Sensors

When you have a robot with a lot of bumper sensors, it is easy to run out of sensor ports.  Using the new Mindsensors TouchMUX this is no longer an issue.  You can connect up to 3 LEGO touch sensors to this device and with the help of a built-in small resistor network, you can easily tell which combination of touch ...

Gus Jansson of HiTechnic has written a nice article on how to use the HiTechnic EOPD sensor as a distance measuring sensor.  Ever wanted to know why the response of the EOPD is not linear? Gus does a great job of explaining it and how to calibrate your EOPD to give you maximum accuracy. Go check it out: [LINK].

Mindsensors are very busy working on their latest sensor, the Motor Multiplexer, also known as the NXTMMX. This compact MUX can control up to two motors and allows you to daisy chain up to 5 of these.  All of the bugs have been ironed out and I’m grateful to Mindsensors for having implemented some of my requested features.  The first ...

This NXC driver for the HiTechnic Sensor MUX has SMUX-equivalents of all the standard NXC functions for the supported sensors.  For example, to read the HiTechnic Colour Sensor without the SMUX, you’d use ReadSensorHTColor().  The SMUX version is called smuxReadSensorHTColor() and has pretty much the same arguments. I’ve also added some Doxygen-generated documentation to go with it and two examples, ...

The state of my desk pretty much represents what I am currently working on: In the middle is the Holit Data Systems motor-MUX.  That’s the big sensor with the 5 ports and the bright LEDs on it.  I am writing a ROBOTC driver for it. Just below that is the HiTechnic sensor-MUX, I’ve written an NXC driver for it that ...

I’ve been meaning to build something cool with the NXTCamV3 for a while now but never got around to it. I tried making the Omniwheel suitable for the NXTCam but unfortunately the wheels cause way too much vibration when the robot moves.  Oh well, in the not so distant future I hope to pick up a few of these babies: ...

After many weeks of fiddling and messing around, I’ve finally finished the first version of MergeBlob.  What is MergeBlob you ask?  It’s a modified firmware for the new Mindsensors NXTCam V3.  I added the following features: Calculate the size of all the tracked objects (this is not exposed to the user, yet) Merge objects if they are found to be ...

Philo has come up with another rather awesome NXT hack.  Using a Power Functions IR receiver, some additional components and a lot of creativity, he has made it possible to send up to 9 different combinations to the NXT using your PF remote.  For all the details and large pictures of how to achieve this feat, make sure you check ...

Gus from HiTechnic sent me a link to a very cool hockey robot he’s built, based on the Trike-base.  I know it’s not a puck, but it’s the thought that counts! Perhaps we should send a couple of them to Vancouver to help the Canadian team after their defeat last weekend!  Now put your hands on your cheeks, squeeze and ...

It seems a Ukrainian company has created a motor MUX for the Russian LEGO Mindstorms market.  From what I have been able to gather from the Google Translated page is that it has 3 motor ports and a pass through ability that allows you to daisy-chain up to 63 (!) of these things.  I can’t imagine trying to code for ...