Tag Archives: Lego

Monster Mindstorms Delta Bot Delicately Picks Candy

Posted on by

A group of embedded developers from Sioux Embedded Systems in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, wanted to get experience working on Microsoft .Net. To make it fun they made it their project to produce a LEGO train with visitors at LEGO World, the official LEGO convention in Denmark. The team developed an application in C# to fully automate the train, with Mindstorms NXT and EV3 bricks as well as LEGO Power Functions motors controlling everything.

The train project carries a simple premise: the visitor chooses one of four colors, and the train goes and picks up a piece of simulated candy with …read more

Continue reading Monster Mindstorms Delta Bot Delicately Picks Candy→

Electric Skateboard Rocks the Giant LEGO

Posted on by

[James Bruton] built an electric skateboard out of oversized LEGO bricks he printed himself, and equipped the board with an excellent re-creation of a classic motor.

He began by downloading brick, gear, and pulley designs from Thingiverse and printing them up five times their normal size, taking 600 hours. The deck consists of 8M Technic bricks lengthwise and 4M bricks crosswise, with plates covering top. There’s even a monster 5×6 plate that’s clearly courtesy of a parametric brick design because you won’t find that configuration among LEGO’s official parts.

The coolest part of the project is probably [James]’ re-creation of …read more

Continue reading Electric Skateboard Rocks the Giant LEGO→

Mindstorms Morse Key Writes to Drawbot

Posted on by

[Jason Allemann] built a Mindstorms Telegraph Machine that packs so many cool details that HaD is about to have a fit.

First off, It’s a drawbot able to write letters, a difficult feat given a lack of native stepper motors and the limited gear options for Mindstorms.  Trying to draw letters with servos typically makes for some ugly letters. And how does the drawbot know what to write? You code them in with Morse code. The second video after the break shows [Jason]’s setup. He has a Mindstorms touch sensor with a LEGO Morse key attached to it. He simply …read more

Continue reading Mindstorms Morse Key Writes to Drawbot→

We Dig This LEGO Excavator Conversion

Posted on by

[Frank] was lucky enough to score a bucket wheel excavator LEGO set as a birthday present, and we won’t lie – we’re jealous. However, out of the box, the kit is somewhat limited; there is only one motor to animate the entire machine and it can’t be fully remote controlled. But don’t worry — [Frank] set out to change that (Google Translation).

The first part of the build was to add motors to control the different functions of the excavator. One motor was added for each of the two tracks to allow the machine to drive forwards, backwards, and turn. …read more

Continue reading We Dig This LEGO Excavator Conversion→

Making Spirographs with LEGO and Math

Posted on by

Master LEGO builder [Yoshihito Isogawa] has been on a roll lately, cranking out a number of robots that make drawings reminiscent of the classic Spirograph toy. For instance, he built an elegant drawbot out of LEGO elements, seen above. At first glance the monicker “spirograph” seems wrong, because where are the gears? However, [Yoshihito] has them stashed underneath the sheet of paper, with magnets controlling the pens.

His drawbot consists of a platform (cleverly, an inverted LEGO plate) upon which a sheet of paper is laid. One or two pen holders, each with a pair of magnets underneath, rest on …read more

Continue reading Making Spirographs with LEGO and Math→

EV3DEV Lego Linux Updated

Posted on by

The ev3dev Linux distribution got an update this month. The distribution targets the Lego EV3 which is a CPU Lego provides to drive their Mindstorm robots. The new release includes the most recent kernel and updates from Debian 8.8. It also contains tools needed for some Wi-Fi dongles and other updates.

If you haven’t seen ev3dev before, it is quite simply Linux that boots on the EV3 hardware using an SD card. You don’t have to reflash the computer and if you want to return to stock, just take out the SD card. You can also use ev3dev on a …read more

Continue reading EV3DEV Lego Linux Updated→

Converting a Robotic Motor For Lego Blocks

Posted on by

The Internet has brought a lot of advantage to life, not the least of which is access to really cheap electronic parts. [KarelK166] was buying cheap geared motors for projects, but they didn’t easily work with Lego blocks. He found an easy way to adapt them and–lucky for us–decided to share.

The process is pretty simple. The gearbox has two screws and an elastic band holding it together. Once the gears are exposed, you can drill a hole in two of them with a 4.8mm drill bit. This might take a little practice since the gear needs to hold still, …read more

Continue reading Converting a Robotic Motor For Lego Blocks→

Chocolate Factory Simulation Makes Bars with LEGO

Posted on by

[Michael Brandl] got to visit the Milka chocolate factory in Bludenz, Austria and was inspired to build this simulation of the production process for the LEGO world 2017 event in Copenhagen.

The process begins with the empty mold riding on a double row of tank treads. Subsequent modules seem to fill the mold with LEGO ingredients, cool the bars, and remove them from the mold. The last two steps rock: [Michael] built a dispenser that drops a tiny cardboard box onto the line, sized to hold 3 LEGO bars. The box rolls to the end of the line and is …read more

Continue reading Chocolate Factory Simulation Makes Bars with LEGO→

LEGO Train Explores a World of Sparkling Light

Posted on by

[bananenbuurman] converted his studio apartment into a glorious four-minute LEGO train course equipped with lights, motorized effects, and creative displays.

The train car sports a 360-degree camera, giving us a minifigure’s view of the whole course: a series of themed “rooms”—one papered in what appear too be Euro notes, while others have laptops, power supplies, motherboards, and other pieces of old hardware. You’re reminded of the train’s small size when it passes by various LEGO-scale elements like minifigures, looming as if they were six feet tall.

There are lights everywhere, from the LED indicators from various pieces of equipment, to …read more

Continue reading LEGO Train Explores a World of Sparkling Light→

Sorting Two Tonnes Of Lego

Posted on by

Have you ever taken an interest in something, and then found it’s got a little out of hand as your acquisitions spiral into a tidal wave of bags and boxes? [Jacques Mattheij] found himself in just that position with Lego. His online purchases had run away with him, and he had a garage packed with “two metric tonnes” of the little coloured bricks.

Disposing of Lego is fairly straightforward, there is a lively second-hand market. But to maximise the return it is important to be in control of what you have, to avoid packaging up fake, discoloured, damaged, or dirty …read more

Continue reading Sorting Two Tonnes Of Lego→