Details: Those of you who have supported a Kickstarter project in the past may have recognized a project that showed up in yesterday's "Projects We Love" e-mail. "This Week in Kickstarter" featured PancakeBot, which I wrote about here in 2011 and spotlighted in advance of World Maker Faire 2012. For those of you just tuning in, this is a machine that can print pancakes with custom designs. The non-LEGO Kickstarter project is already well beyond the original funding goal, and will eventually be available for sale at $299 USD (you can still support the project on Kickstarter to get it at a lower price). Oddly, much of what's been written about the current Kickstarter project refers to 2013 as when the idea became the "working LEGO version" and 2014 as when the "First working prototype" was made. I was pretty impressed with the video from 2011, but perhaps a later LEGO version (that I can't seem to find with a quick search) was more reliable and is what they're now considering the "working" version.
There's been a considerable amount of hype around the Mindstorms line as a source of tomorrow's great inventions. This 'bot might be the first to actually go all the way from LEGO-based rapid prototyping to being a mass-produced product that people buy. If you can think of another one, let us know!
Details: To celebrate what would have been Alan Turing's 100th birthday, the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam ran an exhibition of his work and influence through October 6th, 2012. One of the more abstract ideas, the Turing Machine, was brought to life through LEGO Mindstorms for this exhibit.
If you want to build your own (perhaps with a longer tape), there aren't building instructions (although you can probably figure much of it out from the photos and video), but the full source code is on GitHub.
Details: Building artificial bones is a very time-consuming, tedious process. As explained in the video here, it requires dipping a sample into a mix of calcium and protein, rinsing it, and then dipping it into a mix of phosphate and protein. This process has to be done over and over again. Needing a quick way to automate the process, they turned to the education edition of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT kit. In something of a rare occurrence, the comments at the YouTube link above are actually helpful and explain more about how these robots were made. Most surprisingly, they were able to get the correct amount of precision out of the robots using the graphical language (NXT-G) that LEGO ships with the kit. Also explained in the comments: why there are three motors on robots that only have two degrees of motion (arm back/forth and winch up/down). Most impressively, one of the builders mentions that it was their first time using Mindstorms!
Details:
This "milling machine" is an unusual approach to the 3D Printer concept - instead of using an additive process that slowly stacks up, this machine uses a subtractive process by taking a block of floral foam and trimming it down. That "trimming" is actually even more interesting - a drill (the only non-LEGO component here) digs in over and over again, and the final shape of the printed object is only visible after using a vacuum cleaner to suck away the thick layer of floral foam dust.
Details: Perhaps a demonstration of a concept isn't terribly exciting, but this dry-run of a CNC machine is captivating. The use of a large Power Functions motor to drive the "drill" component is a smart choice, but not as clever as the use of a separate speed computer so that the user can keep close tabs on it. Thanks to that, you can add a manual form of precision to the precision already offered by the NXT motors. The possibilities for combining this with actual power tools (or some capable LEGO equivalent) are endless.
Since I'm sure it'll come up in the comments - yes, we have technically featured a sort of CNC machine before (Pancakes, anyone?), but that one worked by maneuvering the head on multiple axes. This one actually moves the platform for the x and y dimensions.
Details: Try wrapping your head around the mechanism behind this model. Using only two motors and a simple program, this robot can turn in place, avoid obstacles, and balance itself by shifting its center of gravity. The builder is intentionally not making it too obvious how it works, but I think it's possible to reverse engineer some of it. The "feet" actually spin, so the axles going down to them must be geared to power that feature. The shifting of the center of gravity could be worked in by providing extra friction somewhere in the gear train - conveniently, this design combines that with the task of lifting each foot to take steps.
Some of the clever parts of this design don't actually involve gearing at all. Putting the weight of the motors low in the legs makes the walking motion much easier on the gear train. The combination of a touch sensor and an ultrasonic sensor handles obstacle avoidance in a way that should be easy to program - and since the ultrasonic sensor is mounted loosely, it sways from side to side to allow for more thorough detection of obstacles. This is a masterpiece of showing how to get a variety of features out of very few sensors and motors.
A brief note about this "of the day" blog: It just hasn't been possible to post daily lately. Among other things, last minute plans to be at all four days of BrickFair have eaten up time that would normally be spent posting. We'll get back on schedule after we come back with a full report from the event.
Details: This 3-axis (well, two axes plus a batter squirter) CNC prints pancake batter. The batter lands directly onto a griddle. Full details are on the website linked to above. I'll let you watch instead of spoiling the video for you.
Details: I've previously mentioned this builder's Egg Printer, but he's since made many more variations on the concept. This particular one prints a map of the world onto a round ball using three felt-tip pens.
Details: You may have heard that the Microsoft Kinect is ripe for hackers to use as input device for various robotics projects. Here, we see it used to create a gestural interface for steering a tribot. The Kinect is connected to a computer over USB, and the computer in turn uses bluetooth to communicate with the NXT. From there, it's apparently rather straightforward to hook up any NXT-based feature you want.
Details: You may remember the first LEGO flexpicker robot built by today's builder a little over two years ago. While an excellent project, it wasn't the most realistic use of the technology - generally speaking, multiple delta robots are used together as part of an assembly line. Although that would be a mere quibble for most of us, it was reason enough for the builder to give it another go, applying various new techniques and algorithms to improve performance and reduce size compared to the original. A full description is at the site listed above.
Details: People have been using analog film with LEGO pieces to make pinhole cameras for years, but this is the first one I've seen that is controlled by a microprocessor. The description offered falls just short of full instructions - the complete source code (which includes such features as a film winding angle calculator and shutter speed calculator) is available to view or download. Since it tracks how much film is left, you never have to worry about exposing the rest of the film before you want to.
Details: This may be the most useful LEGO robot we've seen yet. This machine can sort LEGO pieces by shape and weight. As you can see in the video, a handful of pieces are pushed out of a reservoir of LEGO elements, and a pair of conveyor belts move the parts from there to a digital scale. The digital scale is in view of a webcam, along with the piece on it. OpenCV is used along with some custom software and a custom database of parts to identify the pieces. From there, another mechanism puts it into one of eight cups based on what type of piece it is.
According to the blog posts describing this, this is just the first iteration. I can't wait to see where this project ends up.
Housekeeping note: in the interest of not letting things get out of hand, we will not be taking the time to make up the week we just accidentally skipped. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Details: Over the past few months, the builders of this battle tank has been posting information about it in drips and drabs on the NXTStep blog. Things seem to have hit a point where this is worth featuring - in this (nearly 10 minute) video clip, we can see it maneuvered around through a remote control, firing at targets (using a guide laser), and using the NXT motors to power a full drive system (with working suspension). We'll update this post as more details come out, but for now the video above will have to suffice.
Details: If you've seen the LEGO Education Renewable Energy Add-On Set, you've probably wondered if the windmill blades could be used to propel something instead. As it turns out, they can! They work wonderfully for steering blimps. The video here includes some footage from LEGOWORLD Copenhagen, where a video camera was attached to the blimp. For some meta fun, see if you can spot the photography rover driving around on the ground. I'm really hoping that somewhere, there's footage from that NXT robot of this NXT robot in action. I'm also trying to determine if I can make my own before the next LEGO convention I go to.
Details: Here's an interesting idea for making LEGO robots at events more interactive - giving people an NXT-enhanced helmet that can control a robot playing a soccer-style game. Third-party sensors (gyro and acceleration) are used to track head movements. Commands are derived from there and then sent (over bluetooth) to the robots on the field.
The most impressive part? This was all done in the graphical programming language that ships with the NXT - none of this was done with traditional text-based programming languages.
Details: It's a common problem - outdated media that's become difficult to use taking up space. Transferring the content from a pile of floppy discs to a larger modern hard drive can be time-consuming, but if you have enough of them it may take less time to create a robot to make it for you. This machine makes use of an NXT kit, an android phone, a Linux-based laptop, and some Python code. The external floppy drive probably simplified the automation process (compared to using a drive built in to the laptop), but the basic idea looks easy enough to apply. Now if only we could send in our floppies to be archived...
Details: There are some things that we all know are possible, but that few of us have actually gone all-in on. For example, you probably could build a passable Mindstorms NXT soccer-playing robot - or a score-keeping robot, or a simple mechanism that returns a ball that's fallen off a court. Here, it's pushed over the top - a custom-built soccer competition table is automated with a ball-return and score counter, and manned by three additional NXT-based robots - an overhead skycam and two competing soccer players.
It also helps that the soccer players are actually pretty good. Third-party sensors are used to allow them to navigate to their side of the field (through RFID) and to seek out a blinking ball (through IR).
Details: Naturally, pretty much everyone who has heard of Google's "Android" platform has been disappointed that it's not even remotely related to the android-style robots it has taken its name from. Recently, they've been working on making it easier for robotics hobbyists to use the Android platform with various popular robotics platforms - including the NXT. Since these are text heavy already (and you can browse through the links above to read about this at whatever level of depth you'd like), I'll leave it at that - start browsing at the links above for the news on the new App Inventor and Cellbots for Android.
Details: It's early December, and you know what that means - the FIRST LEGO League teams are having their regional competitions. Here, we have a peek into the competitions held in Davenport, Iowa, USA. This year's challenge is called "Body Forward", which is health-themed. As always, we wish the best of luck to all of the teams.
Details: This spectacular and self-explanatory video has started making the rounds lately on tech blogs. It's a great idea that seems like it should have been tried sooner - taking a LegWay* and trying to use unusual (but more intuitive) devices to drive it. They try a cell phone before settling on a Wii Balance Board, which turns out to be just the thing to give you that SegWay experience - as long as you don't mind not going anywhere.
*: So apparently we've never actually blogged a "LegWay" before. The term is a portmanteau of "LEGO" and "SegWay", and is used to describe any LEGO-based robot that balances itself on two wheels. Some quick Googling turns up one of the earlier ones as Steve Hassenplug's design, but for some reason the photos on that page no longer load. Naturally, we should have covered that RCX-based robot first, but from what I gather nobody reads half the things I say and you're all here for the pictures anyway (so dedicating a whole "day" to a model only documented in text form probably wouldn't be a great move). The next step would then be the NXT-basedLegWays, which I honestly cannot find any good excuse for not having blogged previously. In a way, that's really the model of the day, since the actual LEGO construction here is similar to any other LegWay design using a HiTechnic Gyro.
Of course, a robot is only as good as its programming. Anyone could have built a LegWay and connected something else to it via BlueTooth, but the maker of the 'bot shown up above actually did.
is ripe for hackers to use as input device for various robotics projects. Here, we see it used to create a gestural interface for steering a tribot. The Kinect is connected to a computer over USB, and the computer in turn uses bluetooth to communicate with the NXT. From there, it's apparently rather straightforward to hook up any NXT-based feature you want.
. Since these are text heavy already (and you can browse through the links above to read about this at whatever level of depth you'd like), I'll leave it at that - start browsing at the links above for the news on the new App Inventor and Cellbots for Android. 
, which turns out to be just the thing to give you that 
experience - as long as you don't mind not going anywhere.
.
