Shedding Light on the NXT
Philo recently made a NXT spotlight that can be powered from a motor output. This spotlight illuminates the NXT display screen, making it visible in dark areas. He also has instructions available on his website, for those of you who want to make your own.Great idea, Philo! I always wondered if someone would do something like this.
-Jonathan
Comments
I think just from looking at this that it is a great homebrew project for first-time homebrewers. Right after that comes a CDS light sensor:)
The only downside of this is that it involves hacking (both definitions) an NXT cable. With the NXT at least, you can make (or should I say synthesize) your own cables without too much trouble, but cutting a cable might not seem very appealing to someone, especially after they paid $250 for this robotics set.
I wish there were some relatively simple connector out there for homebrew sensor. Then at least you can reuse cables are aren't limited to one sensor per cable. I've looked on the Radio-Shack website in the past, but I couldn't find a simple two wire (two pin?) connector. Plenty of nice LEDs though.
And finally, I'd like to say that this project has special significance to me. A couple of weeks ago, we lost power when a very bad ice storm hit my home state. It was especially hard to build Lego's by candle light, but I managed. Now I just need to make a few of these and I'm set if it happens again.