The StringThing uses one motor to spin a string. That’s it. Oh right: it spins it in a sine wave. Cool, huh?

Challenge #1 Pull That Weight
NXTCentral’s first challenge is now over!!! We sadly only had 3 entries for the challenge. Here are the rules for challenge #1:

I am challenging all builders to pull as much weight as you possibly can. This will test your creativity to build a robot that not only can pull a bunch of weight, but that looks like something that can actually pull it. Will it be like a tug boat, or a Locomotive? There is no limit on the amount of weight that you can pull. You must pull the weight 10 feet in the lowest amount of time.

The following are the people and their Robots who entered

• mini_man176 - The Tractor
• NXTMonger - TugBot II
• Snowblader13 - Loco the Puller

And the winner of NXTCentral Challenge #1 is:

NXTMonger With his TugBot II, He was able to pull 10.3 Pounds in 1 Minute 21 Seconds!!! Here is a pictures and video of his Bot:

Snowblader13 came in 2nd with 8 pounds pulled in 4 Minutes 15 Seconds. Here is a pictures and video of his Bot:

Mini_Man 176 came in 3rd pulling 3.3 pounds in 5 Minutes 36 Seconds. Here is a pictures of his Bot:

Please let me know if you have any more questions or want o see more photos about the robots.

Here is a really cool Bobcat that i found on you tube, it uses Lego pneumatics to control the lift and tip of the bucket. This is a really good example of how one can combine pneumatics and the NXT together. I wish there were more information on it so that it would be easier to replicate, or make improvements.

This is my first entry for the Earth Day Building Challenge: The NeXT Bus! It is one of the first robotic public buses, and possibly the first made out of LEGO.
So here is how it helps the Earth:
This bus uses the same amount of energy as a TriBot, right? Well, maybe a little more, but about the same. So what’s the point? I’ll tell you. This bus easily carries 8 minifigs, but these minifigures are traveling alone, so if they weren’t on this bus, they’d be in 8 different cars! So with this bus, you would be using approximately 1/8 of the energy that would have been used.
Admittedly it doesn’t look much like a real bus, but at least it is functional! It has rack-and-pinion steering like a real bus, windows etc.

Here is a pretty cool project that Sascha from Germany Sent me.

Here is the information from Sascha:

“This is the Lego NXT “4 In A Row” robot project.
This robot is able to play against you on itself.
He is independend of any computer, so the program - programmed with NXC - is running on the NXT brick.
The human player can choose the row while pushing the touch sensor as often as the row’s number. The computer decides on its own, which row would be the best for it.
This KI is working mainly on the MINIMAX algorithm. However the computer is not as hard as i want him to be, because of the less NXT Brick speed.
the algorithm works like that: The computer simulates the next 3 possible steps and gives any game situation a specific number of points. The Row with the most points will be the next computers choice.
The robot uses three NXT motors:
- one is moving the gameboard
- the second fixes the stones
- the third opens the gate”

I am challenging all builders to pull as much weight as you possibly can. This will test your creativity to build a robot that not only can pull a bunch of weight, but that looks like something that can actually pull it. Will it be like a tug boat, or a Locomotive? There is no limit on the amount of weight that you can pull.

The Course is as follows:

1. Move forward 5 feet

2. Turn 90 degrees

3. Move 2 feet Forward

4. Turn 90 degrees

5. Move Forward 5 feet

Download the rules Here

You MUST read this ‘Questions and Answers’ topic dedicated to challenge #1 frequently. Please ask any questions or concerns you have here. Any post by snowblader13 over this topic is ‘official’ as rules! However, any post by other member should be considered a recommendation at best, until I reply to the
question at hand.

This is a LEGO monorail I made that ferries Storm troopers over the ravine between… um … stoolistan and chairville. Hope you like it. The stop motion isn’t that great, but that might be because of my lack of any animation software. Still, I think it’s good! The music is by my friend Ben and his dad Mark.

-NXTMonger

Check this out!! This is a really good example of a robot playing instruments. From what I see it records what he drums and plays the beat back. How cool!!!

I recently discovered a great freeware CAD (Computer- Aided Design) program called Blender that I have been playing around with. It’s available for Windows and Mac. Here’s a screenshot of a snowman I made with it:

Admittedly it’s not a work of art but it’s my first project. I am hoping to make some LEGO parts at some point. Also, although it’s difficult, you can also do 3-D animation with Blender. I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m going to take a class based on blender, so hopefully, I’ll learn how to do it then.

–NXTMonger

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