Lego MindStorm NXT

[Gamer930]

Well it is officially out to the public what is others opinion on the new technology. I'm teaching a 1 week class (10 hours total) this week so I played a lot with it yesterday.

Pro:
- Ultrasonic Sensor is very good and accurately measures distance in both Centimeters and Inches

- Built in rotational sensors in the motors are very neat

- Can play music and images. 256k Memory I put 3 programs into ours and still had 110k left

- Pretty cool instructions to build 4 starter bots (vehicle, crane, spider, and human)

- Programming interface is easier to use

- Motors are pretty fast, powerful, accurate for any Lego Competition

- Motors have ANGLE measurement

- Nice peg holes to mount the motors or sensors to beams to become a very strong structure that will not fall apart (Yes we all know what we are talking about here )

Cons:
- Can’t print out instructions (Lego should put them on a PDF that you can download or something to print)

- The wires they give are long and special (1 – 8” then 4 – 14” I believe)

- Couldn’t get my computer’s Bluetooth to communicate with the NXT

- They really don’t give you many beams and supplies to build your own custom creation

Suggestions for Lego teams:
I think you guys would be missing out if you aren’t using the new NXT Technology. From a guy that has 4 years of mentoring a team and could never get a robot to go straight or the same distance over and over Lego has fixed that by far. I would start soon this summer building the 4 different models that Lego has instructions for so your students can see the “correct” way to mount different sensors to make your robot more durable. This will also give you and your kids learning time to figure out the software.
I think we will have some great lego matches this fall with these new kits.

Now only if those nice Vex Omni wheels would fit on the + shaft of Lego

Maybe someone else can give more pro/cons??
I will probably have more after using it all week

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Gamer930

Cons:
- Couldn’t get my computer’s Bluetooth to communicate with the NXT

Not all Bluetooth devices will communicate succesfully with the NXT. An increasingly comprehensive list is at the URL below. Let the maintainer of the page know of your device, and it can be added to the "doesn't work" list...

http://www.vialist.com/users/jgarber...patibilityList

Originally Posted by Gamer930

[font=Verdana]Maybe someone else can give more pro/cons??

Skye Sweeney, my "partner in crime" for the "Dr. Justin Case" movies, is authoring an NXT web site including some video-based tutorials on the NXT. It's probably worth a visit: http://www.fll-freak.com/nxt/nxt_index.htm