Hi guys, I’m a new contributor and for my first post I’m going to post my latest project, “Lonesome George”. It’s named after a turtle on the Galapagos Islands. Lonesome George drives (not walks) forwards and backwards (but it doesn’t turn). Its shell is made of cardboard but it’s still entirely LEGO because the box is made by LEGO! When it sees something it will go into its shell and pull the ultrasonic sensor down.
I will post a program and LDD file soon.
Mini_Man176
Here is a great robot that my best friend Ben made, called the Netch-a-sketch. Well actually it’s the program that’s cool. As you may have guessed from the name, it is an NXT based etch-a-sketch. If you want to see it in action, download the program(Right Click and Save as to Download) I’d have included a video, but unfortunately you can’t take Screencasts with the NXT 
Here is a really good example of what you could do with one NXT Retail Set and no other parts or sensors needed. A Rubik’s Cube solver!!! It uses just the retail kit. It seems like a simple design but would be a complex program. The following is some specks on it:
Here is his website and a video of it in action.
http://tiltedtwister.com/index.html
(Edit) The Maker has added the LDD File and Program files on his site, so head on over there and build one for yourself.
I have finally got around to making the video for Dozer. It has been a while since I built this and I forgot how powerful it actually is. As you can see in the video it can shove around the large pile of bricks around with ease. It has a Little Bit of trouble driving over it because the plow is so heavy it tips forward a bit. Having the plow so heavy is a good thing because it helps scrape the ground and move alot of stuff around. There is also a couple of surprises in the video, I decided to try out how well the little Power Functions Tank I built, worked on all the legos. It did surprisingly well. I did not think the the new tracks would preform that well on legos but they worked great. The other little surprise is my dog made her first appearance in my videos.
End of FLL this year…End party, right? Well, we can’t just sit around talking! To celebrate this year’s great success in FLL, all our team members got together to have one more challenge: a sumo competition. Each team member got together with one other, and since we had 10 members, a total of 5 robots were created. Now, who won?
First place: The Bull
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Pipe Runner
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A big part of the robotic competitions is the outreach to the community in which a team participates, as well as the team’s expression of the FLL Core Values. Teams from around the world were given the opportunity to present their works in these areas for special consideration. Of all the teams that applied internationally, only twelve teams would be invited to compete at the FLL World Festival (April 17-18 in Atlanta, GA). The Fire Breathing Rubber Duckes from Village Home was one of those teams invited!The Duckies are the “sister” team from the co-op that our team went to. AND THEY ARE GOING TO WORLD FEST!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!
Here is a pair of Claws that I discovered on YouTube that I found very cool. These look like they work very well and are somewhat simple. I may try something like this for fun when I have one of mine taken apart.
I thought this is really cool. I do not know how many of you out there actually have an iPhone, but this would be really neat to have on one. It’s kind of like LDD from the looks of it. Here is a little information on the program:
“LEGO-touch for the iPhone will allow users to build virtual LEGO creations using a large catalog of basic building blocks.”
“Using the iPhone’s multi-touch display, you can easily grab blocks and assemble them into just about any shape you can imagine. A slick user interface lets you easily zoom in and rotate your designs, and easily apply any color in the spectrum to each of your blocks”
