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 Tribute to the End of the Space Shuttle Era

Raul Oaida from Romania launched a LEGO Space Shuttle (LEGO Model 3367) aboard a 1600g meteo balloon filled with Helium and carrying a GoPro Hero HD camera and SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger. The Balloon and LEGO shuttle reached an altitude of 35000m (almost 115,000 feet or 21.7 miles)!

Enjoy the video:

Brilliant!!!
Congratulations!
Read more here:
http://microblade.blogspot.com/2012/03/2001-brick-odyssey.html

Here are links to the items Raul used:

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

Hacking the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Light Sensor

We are working on interfacing the LEGO sensors and motors to a compact lightweight computer for more sophisticated control.  Aret Carlsen brings us a video demonstrating how one can hack into the NXT Light Sensor:

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.

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