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It has to be said (since I had one previous run-in with the legal department of the LEGO company, but that's neither here nor there), that this page is in no way affiliated with the LEGO Company (Canada or otherwise) and is not endorsed by the aforementioned company.
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Whilst stumbling thru the 'net, I came across this page done by Mike Gasperi. It has many ideas to design your own sensors for the RCX. I built my first one the other day--an angle sensor. I used a 1 dollar POT from the local Radio Shack. It worked well until it broke. The axle was melted to the front of the pot at a slight angle which caused undue stress on the POT and it eventually snapped. I'll make a new one soon, though. |
| So I made another angle sensor, identical to the one above (though this time I melted the axle to the sensor a little straighter so this time there is no binding). Then I had to try this sensor in a drive/steer type vehicle, so here it is. The sensor worked remarkably well, though the output seems to work on an exponential basis, i.e. the sensor has a movement range from 0 to 180 degrees, 0 degrees being approximately 15, 90 degrees being around 710 and 180 degrees is close to 1000. So the output 'jumps from 15 to 600 rather quickly when you start to turn the sesor but then it levels off close to the end. |
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In the end, for my little program for the drive/steer car, I just figured out what the output for 90 degrees was. To the left of that outputted number is less than 90 degrees, to the right is greater than 90 degrees. Download the NQC program here to see what I'm talking about. |
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So I take the car over to Ricks and use the RCX Control Center and my laptop to remote control it (RCXCC has a built in virtual 'joystick' which sends signals to the RCX so no programming is necessary). Well, we played 'Cat and Mouse' with Noah, with my car as the mouse. That was fun for the whole family, let me tell you. |
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| I was watching TLC the other day. They devoted an 'Extreme Machines' episode to little programmable robots, from solar cell scooters smaller than your hand to the walking robot that Honda developed recently. Well, that got me thinking about making a quick little scooting robot. With the first attempt, I connected the wheels directly to the motor axle using the axle extenders. Well, sometimes a tire would come flying off... that's not too good. As well, the touch sensor design, while liiking rather 'insect-ish' (which was what I was going for), didn't work as well as I hoped. But it was a start. |
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Ahh, here it is! The Quick Caster Car! This one worked remarkably well. With very little weight on the caster, the car would turn very quickly, and the bumper system, as you may have noticed, is the one I use extensively. Hey, if it works well, use it!. The drive shaft for the tires are a little more secure--a tire has yet to fly off. See the NQC program here. Note the purple LEGO bricks! Now this is living on the edge. |
| Did a revamp of the Quick Caster--wanted more purple in it (old habits die hard). Also, used my proximity detector that uses the old style lights (see above). Even though the car is quick, the proximity detector works remarkably well, especially when the room is dark. |
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Started to design a marble sorter for the competition in Toronto in May. I tried to think of a tracked beast first (for I like tracked robots). See the ever so simple NQC program here |
| This is the preliminary design. I have lots of tank treads. It seems, however, that the company, in their esteemed wisdom, decided to make the treads a little differently. I have treads dating back 15 years and they are a bugger to take apart. Now, though, it seems that a stiff breeze can separate the new tread links I just received. Not so good! |
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Be that as it may, here's a multi-tread tank so if one tread happens to fall off, there are a few more to take up the slack. |
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