 | Isaac’s First Robot—The “Punching
Robot.” At three years old, my son Isaac might have been the
youngest person to construct a Lego MindStorms project. Although he calls it
a robot, it is more of a contraption than a real robot … [more]
|
| The TramBot—When my nephew Dave
Matheson (a veterinary grad student at Prince Edward Island) stopped in for
a day-long visit, we constructed a TramBot that ran on a string stretched
across an upstairs room with a light-activated set of “grabs”—perfect
for bombing runs. This was inspired by the “Bomber Fly” seen in assorted
Lego media. [more]
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| Ping-Pong Ball Shooting Robot. Right now (January 14, 2000—no photos
or details yet) our family
robotics project is a ping-pong ball shooting robot. Early prototyping is under way, with
lots of experimenting about what types of mechanisms work best for launching the ball. The
rest of the robot, which will be able to hunt and gather (or at least gather) ping-pong
balls, will be built around whichever launching design works best. Thanks to
the many people on the Lego Robotics Mailing List who contributed
suggestions.
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| My Lego Set Inventory is
complete.
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| Rack and Pinion Steering System—concept
completed (late 1999)—a mobile ’bot
using a rack-and-pinion type of steering mechanism.
This turned out to be much trickier than I expected; I ended up devoting a
couple of months of experimentation to get this to work reliably.
Interesting, I see the current project at the Lego MindStorms official site
is for a rack-and-pinion design.
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| Carl Jagt’s Rack and Pinion System—Carl
has modified and improved upon my design.
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| Simple Six-Legged Walker. This is for an older, unsophisticated 6-legged walker prototype. |
