NXT Maze

This is NOT the right way to create a maze for your Mindstorms NXT robot. We tried the floor first, and stripped a nice bit of finish off in one spot. I wasn't willing to put tape on the new table so we tried the table cloth. As expected, every time the robot tried to make a turn the cloth bunched under the wheels. I could have taped the sides of the table down, but once again I was afraid to tape the table. So I promised Eryn I'd clean the back of the garage this weekend and we could turn the old Third District Nurses MNA board table into our robot table. You can't see it very well, but there's a green X at the end of the maze that marks the pressure plate.

First Robot - Plate Mover

So Grandma Madeline gave Eryn some money for educational software and we were having a difficult time deciding what sort of software we could possibly get given that she does most of her educational online by linking out from school sites. Perhaps language-based software was an option, but she can piggyback for free on my Rosetta subscription. We decided it was just enough money to buy a NXT 2.0 robot kit. An extravagance, but obviously within the bounds of software with a strong engineering educational angle (and we strive to be Klund-ish at every turn). We ordered the robot and a copy of The Mayan Adventure (tells stories around building five different robots), and by yesterday we had the robot complete and were working on the program today. We ran into a bit of a snafu because the software failed to show the control panel for the color sensor until I stopped and restarted it, but otherwise it's gone well and Eryn has done most of the building, the programming, and the renaming of the robot (it was originally the MazeRunner robot, but we had to fill out a description, task list, constraint list, and name, so she took the opportunity to rename it).

The goal is to get the robot to find a wall in front of it, turn right, find a colored edge (a pit), turn left, find a colored edge (a pit), turn right, find a wall, and then wait for 30 seconds for a pressure plate to trigger. Then do a 180 and do it all in reverse. We'll be putting up two walls of pop cans and blue painters tape on the floor to simulate the "trap". Although some of it feels like trial and error trying to get the exact amount of degrees of rotation necessary to turn the robot 90 degrees on a wood panel floor, Eryn is obviously learning quite a bit about sensors, why the robot is built the way it is, the programming, and even what a caster is used for (as a pivot point).

Grandpa John probably would have appreciated these when we were kids. A lot of fun. We'll post a video when it starts following instructions.

Plate Mover and the view from above, mostly looking at his intelligent brick. His balls (the caster) is under the plate on the bottom right.

From the back. Which seems like it would be the front. We have to program backward as forward to compensate which irritates Eryn, but seems to help her think outside strictly following instructions. We even talked about it while bicycling today, discussing that right wasn't right once you turned around - or it was, depending on how you looked at it.

From the side. The bars on top are just for visual effect. They don't serve any real purpose. Like a fin on a Saturn.

Bit wider picture. Lots of wires, but they can be replaced with much shorter ones in most cases, and this picture includes the cable to the computer because I can't quite figure out the bluetooth on the Mac.

From the front it looks a little like Wall-E. The orange teeth are also just an affectation. Eryn can't decide if she prefers them forward or facing down.

Robots

There are a few things they don't tell you about Legos Robot NXT 2.0 sets out of the box:

1.) if you have a newer copy of the MacIntosh OS (e.g. Snow Leopard) you should download a ruby program to prep the program install.

2.) Clear off a completely clear and very expansive surface as some of the pieces are small and it takes only moments to lose them. Afterwards, you'll worry the cat is playing with them, or the dog has eaten them.
3.) There are six batteries in the block. Not because it take six batteries to power the whole robot, but because there are two batteries for port a, two for port b, and two for port c. If two of your batteries are low on power, the robot works, but he's gimpy in one leg and spins in circles.
4.) It's ok to build a robot without your child around. She's excited to have one complete and be able to use the programming GUI to tell it to say "education goodbye" in a loop. Control flow as a basic logic structure, check.

Fortieth

Yesterday was my 40th birthday. I recommend to anyone who feels like they don't get enough birthday cheer that they sign up for Facebook and make sure their birthday is public knowledge. It was a good day. I skipped out of work to catch the 007 movie Quantum of Solace (I liked the last one better), eat free food, and hang with my brother and nephew who came over later in the day to drink beer and play Wii. Oliver (my nephew) bought me a special present, pictured below. A Star Wars battle droid and a card telling me happy birthday big guy. The battle droid has to sit down, because he has freakishly small feet compared to his torso. I think it's a sign that in the future it will be fashionable for the rich to own basically useless robots that mimic the Chinese practice of foot binding.



I think people feel sorry for you on your 40th, or else they're just happy you lived that long despite the stupid, life threatening details of your past, because I scored a few very nice presents. My entire family (sister's family, brother's family, in-laws, my family, and my parents) went in on buying me a complete set (everything but the two commemorative posters) of Cage Design MSP bike posters to hang on our extensive kitchen wall space. I only have the Stone Arch Bridge one at the house so far as the others are still being framed. They'll go nicely with my posters of the tour, poster from RAGBRAI, various bicycling statues, the "One Fucking Speed" triptych Pooteewheet created for me, and the wall art made out of old bike parts that a local artist is making for me.

And my parents also got me a Vista HCx handheld GPS to replace my old one. Now I can download queries of caches to install on my GPS and copy them onto the handheld with a USB cable instead of hand-entering the coordinates one at a time. It's also in color, uses many more satellites for better accuracy (and faster boot time - my old one took forever), and has road maps, so it's useful for finding your way around a big city if you're just on vacation. We tried it out on a few caches today.

Thank you to everyone for the well wishes and the gifts!