NXT

The Pneuma-Snatcher is a very ugly robot based on the very nice looking Snatcher, designed by Laurens Valk. I used the two valve kits that Mindsensors sent to me a week or so ago.  They work very well for controlling the pneumatic valves.  If you hook them up to the NXTServo controller, you end up with a very nice way ...

I made some updates to the line following program for the Rotacaster One-Kit Omniwheel robot.  This version 2.0 allows you to adjust the Gain and Power variables by turning the back wheels back and forth.  When you’re happy with the values, you can hit one of the bumpers and it’ll start the auto-calibration routine and attempt to follow the course ...

As I was building one of my previous omniwheel frames, I wondered if I could rebuild it using nothing more than the parts that came with an NXT 2.0 Retail kit and three Rotacaster omniwheels.  After a few hours I came up with this: Quite nice and a pretty stiff frame that doesn’t bend much. Please note that not all ...

Earlier this week I received another package from Rotacaster with some more wheels for me to test and play with.  These ones had new molded hubs, instead of the white 3D printed ones. The grip on the axles is much better now and they’re still working on making them even better. The wheels have three different durometers (hardness) and I’m ...

This is Apollo, the smallest NXT based line follower I’ve ever made.  It’s loosely based on A-Maze-Ing, which I designed and built quite a while ago. Apollo is equipped some pretty cool stuff: The new Mindsensors Numpad A Mindsensors LineLeader sensor Two Rotacaster wheels The program in this robot is based on the same one I wrote for the Mean ...

Want to control your NXT with your Android phone? Now you can!  This little beauty runs on all Android phones with Android 2.1 and higher.  It’s an official Lego program and it’s available on the market now.  Just scan the QR code on the right there and you could be controlling your shooter bot in less than 2 minutes from ...

This is my current project and the robot I’ll be taking to Lego World.  Tammy took these pictures for me.  Click on them to see a much bigger version. It has 2 Zamor canons, 4 Rotacaster wheels, HiTechnic Gyro and Acceleration Sensors and a Lego Sonar sensor. It’s programmed in ROBOTC. It’s a holonomic robot, meaning it can move in ...

My next project with the omniwheel is to have it react to bumping into things that it encounters on its journey.  I want to use the HiTechnic Accelerometer to do it, the Mindsensors one is currently being used in another project. I’ve been racking my brain for about 2 days now, analysing the data from the runs, trying to come ...

The “Minifig Vomit Mobile” is what my friend Marc-Andre called the omniwheel I took the video of.  I felt that in order for that name to be more accurate, I had to add a minifig to the robot, so here he is, on the left.  Unfortunately, this one has no internal organs, being a skeleton and all, so there is, ...

Literally. The omniwheel is capable of going in any direction you want, it can also rotate on the spot.  So I thought, why not combine the two and make it rotate and move?  After picking Brian Davis’ sizable brain about using a gyro as a means to calculate a heading, I tweaked my old program and came up with this. ...