Lego Robotics Workshop

The schedule is:

• Monday, July 21: Introduction to Mindstorms (9am-noon)
• Tuesday, July 22: Mindstorms programming challenges (9am-noon), tour of RPI robotics labs (1-3pm)
• Wednesday, July 23: More fun with Mindstorms (9am-noon)
• Thursday and Friday: More building and programming (workshop is now extended to July 25!)

This workshop is organized by Prof. Srinivas Akella at RPI and Lourdes Lejano and Jenn Novak at the Junior Museum. Our crew of robotics experts includes Mayur Patel, Prof. Wes Huang , and Ben Potsaid, also of RPI, and Teresa Davis of the Junior Museum.

Workshop overview (pdf) , and list of suggested robots (pdf)

This year's participants are:

• Samuel Axten
• Samhita Bhat
• Kyle Moise
• Erik Munson

Movie of the Workshop (33MB) (AVI format, uses DivX codec ), mpeg version (41MB)

Pictures from the first day:

Pictures from the second day:

Pictures from the third day:

Support for the Robotics Workshop is provided in part by the Troy Junior Museum , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the National Science Foundation through CAREER Award No. IIS-0093233. Thanks to DotCIO and Academic and Research Computing at RPI for providing laptops, and the folks at CIPCE for advice and encouragement.

Check out pictures and a movie from last year's workshop!

Lego Mindstorms Resources

• The official Lego Mindstorms site
• The Vision Command set is a camera system for Mindstorms
• Here is a detailed description of the RCX.
• NQC is a C-like language to program the RCX.
• Dave Baum's Lego site
• Links to interesting Lego Mindstorms sites
• CIPCE at RPI is developing robotics programs for local schools.
• CEEO at Tufts University is developing educational programs using ROBOLAB

Books on Lego Mindstorms

• Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS and Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS, second edition
• The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots
• Creative Projects with LEGO Mindstorms
• Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms : The Ultimate Tool for Mindstorms Maniacs
• Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS by Dave Baum (Editor).
• Joe Nagata's Lego Mindstorms Idea Book
• Core Lego Mindstorms Programming
• Lego Mindstorms for Dummies
• Jin Sato's Lego Mindstorms: The Master's Technique

Places to buy Lego stuff

• Toys R Us sells the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System version 2.0 (Lego #3804) for $200. Version 1.0 (Lego #9719) and Version 1.5 (Lego #9747) of the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System are very similar and also fine for the purposes of the workshop.
• Pitsco Lego Dacta , with Robolab links
  They sell the remote control (Lego part #9738, $20) as well as an Infrared tower with a serial cable (Lego part #9713?, $29) in case you don't have a USB port on your computer. You can also buy Vision Command (Lego #9731, $50) from them.
• Lego Shop at Home
  They carry the Ultimate Accessory Set (Lego part #3801, $50), which includes a remote control, a touch sensor, and a rotation sensor among other things.