Farewell Crawler Crane!

The Crawler Crane Set 8288 has finaly been phased out of production here in the uk.
This is a sad day for me! I realy wanted this set, but it seams i shall have to buy it from somewhere else if i can find it.

If you know of anywhere that has any in stock, preferably in the UK, please get in contact.



Airkraft

PPS: Ping-Pong Shooter

This is a mobile, BlueTooth remote controlled robot. It has has a magazine of 7 ping-pong (table tennis) balls that it it will shoot if you press the bump sensor on the controller.

Now all I need is a 3rd NXT to fetch the projectiles!

--
NXTMonger

Brand New RFID sensor (codatex)

Lots of people have made RFID sensors for the NXT, but at last, there’s an “official” third party product. LEGO has announced yesterday an official partnership with Codatex producing the NXT RFID Sensor seen below. The package contains a sensor and two tags, with holes matching Technic pegs.

Features:

• Reads 125 kHZ transponders of type EM4102
• 5 bytes number, i.e. 240 combinations (i.e. 1.099.511.627.775 numbers)
• The reader has three modes of reading:
  • Single read
  • Continuous read
  • Stop
• Reading distance up to 3 cm depending on transponder size and orientation
• Transparent front cap with LED signal at detection of a transponder
• Auto power off for saving battery power
• Firmware upgrade feature for future enhancements (saving hardware cost)

The press release can be found HERE

Buy your NXT now!

The following is from LEGO:

"Purchase 8527 LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT and receive an exclusive set of free accessories. Set includes one 9843 Touch Sensor, one 9844 Light Sensor and one pack of 8 Energizer Lithium AA batteries – a $50 value! Limited quantities. Offer good while supplies last. One free accessories set per order."

See it here

They Are Coming... 2008

What is there to look forward to in 2008? well, let me give you a clue:

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" he said...



Read more HERE

Lego NXT Helicopter Simulator - ChopperBot

Too much caffeine today posted the video of his "ChopperBot". ChopperBot lets you "pilot" a helicopter on the end of a crane arm - forwards and backwards, up and down - all controlled with the touch sensor and the buttons on the NXT brick. Features include:

• No matter what altitude the helicopter is at, it is always level
• The helicopter's rotors turn due to the transmission of power up the arm

More info can be found at his website: http://www.way2muchcaffeine.blogspot.com/, as well as the .ldd file (when posted)

LEGO PF elements now avaliable at lego shop.com USA only though...

LEGO Shop-at-Home has updated their products recently. Perhaps most interesting there are some new PF elements among them, as well as the existing PF motors but you can now buy them on a "piece by piece" basis. It seems there is also a "hybrid" PF cable, that appear to function as both a PF extenssion cable as well as a cross-over cable to the older 9V system. The grand Technic Bulldozer may not be available... but at least now all the PF parts are (they've also been added to LEGO Digital Designer for that matter. It appears I need to browse S@H more often... and after I already put in my last order, too. Oh well, perhaps I need another order... For folks wanting new sensors, there's a lot of offerings at S@H as well: the standard four (US, light, sound, & touch), but also the Acceleration, IRSeeker, IRLink, Gyro, Color, & Compass sensor.

As posted by Brian Davis at http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/

Milton Keynes Lego Shop MINDSTORMS DISCOUNT!!

Today I went to Milton Keynes (England) to see if they had the crawler crane in stock(as legoshop.com had run out, and I think it has been discontinued), and to my suprise, they actually had a sale on, ON DECENT SETS! Not just their crappy stuff. Sadly there was no crawler crane, but they did have the TIE CRAWLER and BATMOBILE sets (both with LOTS of caterpillar tracks) for only £28! (normally £40) So I bought a Tie set, as well as a selection of technic beams and lift arms.

Then as i was leaving the shop, I noticed that ALL MINDSTORMS ACCESORIES WERE HALF PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Sadly, I had just spent all the christmas money I had brought with me, so I didnt get any. Hopefully when I go a week next tuesday, they will still have the discount. If not, i think i may have to eat myself.

I got two more points on my loyalty card today though, so that was good.

And so, the moral of this story children, is, IF YOU LIVE NEAR MILTON KEYNES IN ENGLAND, GO BUY SOME LEGO!

Merry Christmas by the way!

Airkraft-NXT

Theres Something...Christmassy about www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com

If you havent allready seen, why not visit my website. you may be in for a festive treat!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Brian Davis' LEGO DigiComp II

Ok. So strickly speaking, its not LEGO Mindstorms, but who cares. this thing is COOL!

MDP Brian Davis made his own LEGO version of a basic computer a few weeks ago and posted this video on youtube.

Brian set out to rebuild an old "marble logic" computer from LEGO, using various tidbits and plans from the internet, and so, DigiComp II was born.
The finished model weighs about 10 pounds, & uses 14 simple switches, 21 flip-flops, 8 half flip-flops, and a ball release mechanism.

As Brian said,

"There is no electronics involved at all here - only mechanical gates moved by falling balls. The only 'programming' that takes place is setting a few (mechanical!) switches before dropping the first ball. No IC, no batteries - pure mechanism."

More pictures of the components can be found in his Brickshelf gallery here.

Tilt-A-Ped - A line following biped by 222doc

A few weeks ago 222doc posted a video to youtube showing his Tilt-A-Ped. This was his entry at nxtasy#4.
Tilt-A-Ped is a weight shifting bi-ped that uses two light sensors to follow a black line.
The nxt brick shifts left to right and right to left, and at the point of inbalance it teeter-totters at the ankles, then one of the two leg motors rotate as needed.
The brick is modular, and can easily be removed.
Below is 222Docs video of it in action.


A few days later he posted another video showing Tilt-A-Ped's mechanical features overview

NEW Page on www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/airkraft-nxt

I have added a forum to my website for any questions or comments.
Any ideas for categories?
you can see the forum at: http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/forum.htm

P.s. I thought I'd use a different font today!

Steve Hassenplug- On Youtube!

A video appeared on youtube today, that shows Lego Mindstorms NXT MDP Steve Hassenplug talking about hisholonomic drive robot called Omni. Take a look:


WE finally see what he looks and sounds like!

The Next Lego Mindstorms NXTLog Building Challenge

What will it be!

we've had a summer one, a back to school one, a Halloween one, and a sumo one.

What now?
Maybe a Christmas one?
or a new years reserlution one?
or maybe even a calander one.

do YOU have any ideas?
Send me a comment with your ideas.

New Contributer!

Hello Everyone!
Airkraft nxt has invited me to join this blog, so here I am! My name is NXTMonger, and you can contact me at my other blog, NXTMonger's World, or by e-mail at nxtmonger@gmail.com.

Airkraft-nxt.webs.com

MY SITE HAS MOVED!
I have changed my site to:
http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com
now all I need to do is change all the links on all my other sites!

NEW Sensors Added To Lego Shop.co.uk

In the last few days lego have added two new Hi-Techninc Sensors to the UK version of Lego Shop.com
These sensors include:

Infrared Seeker- at £30.99

Gyroscopic Sensor- at £39.99

The Infrared Seeker can be used with the Lego P F sets along with the old Mindstorms RIS expand your robots capabilities. With it your robots will be able to detect infrared light sources and determine their direction and relative strength thanks to 5 infrared detectors arrayed at 60º intervals.


The Gyroscopic Sensor will let you build MINDSTORMS NXT robots that can detect rotation using a single axis gyro based on a quartz resonator. Accurate readings require the gyro sensor NXT-G block or use of another programming environment to read the raw value from the sensor.

Lego now sell 5 Hi-Technic sensors, each around £35. you can view them all HERE

New Version of LEGO Digital Designer Version 2.3 NOW WITH PF ELEMENTS

A new version of LEGO Digital Designer (Version 2.3) just been released. I am currently downloading it now. I am glad that the Power Function Elements have been added. Many-a-Mindstormer have been awaiting this.

As well as the P F elements, the new version also contains a few new box sets including the LEGO Creator 4957 Ferris Wheel and the 4958 Monster Dino.

As BluetoothKiwi Said,

"Thanks LEGO for listening. Now we can include PF motors in our NXT robotic models. It is a shame they still dont have the IR-Lnk though - you have to use a light sensor as a place holder until the IR-Link makes it to the pallette!"

You can download the latest version of Lego Digital Designer (Version 2.3) at www.ldd.lego.com

First of many posts!

OK This is it! My first of many blogs.
A few quick announcements to make:

I NEED HELP! if anyone would like to be contributor to my blog, SAY SO!!!

Any ideas of what to post blogs about eg videos, new robots ect TELL ME!

i am hoping to add a new blog at least every week, as well as some that the nxtstep.blogspot have posted

I will Leave you with a video of my NXT Rover