Mindstorms experiments

My three year old little boy is starting to get really into lego, which is great for me, as it’s a lot of fun for Dads too :slight_smile:

Then it occured to me that they brought out that mindstorms accessory a while back. So, just wanted to ask… did anybody do anything useful with that thing? I imagine it could be used to program some funky knob twiddling or something.

(I realise I’m probably just trying to find an excuse to buy some mindstorms lego “for my son”, hehe…)

I don’t have it or know much about it. Being a motor with some gears,you could probably do something useful with the blue knob on the tape screen. I think if you hold record and turn it, it records at a variable speed. I’ve never managed to do anything useful with it with my fingertips, but a motor programmed to run at a speed inconsistent with the tape speed denominations, or programmed to speed and slow for a slight warbled sound might be neat.

@Yoof the second largest budget in my house is Lego’s! I recommend the VIP program it is free and at exery $50 you get 5 to spend…

You can use it to twiddle knobs I did an quick youtube video a while back. Which it seems Youtube has deleted ( Ididn’t know they deleted stuff!) anyways. I have all three Lego MindStorms, just because I know the person who invented it… It is great.

You get the accessory with the Lego cross and you can attach gears to it. then from there you can use the MindStorm and it’s sensors to effect the knobs.

One thing to be aware of is the the motors you want to use a servo motor if you want more accuracy…

There are a ton of new sensors in the newest kit. There is also a third party:

https://www.hitechnic.com/

http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=57

I bought the Brick Shaft kit. Never used it as I have no fancy Lego tho. Yoof, holla if you get that Lego!

I’ve wondered if someone ever made use of the kit too because mine just sit in the case. @dimi3 any chance you can share that video with us?

I can make a new one… Google deleted my original file… And I have no clue where it is.

I also have a special mounting stand which was neat…

I can do it next week.

Cheers guys!

@Lymtronics - good idea about the blue knob in tape mode. Some robot controlled warble sounds like a nice experiment.

@dimi3 - hehe, “second largest budget”. Could the first one be gear-related by any chance? :wink: Will defo check out that VIP program, cheers. So, you know the inventor eh, cool! Thanks for the tip about the servo motor. I reckon accuracy is probably a good idea. Would also love to see any video you put up.

@Virtual_Flannel - cheers man, will definitely holla if I get it.

I think I’ll get one… might need to wait a month or two as I’m totally broke, but looking forward to having a play. Ahem, helping my son have a play that is.

The other thing I wondered is if it’s bad for the encoders at all? I remember people remarking about hairline cracks when the accessories first came out. (On a side note, I noticed today that three of my encoders have cracks in them, shock, horror! And that must just be wear and tear, not much accessory use).

http://youtu.be/YI9u_HEApCc

Not mindstorm but just Lego

@karbonckel that looks fun! Thanks for sharing, so what are those Lego pieces called?

@yoof in our house I believe it is gear, legos and then food… top ramen everynight!

Clearly this is mindstorming: But! we want to breed some ideas based on: https://www.instagram.com/p/BNzaV-thJ4z/

I’m sorry, it’s in spanish

We are working on something bigger based on this