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:

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.

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 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 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!!!!

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!

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

They are:
1. LEGO Star Wars Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter (10215)
2. LEGO Cars Big Bentley (5828)
3. LEGO Star Wars Snow Trooper Army Pack (8084)
4. LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 (8547)
5. LEGO Star Wars Clone Trooper Battle Pack (7913)
6. LEGO City Police Helicopter (7741)
7. LEGO City Fire Truck (7239)
8. LEGO Green Building Plate (10? x 10?)
9. LEGO Harry Potter Quidditch Match (4737)
10. LEGO Architecture White House (21006)
11. Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon (7965) – 2011 Release
 

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)

Here are the MATLAB packages that I know of.  The first two are specifically geared toward the NXT; whereas the last is a general robotics package.

• LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Toolkit for MATLAB and Simulink
  http://www.mathworks.com/programs/mindstorms/
• Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB (Release 7.1) (P.I. Corke)
  http://petercorke.com/Robotics%20Toolbox.html
• RWTH Mindstorms NXT Toolbox for Matlab
  http://www.mindstorms.rwth-aachen.de/

See also quadrature encoder or rotary encoder at wikipedia and the LEGO NXT Hardware Developers Kit (LEGO NXT data sheets). Philo also has the pinout diagram on his page on deriving power from the Motor A port.

Additional details can be found in the excellent book Extreme NXT: Extending the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT to the Next Level (Technology in Action) by Michael Gasperi, Philippe E. Hurbain, and Isabelle L. Hurbain.

Additional details can be found in the excellent book Extreme NXT: Extending the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT to the Next Level (Technology in Action) by Michael Gasperi, Philippe E. Hurbain, and Isabelle L. Hurbain.