After Building a light box to take better photos out of PVC Pipe, I had a Bit of excess pipe laying around so I got to thinking, What if I could build something that could move along over a pipe with ease.

So that is when I got to thinking, I needed 8 wheels, 4 on each side so that it has enough traction to move along the pipe under a heavy load. After I had built the prototype I figured out that it was going to be difficult to power all of the wheels with just one motor.

At first I tried chains but found out that wouldn’t be strong enough, and would be very easy to do in the first place. This is mostly because the wheels on each half turn different directions.

To be able to get them to turn like this I was lucky enough that the distance was perfect so I could use the right amount of gears. To turn the wheels different directions as shown above. From what I had to work with I came up with this design:

When I was done getting the Moving part of things done, I worked on the lifting mechanism. After several attempts to get the perfect ratio on the gears from the motor to the drum where the string is wound onto I moved onto the pulley system.

After Building and testing Pipe Runner on the small Test piece of pipe I had and deciding that it would work good enough, I decided that I would then go ahead and build the pipe structure to be able to run on. I started simple, but then realized that I needed somthing more stable so i added more pipe to sections to make it stronger.

Due to the strength of the PVC pipe Pipe Runner is only able to lift about 5 Pounds. That is my only disappointment with it. If I ever decide to make another one similar I will either use metal pipe or enforce the current one. Other than the pipe not holding very much I believe that Pipe Runner Works very well and I like how it turned out.

I used the Mindsensors.com Sony Playstation 2 Controller interface to control it in the video. Programming anything to be extreamly accurate with string is very hard due to the string winding up on the spool different ways every time. Using the PS2 Sensor makes hooking very simple and easy.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with the Pipe Crawler at the Forum. Click Below:

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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”

This is the first creation that I have made that has rack and pinion steering. I wanted it to have all wheel drive but I don’t have the necessary parts to do it. All four rear wheels do turn and both have a differential drive. Overall I was disappointed in this project because it needs suspension and to be geared down. If it goes sideways up something the wheels just spin with the differential drive. It is way underpowered having a 1:1 ratio, it really needs a 3:1 ratio to be able to climb up anything. I will make something similar in the future that will hopefully be better and stronger.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with Truck #1 at the Forum. Click Below:

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I had originally built a Power Functions Version (Found Here) but I had to use the Power Functions parts for another creation, so I incorporated NXT components into it. Doing this was relatively easy because I tried to make the design very modular. The Power Functions turned out to be much more powerful than the NXT motors.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with NXT Quad Crawler at the Forum. Click Below:

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I originally built Brian Davis’s Clankers (Found Here), but I wanted something that could flip on other sides and keep moving. To achieve this i had to add on lengths to all sides to be able to have it large enough to flip over onto other sides. I had to buy 3 more snowmobiles so I would have enough of the tracks to be able to wrap around it. It actually worked extreamly well.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with Tri-Clank at the Forum. Click Below:

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When I originally built this I had intended making a land mine destroyer that I had seen on TV. It had two tracks in the front much like Treader and two wheels in the back kind of like casters. Up front it had a large blast chamber and chains that swing around to hit and detonate land mines.

As I was building I decided not to build a land mine destroyer but something that is small , compact and has alot of ground clearance. From what I wanted I came up with this design it is very sturdy and powerful. It can crawl right over large piles of legos with ease. The only downside to this design is that with the 26 tooth gears as hubs slip quite often but only when it is being strained.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with Treader at the Forum. Click Below:

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I designed this bot so it Has a very low profile design. I did this by having a four wheel drive platform that uses two motors. It can turn on a radius no bigger than itself. I kept it small enough so that I could use it to explore the heating ducts. I Came up with its name, because exploring heating ducts is like exploring mines or caves. I modified my spy Camera, that has infrared LEDs’ so that it can see where it is going in the ducts, so it would fit on the front of Miner.

I am planning on reconstructing Miner so that I can take Videos of it Exploring Ducts and other small places. Hopefully they will be up soon.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with Miner at the Forum. Click Below:

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This is a Dozer that I built to clean up all of my legos that get all over my floor. It also doubles as an excellent snowplow. You can use it to plow your driveway off from the comfort of your house. Dozer is compact and can plow anything you put in front of it. It can crawl right over a huge pile of legos with no problem. It uses the ps2 controller sensor mindsensors.com paired with a Pelican Nerf PS2 Controller to allow myself to control it with the precision that I need.

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This is one of my very first Creations with the NXT after building the original ones. I have created several other versions of this bots just like this one but I have settled with this design. It will pretty much go anywhere without tipping over forwards or backwards due to perfect weight distribution. Having the front of the track raised up a little it allows it to go over higher obstacles than it would with them Flat.

It has ths US Sensor mounted on the top, and the Touch Sensor in the middle with a bumper. All of the wires are conveniently contained in the back portion of the bot.

It uses mostly the parts that came with the NXT kit [8527] (except the tracks which came from the Exo-Force Defence Tank [7711])

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, improvements or if you need help with Tankenator at the Forum. Click Below:

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