FLL Mission Overview Part 7 - Construct Levees

Objective: Move levee blocks to shore while not damaging currently standing levees.

Point Worth: 5 points for each block touching red. 4 points for each block touching green. If the block touches both green and red, it counts for red, scoring 5 points.

Mission Location: North west (top left).

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Time Length Rating: 4/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This challenge seems easy, though if you score or not may depend on other factors such as the wheel from the Test Levees or simply a slight overturn from the robot.

Setup notes: 5 levees start in Base and 3 start at their positions on the shore centered in the outlines.

Richard

One-Kit Wonders on Amazon

The One-Kit Wonders book is now in stock on Amazon.com. If you have preordered the book there, you should have it soon. We appreciate it if you can review this book on that webpage, too.

AlphaRex's RoadTrip to Helsinki

Alpha-Rex enjoyed the nature in Finland.



Find out about his recent visit and view the picture album here.

Martyn

FLL Mission Overview Part 6 - Get People Together

Objective: Move 3 of a certain type of people to their respective areas; red/white citzens go to the pink grid area, blue/gray leaders touching the tall green mountain, and black/white scientists touching the research area.

Point Worth: 10 points for each group of people (consisting of 3 people each).

Mission Location: The pink grid area in the north-east, the tall green mountain on the south center side, and the research area inside the ice crater in the south-east corner.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy

Time Length Rating: 7/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: Another simple mission, but spread all across the board! This is another mission that can be simple strategized to save time and get points.

Refer to setup to see how they start: http://firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/game.aspx and for more information.

Richard

FLL Mission Overview Part 5 - Test Levees

Objective: Activate the wheel-roller so that wheel rolls out freely, regardless if the levees are hit or missed. However, if the wheel is strategically blocked so as to not hit the levees, this mission will not score.

Point Worth: 15 points.

Mission Location: In front of Base, slightly to the right.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy

Time Length Rating: 1/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: A very simple mission to perform, but can get in the way of other missions. Look out!

Richard

Control the NXT with a keyboard

I get a lot of emails from users who what to use the keyboard to control a robot. So I decided to write a (new) Bluetooth remote that will allow you to do just that. With the remote you can also select from a variety of different sensors and read it's value with a single press of a button. Download the remote from my website. Hope you Enjoy

Anders

Piano Playback Robot

A beginning attempt at piano playback. More details here.

NXT Using iPhone Accelerometer

The on-board camera makes for a fun video. More details here.

AlphaRex's RoadTrip to Montevideo and Rome

Alpha-Rex was walking on the nice beach of Montevideo.



Find out about his recent visit and view the picture album here.

The other Alpha-Rex went to Rome, Italy.



Find out about his recent visit and view the picture album here.


Martyn

leJOS NXJ 0.7

Version 0.7 of leJOS NXJ is out!
leJOS NXJ is a full-blown mature Open Source Java platform for the NXT with a Java Virtual Machine that runs directly on the brick.
The new release

"includes a Windows installer to make installation a breeze for new users (the compressed-file distribution is also still available). New features include better USB support, no more using a paper clip to upload firmware, faster garbage collection, three new GUI tools, a brand new Tutorial, support for many new sensors, bug fixes and much more."

There's also preliminary support for mobile phone remote control and Monte Carlo Localization.

It's decidedly worthwhile to have a look!

FLL Mission Overview Part 4 - Find Agreement (Align the Arrows)

Objective: Point both arrows in the same direction, no matter which direction it is or which robots contributed to it.

Point Worth: 40 points.

Mission Location: North (top) wall, 11 inches away from the absolute center of the wall. The model's base should be centered across BOTH tables' walls, where they meet.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Hard

Time Length Rating: 9/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This is possibly the most unique challenge this year. It is setup at the beginning of the match by the referee setting the arrows in a random direction, so that they are not pointing in the same way. Then, there is no gurantee that if you are able to complete the mission, the other team will not "uncomplete" it; in contrast, the other team may do the work for you. Also, the arrows are not particularly long, so that they overhang the wall very much. This will be quite the interesting mission to watch.

Richard

RoboCup Junior - Rescue (Australian Version)

We recently had our Australian Championships for RoboCup Junior. One of the divisions I'm heavily involved with is the rescue league. The robots need to navigate the maze of tiles to get to the 'chemical spill' (large green area). Once there, they need to 'rescue' the victim. (juniors just push it out, seniors have to lift it onto a platform).

The maze itself consists of a sequence of tiles, which are revealed to the participants just before each round. The sequence changes for each round and generally gets harder as the rounds go on. Plenty of NXT robots as well as RCX versions and a few hybrids and custom built robots.

This video was taken by one of our student referee helper over the two days.



--
Damien Kee

NXT Safe

From the description:

"This 6.5 Kilogram heavy weight SAFE has an electronic code lock. Five double-digit codes are required to open the lock. The (left-hand) dial is direction sensitive...(there are) 305 billion code combinations for unlocking the door!"

It also includes a motion alarm. More details are here.

Robot Inspiration Series #15: Radar/Mapping Robot

In the RIS days, it was hard to make a robot that could map out its surroundings using only LEGO's official parts, since there was no distance sensor like the US sensor. Now with the NXT, it can be a lot easier. This week's inspiration is to create a robot that can at least partially map out obstacles in its surroundings. For example, can your robot display a "map" of a room, showing where the obstacles are in it? If you wanted to take it even further, you could try to make the robot "store" the map in memory and then navigate around obstacles using the map (this might be pretty advanced, since you would need a system to tell the robot its position, so that it would know if it was getting near the position of an object on the map).

One very nice example of a radar robot was posted on the blog earlier, here. This robot spun around 360 degrees and mapped objects within a certain range, like radar. This method seems relatively easy, but has the drawback of only detecting one side of objects; it can't see how far back objects extend and it can't detect objects that are behind other objects. It also has a limited range. It would be ideal if you could get a robot to make a more complete map, showing whole objects. However, this I admit seems extremely hard to do... I haven't even been able to think of a system that would do this, much less design one. But, like the LEGO MINDSTORMS motto, the possibilities are endless!

-Jonathan

P.S. You can see other posts in this series here.

Lunar Robotics Challenge

Last week, the first Lunar Robotics Challenge took place on the vulcanic island of Teneriffa. The aim of that contest hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA) was to retrieve soil samples from a lunar-style terrestrial crater with a self-constructed robot rover in preparation for an eventual deployment on the Moon.

Eight teams from European universities took part; although no LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT robot was amongst the contestants, this event nevertheless is a nice showcase also for NXT robot builders on the challenges and actual problems a robot has to face even when trying to cope with such a task that looks simple at a first glance.

By the way, a German team from Bremen University finally won the contest.

FLL Mission Overview Part 3 - Elevate the House, Turn Off the Lights, and Open a Window

While these are actually three missions, they all revolve around one object: the House.

Elevate the House

Objective: Have the house elevated (and the lever is pointing east) at the end of the match, when the referees score the table.

Point Worth: 25 points.

Mission Location: Between the north-west (top right) corner and the center of the table.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Time Length Rating: 6/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission is a straightforward one. However, we have noticed that our house has some slop in the gears so that if you choose to elevate the house by rotating the lever, the robot will need to push fairly hard to fight all the slop. This may vary from table to table, but this is another simple thing to check before you run!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turn Off the Lights

Objective: Have the house window showing black. This is most easily done by hitting the lever on the most western side (to the right, away from Base).

Point Worth: 20 points.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium-easy

Time Length Rating: 5/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: Another straightforward challenge, but they had to put it all the way on the far end of the table! Also note that when you elevate the house, the lever to turn off the lights and everything else goes up with it.
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Open a Window

Objective: Have the house window all the way open. This is most easily done by rotating the rubber wheel counterclockwise.

Point Worth: 25 points.

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium-hard

Time Length Rating: 5/10

Unique Challenge Aspects: This slightly more difficult than the above, requiring the robot to find a way to rotate the black wheel - or find another means of opening the window. This too goes up when the house is elevated.

Good luck to all!

Richard