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

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.

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.

Robot Inspiration Series #14: Remote Controlled Robot

This week's inspiration is to build a robot that can be controlled by a human. Although remote controlled robots may seem relatively easy to program and perhaps build, they don't have to be. Building and programming the remote control system can be a big challenge by itself. In addition, a robot that is remote controlled can still have many autonomous functions so that the driver doesn't have too many things to keep track of. For example, since I'm competing in FTC, a competition involving remote controlled robots part of the time, I'm constantly looking for ways to program my team's robot to either help the driver or take care of functions entirely so that the driver doesn't need to worry about it.

One fun application of remote controlled robots is a Battle Bots game, where multiple robots try to flip or disable their opponents. Once I made a remote controlled robot to battle with some of my siblings' Spybots. Racing is another possible application of remote controlled robots. If you have a wireless camera to attach to your robot, you could make a robotic explorer that would let you explore a room while sitting at your computer.

Some robots you can use for inspiration include my PC-Controlled Robot, Jim's remote controlled robot with camera goggles, and Philo's Spy Camera Rover along with his NXT Joystick. There's lots of others out there, and feel free to comment with any good ones you know of!

-Jonathan

Robot Inspiration Series #13: Robotic Game

After spending so much time building robots, wouldn't it be nice to sit back and play some games... with your NXT! This week's inspiration is to make a game using the NXT. This could be a video game using the NXT display screen and sensors/motors for controls, but it could also be a more mechanical robot, such as a pinball machine.

Some nice examples of robotic games include this Helicopter video game and this pinball machine. There's also a very extensive tutorial on making NXT video games here.

-Jonathan

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

Robot Inspiration Series #12: Lock and Load!

Although LEGO doesn't like to sell or support weapon-products, let's face it... robotic weapons are lots of fun! Besides the "imagination" factor, weapons can have "practical" uses as well. For example, two or more zamor-shooting, repeating rifles/pistols can make for a great LEGO "Paintball" match! (even if it is a little close-range :) )

You can make many different kinds of NXT weapons. Some ideas include crossbows, pistols, rifles, machine guns, catapults, and slingshots. Below are some resources that you might find helpful if you want to make one.

First, there's Forbidden LEGO by No Starch, which gives instructions for making some neat-looking LEGO weapons. Although it's not NXT-related, it looks like it would be easy to interface the models with the NXT. You can also get some great inspiration from the models.

Some current NXT weapons include my Beam Weapon (scroll down) and robots entered in NXTasy's "Throw Me!" Contest, such as Matthias' Dicke Bertha and Dicke Bertha Typ II.

-Jonathan

P.S. See other Robot Inspiration posts here.

Robot Inspiration Series #11: Robotic Butler

Although there are many robots called butlers (which usually make drinks), I'm using the term more loosely. In this case, I'm referring to robots that assist you in any way related to meals/eating. For example, can you make a robot shake salt and pepper on your food where, when, and how much you want? Maybe the robot can mix up a drink for you? How about setting your place when you're almost ready to eat? There are many possibilities for this category. You could even try to make a robot help prepare a meal or clean up from it.

One issue you may need to consider when making a butler robot is how to make it work with non-LEGO materials. For example, the robot might need to work with salt and pepper shakers, cups, utensils, etc. Since these objects' dimensions aren't made to work with LEGOs, you may need pieces that are pliable or elastic. Rubber pieces usually work well, such as the 1x2 rubber pieces that come with the retail kit. Tires can also come in handy.

-Jonathan

P.S. You can see other Robot Inspiration posts here.

Robot Inspiration Series #10: All-Terrain Autonomous Rovers

One of the first robots I tried to make without instructions, back in the RIS days, was an all-terrain autonomous rover. These robots are nice in that they don't have to be too hard to build or program, but they can have many challenges and thinking problems to overcome, and they can stimulate many creative ideas and designs. Although an all-terrain rover should technically be able to traverse any terrain, we're talking about NXT robots, so you might want to limit yourself to inside your house.

Since your robot needs to move around without you controlling it, you'll need to give it the capability to detect and respond to (or not be affected by) potentially problematic situations. Aside from the obvious one of walls and other simple obstacles, these may include:

- Steep dropoffs
- Short overhangs: sometimes a ledge or other object may block the top of your robot instead of the bottom. In this situation, a mechanism for detecting obstacles soley on the ground level would not be sufficient.
- Bumpy ground
- Steep ramps: sometimes the robot might go up a ramp that becomes so steep that the robot falls over. You'd need something that could detect this (for example, a touch sensor in the back that gets pressed if the robot tilts back too far)
- Obstacles in the back or on the sides of the robot: sometimes the robot might back up or turn into an obstacle (perhaps from avoiding an obstacle in the front). You'd need sensors to detect such objects.

One of the greatest difficulties I've found in building these robots is getting around the sensor and motor limitations. There can be so many things the robot needs to detect, but only four sensors and three motors are available per NXT Brick. You could try using multiple Bricks if you have them, or try to give each sensor multiple functions.

One way to make the robot travel is to simply make it move randomly while monitoring for problem situations and responding to them when they appear. If you wanted to go advanced, you might try to make the robot travel to a certain destination through terrain with random obstacles. Another idea would be to give the robot a task, like cleaning a floor, that it could do while moving around and avoiding obstacles.

-Jonathan

Robot Inspiration Series #9: Construction Bots

EDIT : You can see a robot that does this sort of thing here.

This week's inspiration is somewhat advanced: construction robots. Can you make a robot that builds something, on its own, out of LEGOs? It doesn't have to be another robot, or even something very complicated. You could have a robot build a wall, for example. Or you could have a pallet of pieces, arranged in the right order, that a robot selects and puts together on a workspace.

You can see some (very) elaborate examples of construction robots in the Aircraft Factory and Car Factory. Obviously, you probably wouldn't make something like this, but maybe a small, simpler, version would be possible.

Let us know if you make one!

-Jonathan

P.S. See other posts in this blog series here.