Rack and Pinion With Powered Wheels

I've built many cars that use a rack and pinion system and many with differentials, but this was the first time I combined them into one.  As you'll see in the video, the car had front wheels that can steer and are powered through a differential.  The system is very effective since it allows the car to have a four wheel drive rather than just a rear wheel drive.

Swerve Drive

After going to the FRC (First Robotics Competition) Championships, I got to see a few other successful robot designs and the drive trains that teams used.  One of these was the swerve drive, which I thought was particularly interesting because of the maneuverability that it provided.  Today I attempted to build my own swerve drive out of LEGO.  After some experimenting, I got it to work, and I fine tuned it to make it more effective.  

Here is a clip of the robot driving around.  (I'm still working on driving it well)

Robotics Championships

My robotics team, MVRT 115 attended the First Robotics Competition world championships in St. Louis this year!  Our team was in the Archimedes division and we had many strong performances, but a few unfortunate robot and code issues lowered our average too much to recover from.  It was still a ton of fun and I hope out team goes again next year.  Unfortunately my camera isn't great, but here are some photos of the event.

Future Engineers Summer Camp 2015

A few friends and I are running a summer camp this summer.  It's open to students entering grades 5-8 during the 2015-2016 school year, and everyone in the right age group is welcome to attend, despite their ability levels.  It's a one week camp that runs from 9:00 A.M. until 3:00 P.M. at the Little Champs Learning Center in San Jose.  Each day we teach a new real world engineering concept with LEGO Power Functions and LEGO Technic Pieces, giving students an opportunity to learn all while having tons of fun building with LEGO.  This is our second annual year running camp, since our first year was a huge success and we wanted to continue teaching others about our passion.  New this year, we're adding a junior and advanced class so we can accept a wider range of students.  We're still accepting sign-ups so it would be great if you could spread the word!  You can learn more at our website at: https://futureengineerscamp.com/

Double Differential

I've enjoyed using differentials in all the vehicles I make out of lego, so I wondered what would happen if I used two differentials and a third wheel.  Surprisingly, it worked really well!
This is what it looked like:

And this is how it drove:

Future Engineers Summer Camp

I ran a LEGO robotics camp this year with Sameer Kapur and Aashish Kapur.  Camp has came and went, but it was a wonderful experience and I learned so much from teaching my campers.  Each day of camp we taught a different lesson.  On Monday, we explained the basics of power functions, the building platform that I always use when I build.  The campers than built cars and played "Sumo Bots", where the goal was to push the other robot our of the ring.  On Tuesday, we built cars that used rack and pinion steering and a limited slip differential  drivetrain.  On Wednesday, all of the campers had the option to either build a power functions race car, or they could build and program LEGO NXT "Hammerbots".  On Thursday we begin building the long awaited battlebots, and the campers had a chance to race them on Friday.  Overall, it was an amazing week and it was tons of fun to see all of the kids learn and build with LEGO.  It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience, and I can't wait until next year!  Here are some pictures of the campers that attended our second week of camp.

Running a Summer Camp to teach Lego Power Funtions

Some friends and I are running a camp to teach Lego Power Functions and some NXT to middle school students this upcoming week. Camp starts tomorrow, so I'm a little nervous, but I can't wait for it to begin and I think it will be lots of fun!  I'm working with two of my friends, Sameer Kapur and his brother, Aashish Kapur.  They are both very smart and I'm excited to teach with them.  Engineering is my passion, and I want to share it with others, starting with the kids in my community.   It's going to be a great week!  Our camp's website is: futureengineers.webflow.com

Got some new books!

The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Guide by "Sariel"

Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi by Martin Gardner

Science Magic Tricks and Puzzles by Martin Gardner

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles by Martin Gardiner

So far, these books are all very interesting and informative.

Sariel is an incredible lego builder who has made tons of amazing projects using LEGO power functions.  His website is: sariel.pl

Martin Gardner is considered the father of recreational mathematics, and has written a variety of different works about mathematical puzzles and games.

Lego Marble Run

One day in February I was bored, so I built this really basic marble run using flat panel pieces and the plastic tubes.  Here is a picture and a video if it:

Christmas Gift- 4x4 Crawler!

I haven't posted in a while and its way past Christmas, but this was a gift I got for Christmas and built in a few days.  It's very fun to drive over things because of its great suspension, 4 wheel drive, and 4 wheel steering.  It's powered by two Power functions L motors and uses one Power functions servo motor to turn.

 
 

Limited Slip Gear Differential

I went to the new exploratorium in San Francisco where I saw a working model of the limited slip differential system used in cars.  I'm still learning about it, but I think the gearing mechanism is used to allow one wheel to move faster than the other to prevent skidding on a turn.  Basically, when one wheel has friction and slows down, the other wheel speeds up to compensate for the lack of energy.  Differentials are important because on a turn, when the outer wheel travels more distance then the inner one.  If they both rotate the same amount of times, then the outer wheel will be dragged, ruining the tire.
Here is my firs differential:

More lego guns- and now a working one!

After ordering some new pieces, I made a new lego gun.  This one holds eight bullets and fires them all within a few seconds.  It just uses the basic lego "rocket launchers" that fire when the trigger is pressed.  Because of the circular rotating design, all of the triggers are pressed after a complete circle.  Unfortunately, in this video, the shots are staggered because the triggers weren't pulled all the way.  It's not perfect, but its an improvement from my earlier designs.

My Excavator

I haven't posted in a while, but here is a video of my fully built excavator with my custom additions.  I added two motors to power the treads, a motor to shift between arm functions, and I made the whole thing remote control.  Also, when the arm moves, lights on it turn on to illuminate the way (sorry, they aren't easy to see here).  It's super fun to drive.  Here is the video of it just moving a roll of wrapping paper:

1st place in our FLL tournament!

We had a great tournament this weekend at the Nasa Ames Research Center.  We came in 2nd place in the robot game, but 1st overall (and received the champion's award.)  It has been a great season and I can't wait to continue.  Our team name is REX.

4WD Buggy

I saw a video on youtube of a four wheel drive buggy, and I like the design.  I tried to build my own version, using 2 medium motors in the back and two large motors in the front.  Unfortunately, I had no great off-road wheels, so I used other ones that aren't as good as I would have liked.  Here is the video I watched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uff7vZ-Pcds

Here is the robot, with the "protection" I added to it:

This is the robot without the outer layer.  If you look carefully, there is a turntable gear in behind the front motors; this is to allow the front wheels to rotate from the back wheels, so when it goes over an object only one wheel will go into the air and the rest will remain pushing on the ground:

Here is the robot in action:

Fencing Robots

A few days ago, I decided I wanted to make fencing robots.  Instead, I ended up with a robot that can spin and jab out at you.

I put it on a base with four support legs, and played with it for a little while.  It can spin 360º, but can't move, so it isn't that fun to play with.

The next day my uncle came over, and challenged me to put wheels on it.  So I did.  Since it was pretty heavy, I used my XL motors, the strongest power functions motors.

Building Lego "Guns"

Last night I was up trying to build a crossbow, or gun, or whatever I could to project a object.  I had limited success.  In my first design, I compressed a shock absorber and then released it to hit and fire an object.  It only shot pieces about one foot.

 Next, I tried to use rubber bands to launch a piece down a track.  It could fire about four feet, but didn't work every time.

Happy Halloween!

It's a little late, but Happy Halloween everyone!

Treads as a conveyer belt?

I am in the process of building lego model #8294, an excavator:

It is super fun to build and I can't wait to finish it. In the progress of constructing, I realized that treads could be used as a conveyor belt to transport objects, such as balls.  The video below is a quick demonstration of a ball moving upwards.  In the future, I would attach a motor, but for this I just used my hand to move the belt.

Why Half Robot?

I've always liked to build things.  My favorite toy when I was really young was rope.  I loved to tie knots and I would tie things up all over the house.  My dad told me that one day I tied the vacuum cleaner up so well it took 20 minutes to free it.  I would often string ropes across my bedroom and tie them together into a giant web-like net, then hang toys off the various ropes.

Around when I was seven, I got a Robosapien toy robot for Christmas.  It was two feet tall, and it could walk, move, dance and fart, which seemed really funny.  Right away I thought robots were cool.

After that, I discovered the Lego Mindstorms robot platform and started asking for one.  When I was eight I got one as a gift and soon after that I started a First Lego League team with some friends.  FLL was challenging, but we made it past the local qualifier and won a judges choice award against fifty other teams at the regional championships.  Through participating in FLL I started to realize that I was decent at building things, or what my dad calls mechanical engineering.

Now I'm thirteen and my interest in robots has really taken off.  I still do FLL every year, and now robot-building has become my biggest hobby.  Since I'm more interested in design and mechanics, I mainly use the Lego Power Functions and Lego Technics platforms for my experiments.  When I'm not doing homework or playing soccer I tend to build bots, and on a good day I might build several different designs.  One of my favorite things is to battle robots against each other.  Basically I think robots are awesome, and my dad jokes that I am half robot, so that's what I decided to name my blog.

I am going to use this blog to keep track of some of my creations and the thoughts that occur to me as I'm building and experimenting.  Hopefully I can help others with some of my ideas.