Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots

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 ...

Nadie espera que la Inquisición Española! A new edition of the Hispabrick Magazine is out with more interviews with MCPs and the history of the MCP programme.  This time HM interviewed both John Hansen and Ralph Hempel, two guys who have been an MCP (and it predecessors) for more years than most. Another very cool article is the second installment ...

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 ...

I made a port of the ROBOTC driver to NXC.  The function calls are pretty much identical. The zip file includes the driver and a test program. You can download it here: [LINK].  Enjoy!

Dexter Industries have released their GPS sensor; it’s now available on sale for $105 US. It’s the world’s first GPS sensor specifically made for the NXT. I’ve had one of these beauties for a while now and it’s a lot of fun to play with.  You can read all about it on this page here: [LINK], which includes downloads of ...

Part Lego, part Arduino, part BoeBot, this is Frankenfollower. This robot was programmed in ROBOTC for Arduino, a port that is still in alpha stage of development but can be used quite nicely for programming the Arduino Duemilenova.  Other Arduino variants will be supported very soon. The Arduino port of ROBOTC has some really cool features: Easy to use sensor ...

The Rotocaster wheels have started rolling off the production line.  I was pleasantly surprised by their price, they’re really quite cheap.  They’re currently only available from the fine folks at Rotacaster but they’re very busy looking for additional distributors across the world. You can buy them individually for $21.45 (AUS) or as a four pack for a mere $72.60 (AUS).  ...

If you like ROBOTC and you like Arduino or you like ROBOTC and you have no idea what Arduino is –or- you like Arduino and have no idea what ROBOTC is, then you’ve come to the right place. The Robotics Academy is looking for a few good (wo)men who want to help take the new upcoming version of ROBOTC for ...

A new release of the Driver Suite has been uploaded to Source Forge. Changes: Added Dexter Industries GPS driver + test program Added Mindsensors Numeric Pad + test program Added new "driver" with statistical functions Changed HTGYROstartCal in HTGYRO-driver.h to do more sampling for calibration data HTRCXreadResp in HTRCX-driver.h now clears all of the response buffer Made all calls in ...