Build a robot that sorts blocks

After a while we have picked up the Mindstorms set, downloaded a nice description from the Internet and build a robot that sorts blocks based on their colors.

The program of the website did not work, so we had also some stuff that we made ourselves.

Programming the Mindstorms to ride on the black line

Programming the Mindstorms to use the light sensor and ride on the black line of the test poster proved more than difficult.

Although I did my share of programming in the past the Lego way of writing a program differs much from traditional programming.

But hey - finally we managed it to have the thing ride a round!

Here is the program.-As we are still learning to do this any comment on the program is appreciated.

And here is the video.

First model

It took some time to post the pictures and until now we have just managed to find enough time to build the first model.
However this was pretty cool. It feels like Lego, but it also is different.

Here you can see the two hero's of this blog hard at work:

Partial model - looks more like a chopper without wheels:


The final product:


Crazy thing is that we had some spare parts (in the front) left.

Then we did a short test drive. I will try to set the movies on YouTube. Programming was easy and simultaneously difficult. Turning the wheels depends on the power, the surface and the direction. This will need more testing.

Starting the adventure

After a long deliberation I decided to buy a brand new set of Lego Mindstorms NXT.

Main reason is that I want to experiment with this and simultaneously have some fun :-) .

Also I want to have a possibility to teach my son the art of programming. Maybe - but this will be decided later - we can use all of his current Lego blocks. Then we can build HUGE robots.