Sneak Preview of Our Tape Reader

Can you afford one extra NXT motor? Then sometime this Fall you'll be able to build a dedicated paper tape reader to load programs directly from paper tape into an NXT robot! We're working on this prototype, and will open source it when it's done.

Not only does it feel great to hold a copy of your actual program, but it also enables you to program your robot with no computer at all! And many kids can write their paper tape programs at once, again without needing their own computers.

However, the programming language we're currently developing with these office supply stickers is not as complete as NXT-G. But it will be a fun, useful first paper-tape language. How will you use it? There's an "interpreter" program that goes in your brick. And a "loader" program that reads in the paper tape and stores the data (sticker colors) in a file. Then when you're ready, at any time you can run the interpreter to process your file, interpreting all the instructions in it.

Plane Parts Were Laser-Cut Tonight

The parts for everyone's plane designs were laser-cut tonight, out of 1.2mm presentation board. Big thanks to Richard at Metrix Create Space, who got it done for us super quickly!  Friday in the club meeting we'll see if the pieces assemble correctly.  It's our first laser cutting, and our first stab at making slots and tabs, so it might need adjustment.

LaSER at Seattle Mini Maker Faire

On Sunday we gave a short presentation about LaSER at the Seattle Mini Maker Faire. Some slides, and then some of the kids demonstrated our MindCuber. It had only one scan error, and then on the second try it solved the cube!

3D-Printed Models

Our 3D models of Mars habitats came back from Ponoko.  After we designed them in Tinkercad, coach Matt hollowed them out and tweaked them for printing. Maybe we'll print one larger, but cost goes up roughly by n cubed!

MindCuber works!

The club finished its MindCuber!

MindCuber Test This Friday!

We're almost done with building all of MindCuber's sub-assemblies. On Friday we should be able to finish assembly and do our first test run.  Be prepared for it to have trouble working at first :-)  That's part of being engineers on a big project.

Also, soon we will post our discoveries about how school groups can work together on MindCuber.  We've also been in touch with the creator, David Gilday, who offered some useful thoughts which we'll discuss this Friday.

MindCuber Build Steps on Friday

Last week we started designing our own Rubik's Cube-turning robot, and some ideas came out of it.


This week, we're bringing in building plans for David Gilday's MindCuber!  

We can build up to two copies of this bot, but kids who want to continue with their own designs can do so.

To Mars

We decided to first Design a Martian Habitat, since there's a contest that ends April 6th.  We sketched some design ideas on paper, but now have to go back and find ways to make them practical.  We're going to use Tinkercad.com for 3D design, so ask your parents if you can use it at home to practice during the week, between meetings.

Picking Spring Projects

This week we'll discuss several possible projects, and tie-ins to this June's Seattle Science Festival.  Ideas:

* Laser cutting - building system?  Simple & repeatable.

* Rubik's Cube. Solve the cube, and build a Mindstorms solver.

* Contest: Design a Martian Habitat.

We'll also update this blog regularly, so check in here every couple of days.