Quiet, Holiday, Special Project

Sorry it's been so quiet here for the past few days... it's a holiday in the US (Memorial Day) and everyone has a 3-day weekend - mine has been spent painting a room and bathroom.

I've also picked up a special NXT writing project that's kept me busy - all my motors, sensors, and other parts are in use and I've got no time to play.

Just an FYI: I will be out of town June 3-11 with no internet access and no email. Hopefully Matthias and Brian will keep you occupied during that time. I'm not sure how they respond to dares, but you could try to provoke them :)

Jim

Comments

Unknown said…
> Hopefully Matthias and Brian will keep you occupied during that time. I'm not sure how they respond to dares, but you could try to provoke them :)

Year, that's right!
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who [...] else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? Huh? Ok."

(which movie?)

Come on, people! Give me that dare!

/Matthias "Taxi Driver" Travis (as luck would have it, I will be away exactly the same two weeks as Jim, but, as is to be hoped, not completely without web access)
Brian Davis said…
So *both* of you are leaving the same week, throwing me to the internet wolves?!? Sigh... I will be here, so continue to fire away with questions or comments!

--
Brian "tied in a mess of NXT-G wiring" Davis
Sorry, Brian... can't be helped. The good news is that it sounds like The NXT STEP is all yours for a week at least. Change the color scheme... change the default language... change focus to Star Wars action figures... the stage is yours!

Jim
Anonymous said…
So, Brian's the coder of this trio, and needs a challenge...

Here's some...
- Demonstrate how you'd implement one dimensional array within the limitations of the NXT programming suite.

- Give a sample of the biggest program that will fit into the NXT (assuming no logging). If that's too much to chew on, give an estimate on how large such a program would be. (Some thoughts here are basically -- how big is any given instruction set, does use of various wires affect the size, how big is the onboard memory, are comments part of the bytecode, etc)

- Figure out how big an object really has to be to be detectable by the ultrasound detector. Can it see a lego brick? A lego cube? (4 studs x 4 studs x 4 studs - can be made with 6 2x4 bricks and 4 2x2 plates). Are there any tricks to using the ultrasound sensor (for example, angling at the floor versus straight ahead) that improve its performance? How far off the centerline can it detect?

That should be enough to chew on to start...
Brian Davis said…
OK, that's a few ideas (thank you!). Some of those are easy to answer (I've already done arrays, for instance), while some are hard or impossible (for instance, in the time I've been involved, the US sensor has gone through some changes... so I won't speak on this in detail until I have my hands on *exactly* the same HW what will be shipped out to the readers of this blog, for instance). But it does give me some ideas... any more?

--
Brian Davis
Anonymous said…
"Sorry, Brian... can't be helped. The good news is that it sounds like The NXT STEP is all yours for a week at least. Change the color scheme... change the default language... change focus to Star Wars action figures... the stage is yours!

Jim "

Yeah, give a more NXTy look using the graphics availible on the offial website.
Anonymous said…
How about color sensor specs?

I know that 'red' and 'blue' are apparently easy to differentiate... What kind of readings does the NXT get off of the standard palette of LEGO colors?

White
Light Grey
Dark Grey
Black

Red
Blue
Yellow

I'm asking because I'm working up rules for a 'bot competition over a Labor Day Event that I'm a part of and have always liked rtlToronto's use of 'Lego Cubits' (6 2x4 bricks formed into a cube with 4 2x2 plates on top of them, nearly perfect cubes) in competitions. I just purchased enough to make 8 each of red, blue and white (and that all fit into a single 'pick a brick' large tub!) (146 2x4s + plates in a single tub!) and am trying to figure out if color should enter into the competition -- but only want to do that if those three colors are easily differentiated by the color sensor.

So, basically any insight into the sensitivity and/or function of the light sensor would be helpful.
Anonymous said…
Did we scare you away Brian?
Brian Davis said…
Nope. I was just busy blogging ;-)

--
Brian Davis

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