The Mindstorms NXT set comes with a variety of different connector pins, nine to be exact. In the new “studless” building method introduced in by the NXT, the pins are a vital component of every model you will build. Folks that are experienced with the set already know what each is used for, and are experts on their benefits and weakness. However people that are just getting into Legos or are haven’t used Technic sets frequently, may be confused as to what the differences are between the various connectors. This article will give a brief description of the pins, and what they are used for, and should be useful for new folks looking to understand a bit more how to build their own models.
Archive for October, 2006
Technic Pin’s
October 31st, 2006New HiTechnic Products Announced!
October 30th, 2006
HiTechnic, makers of the NXT compass sensor, have announced a number of new products. The first is a set of extra cables, which includes a nice long 34.5" one, as well as a 27.6", a 6.3" and a 4.75" cable. This would come in quite handy for many projects, and it's only $6.50, available now.
They also announced a color sensor, which will be available in late 2006. It's supposed to be "tuned" for the various standard LEGO colors, and should be a great boon to brick sorters, or line follower type bots. They also announced a 3-axis Accelerometer which should pave the way for a slew of Legway clones. It has a range of –2g to +2g, with a sampling rate of 100Hz and a sensitivity of .005g. No word on pricing yet, but it should be available in early 2007.
Lastly they also introduced a NXT prototype board. This board has a NXT connector on it and a bit of circuitry that should make it incredibly easy for anyone to make their own sensor. It provides a 3.3v, 5v, or 9v which should be great for running any off the shelf chips. The board has five analog, and six digital inputs, which should allow you to put a variety of sensors on a single board. They are saying early 2007 for this as well, also with no word on availability
NXT Parts Drawings
October 29th, 2006
There was a request over at the NXTStep to have drawings put up with the dimensions and angles of the various NXT bits. Since Carnegie Mellon was nice enough to give out some solid models of the various pieces I figured I'd spend a few minutes and put up some dimensioned drawings. I tried to only put the relevant dimensions on, with measurements in inches and millimeters. If there are some more parts that folks want or more dimensions added to the drawings feel free to send me an e-mail. Here are the three I've made up so far:
I'll add more as they are requested. As a disclaimer, I take no responsibility for the dimensions of the parts, however the ones I checked seemed fairly accurate.
Spike’s Video
October 27th, 2006{youtube}bQWQtI9Sgcw{/youtube}
Spike walks forward a bit lashes out and walks back. It's not a particularly impressive program, but what is impressive is the speed that his tail shoots out at. This was defintly my favorite model of the ones that were included with the NXT.
Spike’s finished
October 27th, 2006
I actualy built Spike a while ago, and forgot to post about him. His instructions are included on the Mindstorms NXT CD, and he's pretty easy to build. I was a bit dissiapointed that he doesn't actualy walk on his leg (instead there are little rubber nubs closer to the NXT brick that he walks on. However his tail is really cool, expialy how fast and far it fires out. The touch sensor on the end of it is an excellent addition, allowing Spike to know when he's hit something. As usual, I'll post a movie later of him walking around, and more pictures can be found in the Gallery.
» Read more: Spike’s finished
Time-Lapse video
October 26th, 2006{youtube}_vXDi836qcI{/youtube}Here's a short video I made of the parking lot outside my building as its getting dark. Its not particularly exciting, its more just a proof-of-concept sort of thing. To make the video I took the still images from the camera that were taken every 2 minutes and used Adobe Premiere to make them into a nice video.
» Read more: Time-Lapse video
Time-lapse Phtography
October 26th, 2006
I've long been intrested in coming up with a way to take time-lapsed movies with my camera. It's a Sony DSC-T9 and sadly Sony doesn't provide any software to control it via the PC. I also haven't been able to find any 3rd-party stuff, so I thought I had hit a dead end. That was until I bought my Lego Mindstorms NXT set and realized that I coudl build a simple little bot to turn on the camera, take a picture, and turn it off at various intervals. It was a bit more difficult to do than I had imagined, as the camera didn't line up nicely with the Legos. However after a bit of tinkering I manged it.
Now I can take a Time-Lapse movie of anythign I want, and can easily change the time between photographs from anywhere between 5 seconds, to as long as an hour or two. The only limitations are how long the NXT can last on the batteries. This could be asily solved using the Recharable battery, and the AC adapter though if I ever decide I need them. As is the batteries seem to last at least 12 hours, so its not really a problem. I did run into a problem intialy with the NXT shutting down after 10-minutes, however after a bit of searching I realized you can either adjust the sleep time, or put a block in the program to disable it automaticly.
This picture was taken with my phone, so please excuse the qualitly of it. The rest of the pictures can be seen in the Gallery. I'll post a time-lapse movie later.
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Lego Launcher 2.0, Movie
October 25th, 2006{youtube}YUJx5OsrlxY{/youtube}
The movie shows the shooter in action, the motors don't hae enough torque to be able to just start at 100%, so I start them slowly and ramp them up to full speed.
Lego Launcher 2.0, Shooter!
October 25th, 2006
This is the second version of the Blue Ball Launcher I'm working on for the nxtasy.org challenge. This one works in a similar fashion to a baseball thrower at the Batting cages, with two sets of wheels spinning at high speed that grab the ball and launch it. Sadly it currently can only manage about 60 inches. To increase that distance the speed of the wheels needs to be increased, and the only way to do that would be to add more motors. Since I only ahve the three motors that came with the NXT kit, I think I'm going to mvoe on from this design and try somethign else. More pictures can be found in the Gallery.
» Read more: Lego Launcher 2.0, Shooter!
Car movie
October 24th, 2006{youtube}MCE19ldqZr4{/youtube}
Here's a movie of the Car I mentioned in the previous post bumping around.
