Airkraft-NXT's Lego Mindstorms Blog

Help Advertise NXTGallery.com

2008-07-25T20:57:00.002+01:00

If you own a website, or a blog, and have visited NXTGallery, you can help by adding this advert to one of your pages:

These banners can be found at:
http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/banner1.swf (400x100)
http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/banner2.swf (160x500)
http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/banner3.swf (800x100)

and the code is here:

400x100

160x500

800x100

-Airkraft

They are here! 2008 Technic sets:

2008-07-04T19:58:00.000+01:00

The long awaited Technic sets (see below) have finally arrived on LEGO S@H

The guys over at TechnicBRICKs.blogspot also compared the prices of all these new sets for every country

		8293	8294	8295	8297
Austria	EUR	34,99	49,99	89,99	109,99
Belgium	EUR	34,99	51,99	82,99	109,99
Finland	EUR	33,95	69,95	99,95	121,95
France Metropolitan	EUR	34,99	59,99	79,99	109,99
Germany	EUR	34,99	49,99	89,99	109,99
Ireland	EUR	34,99	59,99	89,99	139,99
Italy	EUR	32,99	49,99	79,99	109,99
Luxembourg	EUR	34,99	51,99	82,99	121,95
Netherlands	EUR	34,99	51,99	82,99	109,99
Portugal	EUR	34,95	49,95	79,95	109,95
Spain	EUR	34,95	49,95	79,95	109,95
Denmark	DKK	249,75	499,00	799,00	899,00
Sweden	SEK	299,50	629,00	999,00	1.099,00
Switzerland	CHF	59,00	89,00	145,00	179,00
United Kingdom	GBP	24,99	39,99	59,99	89,99
Australia	AUD	49,99	79,99	129,99	179,99
New Zealand	NZD	49,99	99,99	149,99	199,99
Canada	CAD	39,99	74,99	109,99	149,99
United States	USA	29,99	59,99	89,99	119,99

I also noticed that Lego UK have lowered their prices for the snowmobile by £6 and the tractor by £12. looks like im going to be spending my birthday money after all!

Follow the LEGO Brick Road Van Tour

2008-06-11T21:25:00.003+01:00

Not strictly Mindstorms, but still lego, and British Lego at that!:

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the LEGO Brick, visit the Follow the LEGO Brick Road Van Tour which is travelling across the UK from May to October 2008. Visit the tour and you can:

• Build part of a giant LEGO Mosaic!
• Visit a historic LEGO exhibition with toys from the last 50 years!
• Guess your height in LEGO bricks!
• Build some LEGO models!
• Enter cool competitions!
• Buy some hard to find LEGO items with 50% of proceeds going to support the LEGO official charity, the National Autistic Society!

You can visit the tour at the following locations on the dates shown.

LEGOLAND Windsor
2nd - 5th May
www.legoland.co.uk or 0871 2222 001

Urdd Eisteddfod, Wales
26th - 31st May
0845 2571 613

East of England Country Show, Peterborough
13th - 15th June
01733 234451

West End Live, London
21st - 22nd June
020 7641 3973

Farnborough Air Show, Farnborough, Hampshire
19th - 20th July
01252 532 800

Fringe Sunday, Edinburgh
10th August
0131 226 0026

Centre MK, Milton Keynes
16th - 24th August
0870 890 2530

Center Parcs, Whinfell, Cumbria
22nd July and 9th August
08448 267 723

Center Parcs, Sherwood, Nottinghamshire
24th July and 26th August
08448 267 723

Center Parcs, Elveden, Norfolk
27th July and 28th August
08448 267 723

Center Parcs, Longleat, Wilshire
29th July and 31st August
08448 267 723

Regent Street Festival, London
3rd September
020 7152 5854

You can read more about this HERE

Maker Faire 2008

2008-05-10T18:24:00.001+01:00

I'm back from the Maker Faire! It was really fun, and I hope I can make it next year.
Anyways, I took some photos and movie clips there, and iMovie'd together a slideshow/video. It's mostly about the LEGO exhibit, but there is a bit of other stuff too.
Note: This does not cover the whole Maker Faire! There is way, way more than this. But most of the time I was looking at stuff and forgetting to take pictures, so this is what I have.

2008-04-24T07:50:00.003+01:00

I thought that this site needed some new content, so I have recently become a member to Airkraft-NXTs blog, and Airkraft-NXT to mine. Lets hope there are many more posts and topics here,

RjbsNXT
rjbsnxt.blogspot.com

Golden Lego Bricks

2008-04-07T19:45:00.000+01:00

As we all know, Lego turns 50 this year and to celebrate they've produced a bunch of "gold" bricks as a free gift with purchase of over $50.

The new set, "Town Plan" also includes three 2 by 2 golden bricks as well as a letter from company owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, who appeared on the original town plan box when he was much younger and returns on this one.

They've also produced a nice little anniversary site with a historical overview of their products.

You can read more about this on the Lego site

-Airkraft

NXTlog Biped Building Challenge

2008-03-09T19:26:00.000Z

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXTLOG:
These robots are made for walkin'
Alpha Rex can't be the only biped you'll ever make, so we're asking you to create the NXT two legged walker! Bipeds are said to be the most difficult robot to make, but we know NXTLOGgers are up for the challenge!

All entries to NXTLOG fall under the Terms of Service
Entries must be submitted from Saturday March 1, 2008 - Monday March 31, 2008
All entries must be tagged "NXT200803"
Only LEGO elements may be used.

And of course all the other NXTLOG Challenge rules apply.

Lots of us have made bipeds, adn now is our chance to show them who's best!

Read More about thihs building challenge HERE

Forklift

2008-03-08T06:10:00.002Z

Here's a great new project I just made: a forklift!

Two New Mindstorms Websites

2008-02-14T19:04:00.005Z

I have reently been invited to join two new Lego Mindstorms NXT websites as a contributer and moderator.
These two websites are:

Travis' TeamNXT and Snowblader13's NXTCentral

TeamNXT has a Blog and a Forum

NXT Central also has a blog and a forum

Both Sites have great potential, and great contributers. We hope to be keeping all you mindstormers out there informed of events, shop offers, new videos, and just about anything else NXT from all over the world.

Airkraft-NXT

RealCar III

2008-02-04T01:45:00.000Z

Here is the third incarnation of my rack&pinion cars...
See the other cars here.

This one can even be picked up without being dropped!

NXT Dot Matrix Printer?!?

2008-02-03T11:45:00.001Z

I have just watched a video on youtube that shows a NXT robot using a felt tip pen to print a dot matrix (?) type image. The Video is called Lego Mindstorm, and the description is

113b Robot

Here is the video

Does Anyone have any information about this robot? it seems really cool
If you want to you can follow up this topic on my forum:
http://airkraft-nxt.forumotion.com/open-discussion-f1/video-with-no-info-nxt-dot-matrix-printer-maybe-t19.htm
Air

Farewell Crawler Crane!

2008-02-02T10:51:00.000Z

The Crawler Crane Set 8288 has finaly been phased out of production here in the uk.
This is a sad day for me! I realy wanted this set, but it seams i shall have to buy it from somewhere else if i can find it.

If you know of anywhere that has any in stock, preferably in the UK, please get in contact.

Airkraft

PPS: Ping-Pong Shooter

2008-02-01T03:41:00.000Z

This is a mobile, BlueTooth remote controlled robot. It has has a magazine of 7 ping-pong (table tennis) balls that it it will shoot if you press the bump sensor on the controller.

Now all I need is a 3rd NXT to fetch the projectiles!

--
NXTMonger

Brand New RFID sensor (codatex)

2008-01-12T18:11:00.001Z

Lots of people have made RFID sensors for the NXT, but at last, there’s an “official” third party product. LEGO has announced yesterday an official partnership with Codatex producing the NXT RFID Sensor seen below. The package contains a sensor and two tags, with holes matching Technic pegs.

Features:

Reads 125 kHZ transponders of type EM4102
5 bytes number, i.e. 240 combinations (i.e. 1.099.511.627.775 numbers)
The reader has three modes of reading:
- Single read
- Continuous read
- Stop
Reading distance up to 3 cm depending on transponder size and orientation
Transparent front cap with LED signal at detection of a transponder
Auto power off for saving battery power
Firmware upgrade feature for future enhancements (saving hardware cost)

The press release can be found HERE

Buy your NXT now!

2008-01-10T02:13:00.000Z

The following is from LEGO:

"Purchase 8527 LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT and receive an exclusive set of free accessories. Set includes one 9843 Touch Sensor, one 9844 Light Sensor and one pack of 8 Energizer Lithium AA batteries – a $50 value! Limited quantities. Offer good while supplies last. One free accessories set per order."

See it here

They Are Coming... 2008

2008-01-04T21:44:00.000Z

What is there to look forward to in 2008? well, let me give you a clue:

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" he said...

Read more HERE

Lego NXT Helicopter Simulator - ChopperBot

2007-12-31T12:03:00.000Z

Too much caffeine today posted the video of his "ChopperBot". ChopperBot lets you "pilot" a helicopter on the end of a crane arm - forwards and backwards, up and down - all controlled with the touch sensor and the buttons on the NXT brick. Features include:

No matter what altitude the helicopter is at, it is always level
The helicopter's rotors turn due to the transmission of power up the arm

More info can be found at his website: http://www.way2muchcaffeine.blogspot.com/, as well as the .ldd file (when posted)

LEGO PF elements now avaliable at lego shop.com USA only though...

2007-12-28T14:23:00.000Z

LEGO Shop-at-Home has updated their products recently. Perhaps most interesting there are some new PF elements among them, as well as the existing PF motors but you can now buy them on a "piece by piece" basis. It seems there is also a "hybrid" PF cable, that appear to function as both a PF extenssion cable as well as a cross-over cable to the older 9V system. The grand Technic Bulldozer may not be available... but at least now all the PF parts are (they've also been added to LEGO Digital Designer for that matter. It appears I need to browse S@H more often... and after I already put in my last order, too. Oh well, perhaps I need another order... For folks wanting new sensors, there's a lot of offerings at S@H as well: the standard four (US, light, sound, & touch), but also the Acceleration, IRSeeker, IRLink, Gyro, Color, & Compass sensor.

As posted by Brian Davis at http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/

Milton Keynes Lego Shop MINDSTORMS DISCOUNT!!

2007-12-27T22:35:00.000Z

Today I went to Milton Keynes (England) to see if they had the crawler crane in stock(as legoshop.com had run out, and I think it has been discontinued), and to my suprise, they actually had a sale on, ON DECENT SETS! Not just their crappy stuff. Sadly there was no crawler crane, but they did have the TIE CRAWLER and BATMOBILE sets (both with LOTS of caterpillar tracks) for only £28! (normally £40) So I bought a Tie set, as well as a selection of technic beams and lift arms.

Then as i was leaving the shop, I noticed that ALL MINDSTORMS ACCESORIES WERE HALF PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Sadly, I had just spent all the christmas money I had brought with me, so I didnt get any. Hopefully when I go a week next tuesday, they will still have the discount. If not, i think i may have to eat myself.

I got two more points on my loyalty card today though, so that was good.

And so, the moral of this story children, is, IF YOU LIVE NEAR MILTON KEYNES IN ENGLAND, GO BUY SOME LEGO!

Merry Christmas by the way!

Airkraft-NXT

Theres Something...Christmassy about www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com

2007-12-21T23:32:00.001Z

If you havent allready seen, why not visit my website. you may be in for a festive treat!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Brian Davis' LEGO DigiComp II

2007-12-21T16:09:00.000Z

Ok. So strickly speaking, its not LEGO Mindstorms, but who cares. this thing is COOL!

MDP Brian Davis made his own LEGO version of a basic computer a few weeks ago and posted this video on youtube.

Brian set out to rebuild an old "marble logic" computer from LEGO, using various tidbits and plans from the internet, and so, DigiComp II was born.
The finished model weighs about 10 pounds, & uses 14 simple switches, 21 flip-flops, 8 half flip-flops, and a ball release mechanism.

As Brian said,

"There is no electronics involved at all here - only mechanical gates moved by falling balls. The only 'programming' that takes place is setting a few (mechanical!) switches before dropping the first ball. No IC, no batteries - pure mechanism."

More pictures of the components can be found in his Brickshelf gallery here.

Tilt-A-Ped - A line following biped by 222doc

2007-12-14T21:27:00.001Z

A few weeks ago 222doc posted a video to youtube showing his Tilt-A-Ped. This was his entry at nxtasy#4.
Tilt-A-Ped is a weight shifting bi-ped that uses two light sensors to follow a black line.
The nxt brick shifts left to right and right to left, and at the point of inbalance it teeter-totters at the ankles, then one of the two leg motors rotate as needed.
The brick is modular, and can easily be removed.
Below is 222Docs video of it in action.

A few days later he posted another video showing Tilt-A-Ped's mechanical features overview

NEW Page on www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/airkraft-nxt

2007-12-07T21:41:00.001Z

I have added a forum to my website for any questions or comments.
Any ideas for categories?
you can see the forum at: http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com/forum.htm

P.s. I thought I'd use a different font today!

Steve Hassenplug- On Youtube!

2007-12-07T19:35:00.001Z

A video appeared on youtube today, that shows Lego Mindstorms NXT MDP Steve Hassenplug talking about hisholonomic drive robot called Omni. Take a look:

WE finally see what he looks and sounds like!

The Next Lego Mindstorms NXTLog Building Challenge

2007-12-06T21:08:00.000Z

What will it be!

we've had a summer one, a back to school one, a Halloween one, and a sumo one.

What now?
Maybe a Christmas one?
or a new years reserlution one?
or maybe even a calander one.

do YOU have any ideas?
Send me a comment with your ideas.

New Contributer!

2007-12-06T19:26:00.000Z

Hello Everyone!
Airkraft nxt has invited me to join this blog, so here I am! My name is NXTMonger, and you can contact me at my other blog, NXTMonger's World, or by e-mail at nxtmonger@gmail.com.

Airkraft-nxt.webs.com

2007-12-05T23:19:00.000Z

MY SITE HAS MOVED!
I have changed my site to:
http://www.airkraft-nxt.webs.com
now all I need to do is change all the links on all my other sites!

NEW Sensors Added To Lego Shop.co.uk

2007-12-02T18:31:00.000Z

In the last few days lego have added two new Hi-Techninc Sensors to the UK version of Lego Shop.com
These sensors include:

Infrared Seeker- at £30.99

Gyroscopic Sensor- at £39.99

The Infrared Seeker can be used with the Lego P F sets along with the old Mindstorms RIS expand your robots capabilities. With it your robots will be able to detect infrared light sources and determine their direction and relative strength thanks to 5 infrared detectors arrayed at 60º intervals.

The Gyroscopic Sensor will let you build MINDSTORMS NXT robots that can detect rotation using a single axis gyro based on a quartz resonator. Accurate readings require the gyro sensor NXT-G block or use of another programming environment to read the raw value from the sensor.

Lego now sell 5 Hi-Technic sensors, each around £35. you can view them all HERE

New Version of LEGO Digital Designer Version 2.3 NOW WITH PF ELEMENTS

2007-12-02T18:09:00.000Z

A new version of LEGO Digital Designer (Version 2.3) just been released. I am currently downloading it now. I am glad that the Power Function Elements have been added. Many-a-Mindstormer have been awaiting this.

As well as the P F elements, the new version also contains a few new box sets including the LEGO Creator 4957 Ferris Wheel and the 4958 Monster Dino.

As BluetoothKiwi Said,

"Thanks LEGO for listening. Now we can include PF motors in our NXT robotic models. It is a shame they still dont have the IR-Lnk though - you have to use a light sensor as a place holder until the IR-Link makes it to the pallette!"

You can download the latest version of Lego Digital Designer (Version 2.3) at www.ldd.lego.com

First of many posts!

2007-12-01T21:59:00.000Z

OK This is it! My first of many blogs.
A few quick announcements to make:

I NEED HELP! if anyone would like to be contributor to my blog, SAY SO!!!

Any ideas of what to post blogs about eg videos, new robots ect TELL ME!

i am hoping to add a new blog at least every week, as well as some that the nxtstep.blogspot have posted

I will Leave you with a video of my NXT Rover