FIRST promotion video

This is a nice video summarizing the idea behind FIRST. The video features actor Morgan Freeman, FIRST founder Dean Kamen and president Obama.

LabVIEW for LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT

National Instruments, the Texas-based manufacturer of the official programming environment for the NXT, based on NXT-G, has recently introduced LabVIEW for LEGO® MINDSTORMS.

LabVIEW is the the company’s professional LabVIEW graphical system design software and well established in the industry for controlling machines and robots; the new version for LEGO® MINDSTORMS is focused on the educational sector and is thus meant to be used with the Education version of the NXT set:

"Developed specifically for secondary school students to use with the LEGO Education robotics platform in classrooms or competitions, LabVIEW for LEGO MINDSTORMS is a teaching tool that helps students visually control and program MINDSTORMS NXT robots, while learning the same software used by scientists and engineers"

as the company states.

Consequently, the new programming platform well be sold exclusively  through LEGO Education and its authorised resellers.

Over The Edge: abusing "toy" hardware in new (wet) ways

Someday, the hardware police are going to come and take away my toys, citing me for criminal abuse. Until then, I'll continue to see what an NXT can handle... and what I can learn in the process.

On a recent trip to Niagara Falls, I was fascinated again with this huge, impressive natural feature. And thinking about the foolhardy souls that over the years have tried to survive going over the falls in a barrel, I did what was natural for me - thought about the NXT doing it. Of course, getting permission to throw something over Niagara Falls is unlikely to happen... and it's dangerous, and retrieving it would be extremely difficult. But I could certainly do some test runs... so was born the "NXT in a barrel".

I used an NXT slid into a 4" PVC pipe segment, sealed tightly at either end with removable closeout plugs. To keep it from bouncing around inside, I used a hot-wire cutter to shape foam "bulkheads" to support and lock the NXT into place within the tube, and attached a 50' line to retrieve it after. Then I went to a small local dam, started it, sealed it tightly, took a deep breath... and threw it over.

The NXT logged two sensors 30 times a second, a 3-axis accelerometer from Mindsensors, and the LEGO sound sensor. Above the dam it floated tranquilly, quietly, and approached the edge. During the fall, the sound level went up only a little, but the accelerometer clearly registered a freefall as it went over the edge. Then there's a sharp acceleration as the pipe hits the rocky bottom end-on, and the noise level suddenly spikes up, as water crashes down on top of the PVC pipe and the unit is tossed and turned at the sloped, rocky base of the falls. Then suddenly it quiets down, bouncing in the tailrace in the fast-moving water below the waterfall.

All in all, this gave me yet another chance to "live vicariously" and understand something that I have no (safe) way of experiencing myself. Could I scale this up? Certainly (& I'm planning to, in a couple of different ways). Could this be used as a teaching tool? Absolutely, in so many ways. Total cost beyond the NXT was maybe $15 total for the plumbing, and programming was very easy.

Niagara Falls it's not... but it's as close as most of us are likely to get. Now excuse me, I've got to find a bigger waterfall...

New NXT and PF parts?

TechnicBricks have found some very interesting pictures of (possibly) upcoming NXT and Power Function parts. Read their full post for more pictures. Given the look of this windmill, it seems to be an expansion pack from LEGO education, but perhaps the parts are useful for your own robots as well.

New Book: "Endangered Species NXT"

(Click above cover image to see it enlarged).



All building instructions and programs are full-color and high-resolution. The robots are:

NXT Sloth--slowly and smoothly slinks across a "branch" of your own choosing.

NXT Gorilla--"Knuckle walks" across the floor, just a like a real gorilla.

NXT Komodo Dragon--Slithers and "sidewinds" across the floor in snake-like fashion.

NXT Polar Bear--Walks on all fours, opens and closes its jaws, and roars

NXT "Poison Dart" Frog--Leaps up and forward into the air as it jumps across the room

Educational activities in math, literacy and critical thinking are included for teachers, students, FLLers and other groups and individuals.

All robots are built with the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT Set (#9797), plus the NXT Education Resource Set (#9648). In the near future, I'll post a list of parts needed for the book.

The Amazon link to the book is here.

Why the NXT isn't perfect

I've recently had several different people ask me about "flaws" and frustrations with the NXT - things that don't work the way they "should", or don't always work, etc. The canonical example, sure to be trotted out again this year, is the perpetual quest for grail of FLL: driving in a straight line (one aspect of dead reckoning). And I was wondering why I so rarely such frustrations.

I think this is a really important point: not just about the NXT, but life in general (especially with teaching). Real life is messy, unexpected, and constantly surprising - very often, if you expect perfection (in anything), you can end up frustrated. Especially for folks who are used to everything being pre-prepared, and exactly as advertised, every time.

That's not real life.

The NXT is in a rather unique spot. Billed and marketed as a toy, it's both far more and far less than that.

Far more in that it is, in every sense of the word, real engineering, and real robotics (as some of us have immense fun pointing out to "sheet metal" robotic hobbyists). And that means it has the same real-life problems. The world the NXT is interacting with is messy: specular reflections and saturation levels for color sensors, variable sound reflectivity and geometry for US sensors, uneven floors and variations in friction and surfaces for motors, sampling frequency for light sensors and sound sensors, etc.: the list goes on and on. Here is a product that unleashes an entire life-long (as some of us can attest to) world of learning and growing, because it makes no secret of being able to "cut it" in the real world.

It's also far "less" than a toy. It will work in unscripted ways. It will not always work the same way twice. It will challenge and puzzle the user, not passively entertain them. That's actually a problem, in that some people will get frustrated because, billed as a toy, they expect it to "just work".

I don't think, in my experience, you can have both of these constraints perfectly satisfied. And I don't expect them to be. NXT-G, for instance, makes some things very easy for the novice user... while frustrating the heck out of anybody who wants to take the NXT to a higher level (try trig... and no, tossing floats into the mix isn't the solution. Or arrays, a basic ability for any language, crippled in NXT-G). Having a color sensor that can selectively switch bright LEDs on and off looks great, but compromises in other ways on what the sensor can actually detect: color.

So which do you satisfy? Is it a flexible, messy real-world toolkit, or a safe, controlled, entertainment toy? I'd say you accept some compromises... while using the unique abilities to teach young minds. Making a kid (and some adults!) understand that the world is not simple, and that it doesn't work like a video game, is perhaps one of the most important lessons I think you can teach them. Too much in school ends up being "This Is The Answer", when often you later find out "this is an approximation, or a rule of thumb, or a good idea... but not an absolute truth".

That ability to be flexible, to find solutions to hard problems that no one has just given you a solution for, is something that I find really lacking in the people around me (both in grade school, where I help out, and even more so in college, where I actually teach). And the NXT is the ideal tool to work on these skills.

The next time you or your students complain about how the NXT "isn't working", or "isn't doing what it 'should'", you might want to realize that you've just been handed an amazing, rare, golden opportunity. Not the opportunity to "solve the problem", but something much more useful - to teach (or learn) how do find solutions to problems.

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Brian Davis

HiTechnic Experimenter's Kit A & Solderless Prototype Sensor Board

The wonderful folks over at HiTechnic have released a new offering that will interest electronics beginners, science teachers, and advanced tinkerers with a very cool way to play, learn, and create! HiTechnic's Experimenter's Kit A with the Solderless Phototype Sensor Board will enable you to go far beyond what LEGO has in mind for the NXT. The HiTechnic Experimenter's Kit A is a clean and easy way to integrate the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT with the world of homebrew electronics and circuits while keeping your NXT warranty intact. Crack into the potential of the NXT without cracking the NXT! Control something with the NXT...Have something control the NXT! Prototype the next big 3rd-party sensor! Bend the NXT, some circuits, and your mind!

HiTechnic has added The Experimenter's Kit Handbook…a fantastic guide full of detailed step-by-step projects teaching beginner electronics and sensor prototyping on the included Solderless Breadboard. This handbook provides a wonderful way for Mindstormers to learn about electronics and have fun at the same time. They have included enough components to build 8 experiment projects detailed in the Experimenter’s Kit Handbook, every one providing many different educational aspects of user electronics. Each chapter of the handbook explains how to identify the components, construct the project’s circuit, and run an example program. Programming examples and custom blocks for NXT-G, LabVIEW, NXC, and RobotC are available for each project.

The real treat is that this kit allows experimenters to design and build custom circuits and sensors to interact with the NXT through a normal cable connection. If you create something worth saving permanently, try their Solderable Prototype Board.

Take a Look! The Experimenter’s Kit A Handbook and sample programs are available for download here. Look through it and let the ideas flow! If you create something, send me some details and I'll post it to the blog.

I’m in the process of reviewing this kit and going beyond the kit projects by spinning it through a few of my own dark experiments and homebrews. In the coming months I’ll show off what’s being twisted in my own secret lab. (covert photo..)

Christopher R. Smith
Littlehorn

How to store LEGO in the classroom?

I often get asked what is the best way to store LEGO in a classroom environment. Jim's recent post is an excellent solution for the majority of people but may not suit a classroom, which often involves many kits and must be easy to secure / transport around various classrooms.

As part of the LEGO engineering mailing list, we asked the question "How do you store your LEGO kits?" and got a wide range of answers from teachers all over the world. I've collected all the different responses and turned it into a pdf that you can download from here - www.domabotics.com

If you are a teacher using robots in your classroom, how do you store your LEGO?

Edit: Dave Parker has another excellent method: "I use 12 gallon storage tubs with the built-in hinged lids, which are sturdy and stack well on the floor, or in a car/truck. For holding parts, these can hold two of the LEGO Education boxes (e.g. 9797 + 9648), each of which has the two sorting trays. Or for student kits and in-progress projects, they can hold one LEGO Ed box on the bottom with plenty of room on top for the robot and partially assembled stuff still protected inside the tub."

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Damien Kee

NASA Robotics Curriculm Resources

NASA have collated a enormous collection of Robotics activities to use in the classroom. Activities are designed for a variety of different age groups and abilities.

It looks like it has not been updated for a few years, and the majority of activities are designed for use with the older RCX, but there is no reason you couldn't modify them to suit the NXT.

If you're a teacher, have a look through a few (there are 300) and let us know in the comments which one is your favourite.

My favourite is "Junkyard Wars: Mechanical Monsters" Date Posted: 12.27.04
http://robotics.nasa.gov/rcc/general.php?ID=1218


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Damien Kee
www.domabotics.com

Robotics in Education eJournal

Just a quick reminder to all you teachers (and anyone else interested) that the deadline for submitting an article for our inaugural eJournal is this weekend.

- More details here -

If you have done a great project with robotics in your classroom, we would love to hear about it and be able to share it with the wider education community.

Submissions can be sent to me - info@domabotics.com

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Damien Kee

WeDo

I don’t normally blog about something without trying it out first. However, I could not resist this one:At last LEGO has released the WeDo range of products via the LEGO Education channel. 

Many of us here at TheNXTStep blog are very passionate about the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. However, we also work with the community and schools – and well aware of the challenges faced by educators when working with the NXT kits in a classroom type environment.

So the WeDo offering has a lot of significance to us. If you are involved with a school that has already invested in MINDSTORMS NXT, the WeDo kits are an excellent addition to leverage that investment even further. I personally think this is a fantastic learning aid for 7 – 15 year old school children – especially given we have three children of our own in this age range.

The activity pack (which can also be bought separate) allow children to explore four different themes – Amazing Mechanisms, Wild Animals, Play Soccer, and Adventure Stories... So kids can create simple machines, program models they design and create, measure time and distance etc. It comes with 12 activities (each lasting about 2 hours) together with Teacher notes and building instructions.

The question is, what is the most cost effective way to purchase this, if you are a school? Perhaps your LEGO Education rep can help you. I personally think the LEGO® Education WeDo™ Robotics – Getting Started Package is really perfect for an average sized class room (i.e. about 24 children) working in pairs:


What do you think? I especially want to hear from anyone working with children or anyone working in the Education sector.

BlueToothKiwi

WeDo robotics kit

I was lucky enough to have a close up look at the new WeDo robotics platform from LEGO Education. It is essentially a basic introduction to robotic concepts, aimed at younger kids (7-11 years old officially). As such, there are only a few robotic elements included; a motor, motion sensor and tilt sensor.

Control is done via the computer and a special USB hub which connects to the various elements. This means that it stays tethered to a computer permanently, but has the upside of not needing batteries. The software is extremely easy to use, and resembles a significantly stripped down version of NXT-G. There are blocks for making the motors move and blocks for interfacing to the sensors. Drag and drop allows you to quickly put together simple programs.

There are instructions for 12 different models out of the one kit, but just like all LEGO products, your imagination is the limit. LEGO Education are really pushing it as more than just 'robotics', encouraging kids to use their creation in stories to discuss and research other concepts.

Yes it is simplistic, but it is a great feeling to have something up and running within 10 minutes. I had an absolute blast playing with it all :)

More info here

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Damien Kee