BrickEngineer: LEGO Design

LEGO Engineering for LEGO NXT and Robot Enthusiasts

Arduino NXT Motor Shield


TKJ Electronics has released a LEGO NXT Servo Motor
shield for the Arduino
. This shield can interface with up to two NXT motors as well as the ultrasonic rangefinder. In addition to controlling motor speeds via pulse-width modulation, the shield reads the motor’s encoders so that it knows the position of the motor with a precision of 1 degree.

NXT Motor Shield

NXT Motor Shield for Arduino available from TJK Electronics

The NXT Motor Shield is discussed in the TJK Electronics Blog.
The NXT Motor Shield kit can be purchased at the TJK Electronics Store.

Extra NXT motors and Arduino units can be found here:

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.

KnuthLab LEGO Exploration Rover Featured on Japan’s NHK World Network

KnuthLab Exploration Rover Featured on NHK WorldNet

KnuthLab Exploration Rover Featured on NHK WorldNet

The Knuth Cyberphysics Laboratory focuses on studying the fundamental physics governing the processes of information-driven systems.

At present we are focused on two research projects. The first, which is funded by a NASA SBIR grant, aims to develop Bayesian vision-based navigation systems for future NASA missions. The second, which has been funded by NASA in the past, is focused on developing intelligent instrumentation in the forms of science platforms that can autonomously decide on and perform their own experiments. Both projects, which are focused mainly machine learning software, rely on robotic platforms that we construct out of LEGOs. LEGO bricks are prefabricated plastic parts that can be assembled and disassembled in a matter of hours. We have found them to be quite versatile and capable, as well as being inexpensive.

On Wednesday Sept. 12, 2012, the Knuth Cyberphysics Lab at the University at Albany was visited by a television crew from NHK
World Network (Japan Broadcasting Corp.). They were working on a piece focused on the Mars Curiosity rover and were interested how NASA missions fostered creativity in robotics. In our lab, they were specifically interested in the fact that we used LEGO robots to test software for funded NASA projects. The program aired in Japan on Sept 15, 2012.

Here is a link to the show’s website.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/worldnet/archives/year/detail20120915_202.html

Here is the photo caption from the website:
NASAは自由な発想で宇宙開発に挑むために、
あるユニークな方法を取り入れている。その方法とは、おもちゃにもなっているブロック。次世代の探査機を研究しているチームでは、ブロックを使いながら設計予想図のイメージを共有し、問題点を洗い出している。何度も手軽に作り直すことができ、自由な発想を形にしやすいのがブロックの強みだ。キュリオシティの開発でもブロックを使って検討作業を行った。研究開発の担当者は「ブロックを使うと、いいアイディアかそうでないかはすぐにわかるので方針転換も早くなる」と話す。

The Bing translation is:
Incorporating a unique way for free thinkers NASA challenge space development. How is block have become toys. Share the anticipated blueprint image team studies the next-generation spacecraft, while using the block and identify the problem. Easily can be recreated many times, easy and free thinking-is an advantage of the block. Using the block curiosity Inc. developed and went on. Research and development professionals “using blocks, a good idea? so readily detect if it isn’t policy change even faster” and speak.

The Knuth Cyberphysics Lab website can be found at:
http://cyberphysics.rit.albany.edu/
and
http://knuthlab.rit.albany.edu/

Learn more by checking out this related post”
http://www.brickengineer.com/pages/2012/01/06/knuthlab-lego-exploration-rover/

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

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

Danny – NXT Matlab Bluetooth Router

Daniele Benedettelli introduces a MATLAB-based NXC Bluetooth Router. This router relies on connecting a master NXT Brick to a computer via USB. This master NXT Brick then can communicate messages to up to three additional slave NXT Bricks up to a distance of 10 meters from the master. This software would allow one to create small swarms of up to three LEGO robots, which is a nice starting point for investigating distributed robotic systems.

MATLAB NXT Bluetooth Router

MATLAB NXT Bluetooth Router

The system relies on the RWTH – MINDSTORMS NXT Toolbox, the NXT Fantom Library, and John Hansen’s enhanced firmware.  The brick software is written in Not eXactly C (NXC), which requires Brick CC 3.3.

Daniele Benedettelli also has a book published titled Creating Cool MINDSTORMS NXT Robots (Technology in Action)

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