Using motors without using motor ports

Jim just posted most of the new features of the new NXT, but I thought it was good to share this one as well. Should open up a lot more robot building possibilities. The motors here are both wireless. The cable that you do see is for the ultrasonic sensor (it's a long cable, so I had to wrap it around the frame of the robot). I don't know if sensors will go wireless too.

As you can see, I'm using the old brick for now, as the new ones haven't been manufactured yet. The good thing this shows though, is that everything is backwards compatible.

UPDATE: The above is obviously an April 1 post, but the video is actually real. Can anyone guess what's happening here?

Comments

Andy D said…
Wow! Thanks Laurens. Good to hear that the "new" motors will be backwards compatible with the current NXT bricks.

Does the NXT-G 3.0 have pre-cognitive, self-awareness features for optimum bug-less program creation and self-replication? I can't wait to build a Replicator!
Synan said…
Now that I know that this is an April Fools joke, I feel so dumb...
If I had to guss at how you realy did this, I'd say that you had a second NXT underneeth, and used Bluetooth (or just connected the Ultrasonic sensor to it and used another wire as a dummy.
Or, for the shots that showed the motor ports, you used a multiplexer, like those sold by Mindsensors. Then for the shots of the sensor ports, you just connected the motors directly to the NXT
Laurens Valk said…
Something went wrong with the comments here -- sorry about that...
Andrew said…
I was going to say a second nxt underneath, but i didn't know there was such a thing as a motor multiplexer.
Very nice... I imagine you have one of those cord holes (that they put in desks so you can plug a computer in) underneath the NXT, and the wires to the motors go through that hole and connect to another NXT below.

-Jonathan
Laurens Valk said…
All, thanks for the responses. Some of you have got it right. Explanation and details coming soon. Stay tuned!

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