Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots

When I started up Lego Digital Designer (LDD) this morning, I was greeted with a popup telling me that a new version was out. 120 odd Megabytes downloaded and installed later, I was presented with a very slick looking UI. The thing I love about this version the most is the building instructions (BI).  It now breaks up the model ...

Ever wanted to make your NXT robot run along the bottom of a river?  If you can wait until March 2011 you’ll be able to do just that! Robotics Academy, the makers of ROBOTC, are developing a virtual environment where you can run your NXT robot without actually needing the set!  Isn’t that cool? They have a multi-stage plan to ...

Look what the mail man brought in today. This little beauty here to your right is a prototype of the new upcoming Mindsensors Numeric Pad.  It’s a very nice capacitance proximity detection based keypad meaning it can tell when you’re touching it without the need for actual switches.  That does mean that if you like to wear gloves while working ...

The HiTechnic Angle Sensor was released a few weeks ago and I’ve been eagerly awaiting a production version of it.  The wait is over now and of course the first thing that came to my mind was “I wonder what it looks like on the inside.” Gus from HiTechnic did mention that it uses a magnetic sensor to detect the ...

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 ...

For your testing pleasure, the Robotics Academy has released a new set of beta versions of ROBOTC for various platforms.  So go get your own copy for the NXT right here: [LINK]. Changelog: Fixed ROBOTC behaviour not to automatically disabled TETRIX motors in a low-voltage situation. Fixed incorrect “SizeOf” function. Disabled Bluetooth Debugging information in the “Debug Stream” Window. Fixed ...

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 ...

This baby had been announced prematurely at the beginning of this year when Lego Education accidentally ran its mouth in their catalogue.  Now it’s finally available to the public, the HiTechnic Angle Sensor. This thing is so ridiculously low friction when you turn it that you wouldn’t even know it was there.  With it you can measure the following: Absolute ...

Sadly, it looks like the forums on nxtasy.org have gone down for good.  Several attempts to contact the site owner have gone unanswered.  The hosting company, aplus.net, refuses to respond to inquiries or offers of payment from anyone other than the site owner.  In order to provide a more stable source for the kind of LEGO MINDSTORMS discussions that the ...

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 ...