Nxtprograms

[Edward]

Alexused a class-D amplifier, an old iPod box, and some parts from Radio Shack to create his own amplifier. He then hooked it up to some salvaged speakers he put in some cardboard boxes. It worked the first time.

We programmed an Adafruit NeoPixel Ring (16 elements) today with an Arduino Uno. These individually-addressable RGB LEDs are really bright.The capacitor is to guard against inrush current and the resistor on thedata line is to protect the first LED in the chain from voltage spikes.

Alex got this strange "energy stick" toy for Christmas 2013. Normally, when touching both ends with your fingers, the lights turn on brightly and the buzzer sounds loudly. However, he noticed that the lights will not go on and the buzzer will only sound weakly if a wire with no resistance is used to connect the metallic bands at the ends. It seems the circuit inside looks for resistance within a certain (large) range.

Putting a sliced grape in a microwave. We used 6 seconds. Probably should have put an upside down glass over the grape. Search YouTube for instructions. I'm not responsible for anything you do... After all, this creates a plasma inside your microwave.

Video: A simple line-following robot, using the Lego NXT color and light sensor and a simple pure proportional control algorithm that is calibrated automatically to the current light levels at program start-up. The robot spins once to find the lightest and darkest value and sets the set-point in the middle of the lightest and darkest value. It also calculates the "gain" before starting. Then it will follow the left part of the line. If a bend is too sharp, it can overshoot the line and spin around and may not regain the line -- or it may regain the line going in the other direction. I hope to improve on this in the future.

A catapult we built from directions at nxtprograms.com. It looks a bit different because we have the NXT 2.0 (+ some other Legos), the directions are for the 1.0 version, and the sets are not quite the same.

An authentic Shuttle heat-shield tile. It was very light. It felt fragile and there was tiny granules (silicon?) coming off of it as one handled it. This was another treat. More photos from this day are at Todd's Space Page.

A picture in the deactivated OV-95, in building 16 at JSC, the test "shuttle" that was used for avionics hardware and software testing. Before it flew on a flight shuttle, it was "flown" here first. Here is Alex aft of the payload bay bulkhead (i.e., aft of the payload bay). I think this is where the main engines and APUs (among other equipment) are on a flight shuttle. More photos from this day are at Todd's Space Page.

Express-Bot. Driving Base Step-by-Step Instructions. 1. Right Side. 11. The Express-Bot design may be freely used and redistributed. Design by www.nxtprograms.com . Express-Bot. Driving Base Step-by-Step Instructions. 2. Left Side. 11.

This is a fantastic website for selecting and building Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 Projects. Twenty four projects along with building and programming instructions all reside here! Some of the projects even include video footage of the vehicles and robots in action. The site also includes information on the difficulty of building each project as well as information on the challenge of programming each. This is a great site to begin.

While not as easy to navigate as nxtprograms.com, Lego Mindstorms' site has a host of projects and building instructions. You need to download instructions in order to each project. There are also project examples built by users of Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0. Click on the Project Choices on the left to look at a plethora of possible building projects. In fact, our first building project can be found here as well. This is the NXT 1.0 Project site. This is a great site for additional robots.

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