UNV
April 2007: Your first question is probably "what does UNV stand for?". Well, its nothing special - I simply could not come up with a name for it, so what better way to tag it then simply unnamed vehicle. After receiving a bunch of the new tread links, I wanted to create something grand with them. Scouting the web, I came across these multi-purpose robots (see below) that can be outfitted for police / bomb…
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…
Reviews – Mindsensors Magnetic Compass
The folks at Mindsensors were kind enough to send me over this Magnetic Compass sensor to test. The sensor serves the useful task of providing the NXT with an indication of its heading angle from magnetic North to the NXT. It uses orthogonal two-axis magnetic sensor from Honeywell (HMC1052) and provides digital communication with NXT. Click the image below to see a video showing the compass in action. I did a brief test of this…
Reviews – Mindsensors MotorMux
After building my original
MicroBot
After I had success with my challenge to build a 1"x1"x1" NanoBot, I wanted to try my luck at something a little larger. MicroBot measures approx 2"x2"" and uses the same Atmel microcontroller and battery (see N anoBot details). The body was custom made from a larger piece of 4mm white PVC. MicroBot gets its' senses from 3 front mounted ProxDots (IR units) and a bottom mounted IR unit (for line following). This gives MicroBot…
NanoBot
While waiting for the NXT system to come out, I decided to try my luck at making tiny robots. While Googling, I stumbled across a Yahoo newsgroup for NanoBots based on the MegaBitty controller. I have always been interested in making compact Lego robots, but for obvious reasons, they can only be so small. So, I decided to try my luck and NanoBots. Although I am not sure of the exact definition of a NanoBot,…
Older Sites
My Old Site (2006-5 - 2009) My Old Site () The following is a snapshot of my old
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…