WiFiCamBot
Jan 2008: WifiCamBot was one of my adventures in building a robot that could be remotely driven around while transmitting video via a live feed through an IP-based network camera wirelessly. The idea came from my wanting to do something simple. Survey underneath my deck to see what sort of critters etc were making a home there. The deck was high enough for a rover-like vehicle to fit and drive around. I did not want…
DynaTrax
December 2006: Sometimes my robot building ideas are spurred by nothing more than wanting to make use of one or more cool items that I get from time-to-time. In this case it's two - tread tracks that can be had if you own the Technic Snowmobile (8272) and a TechnoStuff Tilt/Accel Sensor. I was fortunate to have received a huge bag (a few hundred segments along with wheels) of the new tread tracks a while…
CT1
Feb 2007: CT1 was a quick build to test the HiTechnic Colour sensor that I recently received. Being the type that does not read the fine print that often, I had it in my mind that I would build a robot that could navigate around and rhyme off colours of objects that it "saw". It was not until I tested it that objects have to be within 10mm distance to get any sort of decent…
DominoBot NXT (ver1)
May 2006: Update: DominoBotNXT has been enhanced. See DominoBot2. For those who do not know about the Lego Mindstorms Developer Program (MDP), back in January of 2006 Lego was seeking assistance from the Lego community on their next generation Mindstorms product (NXT). Approx 9600 people applied to become one of the 100 MDP's. In late February, I received an invitation to participate and of course jump at the opportunity. For a few months, the group…
DominoBotNXT w/MotorMux
This page is dedicated to the further enhancements that I have done to DominoBotNXT. For more info on the original DominoBotNXT, have a look here. One of the drawbacks of the original was that due to the 3 motor limit, it had to backup to properly place dominos. This was because the domino-placing component was tied directly to the drive wheels. So, as it drove forward, a domino would make its way to being placed…
Climber
Climber - One day while browsing the LEGO Mindstorms site, I noticed some pictures about a show in Germany. LEGO had built 2 cool wall climbing robots to help market the product. I was amazed at the design and capabilities that they had and wanted to find out just how hard it would be to build something like this and have it actually work. It was quite a challenge. Building the components was the easy…
DominoBot 2
DominoBot 2 was my take on re-creating my original DominoBot. After I had finished the original, I found ways to make it more efficient and better at what the original did. I also did not have the limitations of the parts supplied with the RIS and UBS sets. One of the parts that needed re-designing was the mechanism used to force domino's out of the chamber. The original tended to have difficulties at times. I…
WallFollower
Wall Follower was one of those "proof-of-concepts" robots. The intent was to build something small and compact that was fast and versatile. Wall Follower can navigate around a room, on a table, in a maze, whatever. It is built from one of the basic robot platforms in the Mindstorms Contructopedia. Motion is done by 2 motors, each of which can steer by removing power to one. The main sensor is the DIRPD sensor (grey) mounted…
Spaz
Spaz is my take on the famous LegWay robot first built by Steve Hassenplug. The version here is not quite the same as Steve's, but more like the one built by Philo called "Yet Another LegWay". The difference being, I did not have the special distance sensors that LegWay uses. Instead, Philo built a version that uses the regular Lego light sensors. (more…)
RopeClimber
Rope Climber has been built for the rtlToronto Lego Robotics Event - Rope Climbing. In a nutshell - build a robot that can find and climb a rope. Sounds easy right? Not! In the tradition of rtlToronto, there are some interesting rules to make this more challenging. First off - the robot must fit within a 8x8x8 square on start. The trick - the rope is hanging 12 inches off the ground. The robot must…