Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots

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: ...

I love days when I really feel like building something, you know that inspired feeling you get?  Today I started building at about 9am and didn’t come out of my Lego room all day except for dinner and lunch. I took some pictures of the unholy mess my desk was covered with. The first picture was taken after about an ...

This weekend I went over to my friend Martijn to hang out, play with Lego and fiddle with electronics. He’s been working on a top secret project of his and we experimented with a couple of options to try and get it working.  So far, so bad, though, so I guess there’s still work to be done.  The top secret ...

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 ...

For those interested in the Firgelli Linear Actuators, Mindsensors have started selling them as well now!  You can get the 50mm and the 100mm ones and they go for $50 and $55 respectively. Get them while they’re hot! You can find the Mindsensors product page here: [LINK].

My friend Ramacco finally completed his NXTfied Red Crane Truck.  After months of building, tearing it apart again and rebuilding, he’s finally done it. The end result really is amazing.  A job well done!

Yet another new version (1.3) of the ROBOTC driver suite awaits your download from the usual source. Changes for this version include: New additions: Codatex RFID sensor driver + 2 test programs (thanks Sylvain + Oliver) Lego Temp sensor + 2 test programs (thanks Sylvain) Firgelli Linear Actuator + test program Mindsensors Power Meter + test program Fixes: drivers/common.h: Added ...