@arvind
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Also, the GBC guys can tell you about plastic dust that accumulates from gears wearing against each other while the machines are running for hours.
We have that issue too in the printers we make. Our dot-matrix printer and 3D printer run for hours each day…there is always dust and gears wearing out. We switch them out after a few events. Our first printer had a pen holder that was held in place with a tire (to move the pen up and down to draw). The tire would wear out after a few days. Our newest printer uses LEGO markers which have studs on them.
Welcome, Sanjay and Arvind!
I actually bought some NXT bricks from your mom off Craigslist several years ago, and was aware of your FLL experience.Kjeld is great; I didn’t get to meet him individually but got to see him at the LEGO House opening ceremony that was set up for Ambassadors and paired with Skaerbaek Fan Weekend last year – what a trip that was! I’m sure yours was amazing, as well. Did you get to spend time in Billund at LEGOLand / The LEGO House while you were in Denmark?
Yes. We sold our NXTs to be able to buy EV3s when they first came out to upgrade equipment for our FLL team. We retired our team in April of this year after winning World Champions, but we still support FLL teams globally.
If anyone in the group would like some help or information about incorporating MINDSTORMS into your projects, we are happy to collaborate. Our mom also interviewed Akiyuki recently. He incorporates MINDSTORMS into GBC modules.
That’s great that you were able to go to Denmark as well. Yes, we were in Billund for a few days before LEGOWORLD Cophenhagen and spent time at LEGO House. We also got to meet Jørgen Vig Knudstorp that trip. It was very memorable.
The EV3 components are very sturdy and rarely get damaged due to use. We have displayed our work for 3-4 days straight and have have 1000s of kids come and go (including little kids). Never had anything break ever over the years. We do keep an eye on things though.
There are color sensors in the flooring to represent the white dot Pac-Man eats. Pac-Man has a colored panel under it and when it drives over the color sensors, it is detected. The game keeps tracks of how many dots/color sensors Pac-Man has captured. In the mean time, the ghost players are trying to catch Pac-Man and every time they do, they score a point (also using color sensors). All of the sensors and MINDSTORMS are networked together to keep track of the score. We have a Raspberry Pi networked to the whole system to keep track of the scoring and display it to players. A game takes about 3 minutes to complete (someone is usually a winner by then). The controllers are also EV3s using ultrasonic sensors so that all the kids have to do is wave their hands in front of the control (in the right direction) to move their player. We decided that joysticks out of LEGO might break over 4 days of use with excited players.
If you would like to borrow an EV3 or collaborate with us to make an EV3 version of your claw, we would be happy to.
That Pac-Bot is an awesome project and to top it off, you got to show it off to the company owner. There are many adult LEGO builders whose crowning achievement would be simply be to have Kjeld appreciate their creation for two minutes.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to create with Sanjay (I’m his brother).
Kjeld is a very inspiring person to talk to. He probably spent about 30 minutes with the both of us, so we were really honored.
If anyone in the group does want to incorporate MINDSTORMS or Boost into their builds and has questions, feel free to ask us. We have both been using MINDSTORMS since 2011 and teaching programming for them since 2014.
The FLL Kickoff on August 1st is more for those who are already a team. We have an astronaut coming (this year’s theme is space). We are organizing the event and helping teams understand the missions (the LEGO models) as a support to the local FLL community.
