BrickEngineer: LEGO Design

LEGO Engineering for LEGO NXT and Robot Enthusiasts

LEGO Mindstorms EV3: Hackable, Linux, Android and iOS!


LEGO Mindstorms, one of the best robotics kits, is about to get even better!

Earlier this month LEGO unveiled the new LEGO Mindstorms EV3 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas. As technology becomes more a part of us, LEGO Mindstorms is evolving to provide us greater connectivity to our creations.

Robot Snake

LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Robot Snake

Like its predecessors, LEGO Mindstorms EV3 will four motors and five sensors including a new infrared sensor that will enable the robot to track a remote control. The expanded brick employs an ARM 9 central processor that can access 64 MB of RAM and 16 MB of Flash. This results in more room for stored programs. The brick also comes equipped with an SD-slot that allows one to expand the memory further. With a new secure Bluetooth chip, the LEGO brick can now connect to the Android and iOS operating systems so that one can use a smart phone, an iPhone or an iPad to control the robot! There will also be a USB port that will allow connectivity via WiFi. This increase in connectivity will open up a world of new possibilities.

Hackers will be happy to hear that the operating system is a version of Linux for which LEGO will release detailed documentation as well as an SDK.

LEGO will release the Mindstorms EV3 to the public this summer.

Mars Curiosity Rover Made Entirely of LEGOs

In celebration of the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, on Mars, Doug Moran and Will Gorman of BattleBricks.com built a LEGO MINDSTORMS model of the Mars Curiosity Rover. The model was part of the Build the Future in Space event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The LEGO Curiosity Rover relies on 7 NXT Bricks running leJOS NXT. It employs 13 NXT Motors, two Power Function Motors, and 1000+ LEGO Bricks.

An article on the event can be found at inhabitat.com. There is also an article by the creators themselves at BattleBricks.com

LEGO Mars Curiosity Rover

LEGO Mars Curiosity Rover by Doug Moran and Will Gorman of BattleBricks

Here is a video of the rover in action!

Check out LEGOSpace.com to learn more about the long-awaited NASA-LEGO partnership. And be sure to check out what the real Curiosity Rover is experiencing on Mars!

Raspberry Pi: An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25

Move over LEGO brick!
Here comes Raspberry Pi, and it is going to change the face of robotics forever!

Raspberry Pi is Linux machine the size of a credit card. Plug in your television and a keyboard and you have a fully-functional computer for $25.
YES!!!
TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!!!

Layout of the Raspberry Pi ARM GNU/Linux Box Computer

Models:
There are two models, Model A and Model B.
Model A has 256MB RAM, 1 USB port and no Ethernet (network connection).
Model B has 256MB RAM, 2 USB ports and an Ethernet port.

Specs:
It relies on a System on a Chip (SoC). The particular SoC used is Broadcom BCM2835. The Broadcom BNC2835 is a High Definition 1080p Embedded Multimedia Applications Processor. It relies on the ARM1176 (ARM1176JZF-S) Processor which has a floating point processor and runs at 700 MHz. Moreover, the SoC has a Videocore 4 GPU, which is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. The Broadcom BNC2835 has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries. The GPU is capable of 1 Gpixel/s, 1.5 Gtexel/s or 24 GFLOPs of general purpose computing.

Size:
The Raspberry Pi is SMALL!
The card is slightly larger than 85.60 mm x 53.98 mm x 17 mm due to the fact that the SD card and connectors project over the edges. It weighs with a mass of 45g. The Raspberry Pi is low power and runs on 4 AA cells.

Programming:
Fedora, Debian and ArchLinux are supported and other distributions will be supported later. Python is the official educational language.

I cant wait to get my hands on one of these and begin interfacing directly with the LEGO motors and sensors!

A photograph of the Raspberry Pi

KnuthLab LEGO Exploration Rover

Image of KnuthLab Exploration Rover

KnuthLab Exploration Rover with Researchers A. Fischer and N. Malakar

The Knuth Cyberphysics Laboratory in the University at Albany Physics Department has developed the KnuthLab LEGO Exploration Rover, which acts as a testbed for robotic intelligence and navigation software. Development of this rover was funded by a NASA SBIR Award (Advanced Bayesian Methods for Lunar Surface Navigation) through Autonomous Exploration Inc. as well as a University at Albany Faculty Research Award (Developing Robotic Explorers, PI: K.H. Knuth).

The LEGO Exploration Rover is powered by six NXT Standard Motors in a Rocker-Bogie suspension system used in all of the NASA Mars rover designs. The rover is approximately 1.5 ft high with a 1 ft x 1.5 ft base. It is larger than the NASA Sojourner Rover, which was part of the Pathfinder Mission to Mars in 1997, and smaller than the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It can safely carry a payload of 8 pounds.

Image of KnuthLab LEGO Exploration Rover

KnuthLab LEGO Exploration Rover


The LEGO Exploration Rover has two laptop bays built into the box-like frame in which it can carry two Asus Eee Laptops for onboard processing. The wheels are controlled by two LEGO NXT bricks, which can communicate with the laptops via Bluetooth. The rocker-bogie suspension and low speed allows it to handle relatively rugged terrain and steep grades.

The white frame mounted on top of the rover is the Bayesian Vision-Based Navigation System being developed by Autonomous Exploration Inc. for NASA.

Check back, as we will be posting videos of its operation and discussing some of the important design features.

DIY Arduino Circuit

Jameco.com has an interesting article on how to build your own Arduino microcontroller circuit.

Image of a circuit board

The circuit relies on an ATMega328 microcontroller, and since it requires only component parts it is cheaper and has a potentially smaller footprint than the popular Arduino Boards.

We have started using Arduino microcontrollers to directly control the LEGO Motors (9842), and expect to post on this sometime in the near future. In the meantime check out posts on LEGO NXT motor control:

LEGO NXT Motor Wiring

Hacking the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Standard Motor

Naughty Nestor is Bent on Destruction

Some time ago, I invented this character Naughty Nestor.

Naught Nestor

Ready to Blow up some LEGO creations!

Nestor does not play well with others.
He doesn’t play well at all.
His favorite pastime is blowing up LEGO creations.

Here is an example of what Nestor is capable of.
This creation is called Stalker and it was created by Misterhaan.
But Stalker is being stalked!
Look out Stalker!
Look out for Nestor!

Look out Stalker! You are being stalked!

This animation was made using LDraw, POVRay and a Matlab script that generated a set of POVRay files each with the parts individually spinning and moving away from the blast center. Add a flash of light in a few images, and voila! Explosion!

You can find this video on Youtube as well at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pmz8soKdko.
Share it with your friends!

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