Brick Labs

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A neat way to make diagonal stripes for one of your MOCs.  SNOT building often takes some thinking outside the box… this method is pretty easy to replicate, and works well.

Looks like PLEO hasn’t become extinct after all.  :)

It looks like a company in Hong Kong has purchased the IP rights to the PLEO. Jetta Company was the original manufacturer of the PLEO.  They plan on continuing the product, and fix some of the issues that the original PLEO had.

You can read more on the Jetta Company page about PLEO.

Here is their official press release:

Jetta Company Limited acquires Ugobe out of receivership

Hong Kong – Jetta Company Limited acquired the assets of Ugobe and will be re-launching "PLEO" in the near future. Established in 1977, Jetta has focused on manufacturing an extended range of toy, consumer electronics, juvenile, robotic and gift products and is one of the most recognized engineering and OEM companies within the toy industry. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Jetta currently operates five production campuses in Guangdong Province which combined has over 4.5 million square feet of production floor space. At the forefront of the fast-paced toy and robotics industries, Jetta continues to strive for "excellence" and is pleased to add "Ugobe" to its operations.

Are You a Hardcore LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT User?

Do you want to have a seat in our closed web forum, the MINDSTORMS Community Partners, where we involve you in our development and tests of new ideas, concepts, prototypes, products and discuss various issues around our SW, HW, FW and wetware…?

Then send an application via email with a description of yourself, your involvement with LEGO MINDSTORMS, your special areas of interest, and a paragraph on why you are eligible to be an MCP member!

Send it to mindstormsnxt@lego.com with the header ‘MCP 4 application’.

Applications will be received from now and until 31 July 1200 GMT. All email applications received after this date will be rejected.

Applicants must be 18 years old to apply.

Xander over at “I’d Rather Be Building Robots” has posted a few links recently.

The first is for a great RobotC tutorial written by professor Albert Schueller from Whitmore College.  You can read Xander’s post here, or download the RobotC Tutorial PDF directly.

Xander also writes drivers for RobotC.  He’s recently updated his project page, to show the new drivers and what they cover.  You can see the RobotC Drivers here.

And, if you are interested in using RobotC, you can purchase a license, or read more on the official RobotC website.  They do have a 30 day trial.

Well, it’s happened.  Ugobe filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy a few weeks ago.

Ugobe was the maker of the Pleo robotic dinosaur.  Here is a Google search about the Pleo bankruptcy if you want more details.  From what I’ve read, the rights to Pleo will be sold.  It’s possible someone will purchase and keep producing Pleo’s.  But, it’s doubtful.  They are rather expensive, and didn’t live up to the hype.  Plus, with the economy the way it is, they weren’t high on the “need to live” list.

Amazon has reduce their price.  They were around $350.  You can buy the Pleo right now for $207 with free shipping.  If you want one, now is the time to buy.  I’m guessing these will go up in price as they become scarce.

Remember December survey? LEGO asks as to take similar one now and every upcoming quarter. Here’s the message from Steve Witt:

As Adult or Teenage Fans of LEGO, you bring an important perspective to the LEGO Group. We respect your creativity and passion for the LEGO brand.

In December 2008, we did an online survey to learn more about the global AFOL (defined as ages 20+) and TFOL (defined as ages 13-19) communities and for your information, we have listed the key findings below. Now we ask you to take this survey again. It include some of the same questions, but also a set of new questions for you. These surveys will be conducted on a quarterly basis this year.

Please take a few moments to complete this short online survey to let us know your opinion on how we are doing.

You might notice that the link refers to the LEGO Kids Inner Circle; this is because Satmetrix, which hosts that site, is also supporting our efforts to track AFOL/TFOL opinions. Rest assured that this survey is for AFOL’s and TFOLs only.

Here are some of the key findings from the December 2008 survey:

• The survey was completed by 6.500 (!) AFOLs and TFOLs. 19% of respondents were TFOLs, 81% was AFOLs. 94% were male, 4% female and 2% did not want to share gender.
• When asked about likeliness to recommend LEGO products and services to friends and family, AFOLs are more likely to recommend than TFOLs. When asked what the LEGO Group can do to improve willingness to recommend, most frequent answers was, “better pricing”, “re-release classic sets”, “less custom made pieces” and “no more stickers, print on bricks”. This feedback has been communicated to relevant business units within the LEGO Group.
• 47% of AFOLs/TFOLs are NOT members of a LEGO User group. Among those who are members of LEGO User Groups, they are in average members of 2,4 LUGs.
• In average AFOLs and TFOLs are spending in the area of USD 1.000/EUR 700 on LEGO product annually. 20% of this is spent on second hand purchases.
• Favorite websites include Peeron, LEGO.com, The Brothers Brick, shop.LEGO.com, Eurobricks, Brickshelf, Bricklink and Flickr.

Thank you,
The LEGO Community Team

Link to the LEGO AFOL/TFOL survey is here.

found via Klocki

Here is a roundup of some of the robots I’ve stumbled across recently.

A-Pod

It’s a hexapod robot.  Extremely agile walking robot. Looks like a large ant.  Built with some custom parts and parts from Trossen Robotics.  This thing is amazing!

A-Pod is an ant inspired hexapod robot with a 2 DOF abdomen (tail), a 3 DOF head with large mandibles. 6 legs with 3 DOF each. Total 25 servos. This video demonstrates body movement and mandible control. I still have to do some mechanical improvements to the legs (therefore little walking). The robot are remotely controlled with a custom 2,4 GHz RC transmitter.

HyDRAS-Ascent (Hyper-redundant Discrete Robotic Articulated Serpentine) robot.

“Unlike inchworm type gaits often being developed for serpentine robot locomotion, this novel climbing gait requires the serpentine robot to wrap around the structure in a helical shape, and twist its whole body to climb or descend by rolling up or down the structure,” said Hong.

This robot is designed to climb up and down poles.  There is talk of using this robot in the construction industry, to climb scaffolding and such of large buildings, and do visual inspections.

HyDRAS was created by the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.  They won the 2008 International Capstone Design Fair with this design.

Dean Kamen’s robotic “Luke” arm.

And finally, some more information on the robotic prosthetic arm from DEKA (Dean Kamen’s company.  Dean Kamen is the gentleman that started FIRST).

There is an excellent video of Dean at the TED.  He was asked by the Department of Defense to create a new prosthetic arm, and this is his answer.  The video clip is approximately 5 minutes.

Here is another video showing the arm in testing.

I know this isn’t really robotics related, but I wanted to share it anyway.  I like to pass on any sets of instructions that I find.

Here is the complete building instructions for the Cosmic Adventurer.  These are hosted via Flickr.  They belong to a gentleman called Lego Monster.  He made this model for his wife.

We all hear about the big LEGO or Robotics events, like the National FLL challenge in Atlanta.

But what about local stuff?  Events you can go spend a day and half a tank of gas to visit?

There is a robotics group in Maine.  It is called: Maine Robotics.  It’s a non-profit organization run by Tom Bickford.   To quote their website:

Bringing Science and Technology to Maine Schools and Children
Since 2000 Maine has been using robotics to educate children from the 3rd grade up through high school.  Robotics is a multi-disciplinary topic that touches on engineering, basic science, computers, programming, mathematics, problem solving, and project design and management.

Maine Robotics happens to be located about 20 miles from me.  I’ve helped judge and referee the FLL competitions.  And I’m planning on attending the Southern Maine Track Meet on May 2nd.

Here is a list of their upcoming events sponsored by Maine Robotics:

Maine Robot Track Meet
    Southern Maine Track Meet
    May 2nd, 2009
    Auburn Middle School

    Northern Maine Track Meet
    May 9th, 2009
    Maine Maritime Academy, Castine

Summer Robotics Camps
    From July 6th to August 14th (weeks)
    Bangor, Orono, Portland, Gorham, Readfield, Ellsworth, and check for
    additional weeks.  Ages 9-15.

For more information on the camp, check out the Maine Robotics 2009 Camp website.

Do you know of any local robotics groups?  If so, please leave a link in the comments.  I’ll try to compile a list of them.

UPDATE:  Thanks to the folks over at The NXT Step, here are some more local robotics events.

• New York City / New Jersey area:  NYC/NJ FIRST
• Chicago area: ChiBots
• North Carolina: RoboCup Jr and JETS – Junior Engineering and Technical Society
• And in Montreal Quebec: Zone01

Amazon has a sale right now on the NXT kit.  And, it qualifies for the Free Super Saver Shipping, so you only pay the $203.62 price.   This is one of the cheapest prices I’ve seen for the NXT kit.  And the free shipping… hard to beat.

This would be a great time to buy the One Kit Wonders book and a new NXT kit for you, or your child (or both!).  Remember… every project in the One Kit Wonders book can be built with a single retail MINDSTORMS NXT kit.  Of course, I’m partial to Chapter 7 myself.  :)