NXTLOG Explorer Bot Challenge Winners!

The winners have been posted for the NXTLOG Explorer Bot Challenge! NXTLOG post:

"We challenged NXTLOGgers to create the NXT generation of MINDSTORMS NXT explorer robots. There were so many cool entries to this challenge which included all-terrain rovers that were vehicles and animals, robots that collect soil and rock samples, bots that can map the environment, and bots designed to interact with new species. There were so many exceptional entries, it made it tough to just pick a few to feature!"

 Here are the winners:

ALL TERRAIN EXPLORER
This award goes to the Explorer Bot that can shift modes to tackle all types of tough terrain.

Amphibious Explorerbot
Created by: NatoNX 

THE SPECIALIST
This award goes to the Explorer Bot that is the best in its field at exploring its specialty.

Mars Environment Explorer (ME2)
Created by: CyberStranger

THE STEALTH BOT
This award goes to the Explorer Bot that does its observations and explorations without being detected.

The Silent Cartographer
Created by: NXTesla

DATA MINE
This award goes to the Explorer Bot that best collects data.

Voyager Rover
Created by: Dinoguy7719 

Great job everyone! I was really impressed by a good number of the entries this month. The challenge seemed to be a fun one, and I wish I had time to enter. Go here to read more about the winners, and view the honorable mentions. Check back soon for details on the next contest, which will be posted here very soon after it is posted on the NXTLOG. 

Catching Up

So as you may have guessed from my surprising lack of posts in the past couple of months, I have been extremely busy. With what? Well for those of you who are thinking I devoted my whole summer to the NXT, that is a very good guess... but you're incorrect. I actually spent it mostly getting ahead in my studies, but I shouldn't go on about that- what you actually want to hear about is the time I did get in for LEGO. After the Ultimate LEGO Launcher I have been dreaming of incorporating physics into another project. Unfortunately I still haven't come up with something physics related to build yet. It might be better that I didn't think of something though, because they most likely would have taken up more time than I could have afforded during summer. Instead, I build two simple projects. Even though they aren't extremely awesome, I make it a goal of mine for all of my projects to be unique. They need to have some special feature or meaning about them, and that puts them on the list with all the others. Here they are:

Chlorine

Chlorine- a table cleaning robot, Chlorine was built for a nonofficial contest on the NXTLOG, and takes advantage of the fact that the entries require a limited starting dimension, yet can expand to any size during the round. Chlorine unfolds long arms at the beginning of the round, and they stretch all the way across the table. If you are interested in reading more about Chlorine and watching a video, please go here.

Tower of Terror

Tower of Terror- this project was special to me because I love going on/building amusement park rides, and I have been on this one quite a few times. I have great memories of the ride, and very much enjoyed recreating it and adding effects to the video. You can find more description and the video here.

NI LabVIEW for LEGO Mindstorms
I have also been busy learning how to program on NI LabVIEW for LEGO Mindstorms. The post below describes my experience so far, and I suggest reading it if you haven't already. 


News from the news section of the NXTLOG
Due to my lack of activity here, I have not posted a few of the most recent news articles. Please go here to catch up, if you feel like it.

NI LabVIEW for LEGO Mindstorms

I purchased LabVIEW- Education Edition half a year ago, but was unable to get it working property due to a few glitches, which I determined were partly my fault, partly my computer's fault, and partly the program's fault. Last week, to my surprised, I received an improved copy titled LabVIEW for LEGO Mindstorms. Inclosed was a note from LEGO Education calling me a "valued customer" and saying I get this new program free for having purchased the education edition a while back. I was thrilled, and immediately installed it. The installation was smooth and easy compared to the struggle I had with the education edition, and before I knew it I was updating the firmware on my NXT brick, watching extremely helpful videos for beginners, and completing my first challenge (all provided free with the program). So far it has been extremely fun. Would you like a review? Ok...

Would you recommend LabVIEW to a friend?
Very likely

Difficulty?
Any high school student (ages 14-18), should be able to successfully use it after some practice. Watching the informative videos and/or having a teacher with LabVIEW experience would be very helpful. It is a great step-up for teens who want to do something more complex with their NXT.

Do you think it is a good program for teachers to use with their students?
Yes, but the teacher should already have experience with the LabVIEW programming language. If you are a teacher and you are trying to decide whether or not to buy it, I suggest watching this video, this video, and checking this out.

How often do you think you will use LabVIEW in the future?
At least once a week. All of my NXT projects will use LabVIEW except those I am entering in NXTLOG contests (NXTLOG contests require you use NXT-G, the basic programming language that comes with the Mindstorms NXT).

What is you favorite feature so far?
I find it very helpful that they included trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, tangent, arctangent, Atan2), although I am yet to use them.

What feature have you used the most?
Well, so far it is the help button. :D I am only two days into the program though.

Is it worth the price?
That depends... I hear that professional programming languages are in the thousands, and this one is cheap compared. There are tons of features, and the possibilities are seemingly unlimited. For me it was worth it.

Any other questions? Ask me by clicking the comment button below this post. I will attempt to answer them, although I have only started to use the program so I'm not an expert. :-) And again, here is a link to the product.

Robot Ducks and Rats

This was posted in the news second of the Mindstorms website:

"We get to see many great LEGO MINDSTORMS models out in the world, and at the FIRST® LEGO League Open European Championship in Delft, the Netherlands we got to meet Anika, together with many other LEGO MINDSTORMS users, especially MCP members (MINDSTORMS Community Partners) and FLL teams from the whole world. It was some very exciting models that Anika had brought to show."

You may recognize the ducks and rat because they have been uploaded to the NXTLOG. In fact, they were even entered in the robotic pet competition that was held during summer of last year. The duck won the creative pet award! It was beautifully built, and is full scale. Here they are on the NXTLOG:

Duck
Rat

And don't forget to read more about Anika and her creations here(link)! :-)

My Entry

I recently finished my final entry for the Sensor Overload Challenge. Taking nearly a month and a half to complete, this project was complex. I call it the "Ultimate LEGO Launcher". As the name implies, it launches LEGO Bricks; however, this is a very smart LEGO Launcher, as it is programmed to calculate what angle it needs to launch the LEGO Brick in order to have it land in a LEGO box. It does this using a physics equation which I incorporated into the programming. I won't write a long description here because I already did in my entry... here is a link if you would like to read more about my Ultimate LEGO Launcher. There is also a video that you can watch there, so I highly recommend opening the link... Enjoy! :D

Join us for Testing in North Carolina

"If you own a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robot, if you live in the area of Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, and if you are willing to help us with some product testing, please join us!"

Read more here. I wish I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA...

The 15 global Google Science Fair finalists have now been announced

Posted in the news section of the Mindstorms website:

"The 15 finalist for the Google Science Fair have now been announced.

The finalists will be going to the Google Head Quarter on July 11 2011 for the finalist judging round and celebratory finalist event – learn more about the 15 finalists here.

The People's Choice Award Winner has also been announced, this was selected by public vote. The prize for the People's Choice Awards is a $10,000 scholarship.

Read more about the Google Science Fair, the finalist and the People’s Choice Award Winner on The Google Science Fair Blog.

Stay tuned for more news from the Google Science Fair final in July – the LEGO MINDSTORMS team will be there to give you exciting news and updates.

Play well,
The LEGO MINDSTORMS team"