Robotkampen

The first annual LEGO-competition at Framtidsmuseet in Borlänge. Of course was Harri and I there and competed with the kids. Yes, we were the only adult team and we competed under the name CityBrickers.

Tobbe in the back and Harri in the front, febrile building.

The course. Start in lower right corner and points awarded for every white zone entered. Two yellow balls to push down (with points in red) for bonus points. If something is destroyed on the course or if the robot has to be handled points are deducted.

Constant queuing to get access for practice runs.

One of the other competitors robot.

Tobbe places the robot in the start position while Röde superintends.

Why won't it work? After the competition we found that the light sensor accidentally got moved during the day, after that all the sample readings was off. D'oh!

Competition about to start.

Our robot. Notice the man on the mast. A comb for raking down the bonus balls, touch sensors on the sides to steer clear of the edges and the light sensor in the middle for detecting when a new zone was reached.

Our robot was both the slowest and the widest.

The rules were written with a big loop-hole, if a dumb robot only drove straight it could be lifted and rotated in the two corners and this would still have got second place - if the bonus balls were pushed down. Luckily no one detected or used that loop-hole.

The prices. We won the 9754 Dark Side Developer Kit for most ambitious robot thanks to our side detecting system. The robot was a big failure however, we were the only team to return back to the start. :D

Splitting the winnings into two equal piles, then we had bidding on the odd parts.

Line Follower

This is a robot I made to relearn NQC since I and a friend were to attend a robot challenge in Borlänge. I had not used the RCX in a year and lost most of my programming skills.

The robot itself is a standard RIS model adopted to follow a line. The program itself is the "clever" part of this creation. It remembers if it was performing a left or right turn thus having some logic when it comes to finding the line in a bend.

The 'bot had no problem driving around my tape course.

Mecha 002: Lucifer

A while ago I thought about what I should build for Easter, I started reading up on the Swedish Easter traditions and decided to build a devil. How come?

According to ancient folk lore witches gather at a place called Blåkulla over Easter, there they meet with the devil and have orgies. The witches travel on the Thursday before Easter and come back home on Easter day.

The myth has killed quite a few ppl. in the witch hunt, but most of this faded with the introduction of the church in Sweden. Today young kids dress up as witches and walk from house to house giving Easter greeting cards away, in return they often get some candy and/or money. A little like the American Halloween tradition but w/o the trick part.

A devil MOC was more appealing then a witch, but I might try that next year :) And since I'm trying to learn the LEGO Mecha genre I made the devil like a Mecha. Simple enough :)

Facts

Lucifer has quite a few joints, he can:

Rotate feet 360+ degrees
Bend foot up/down
Bend knee
Bend hip
Rise arms outwards at shoulders
Rise arms up/down at shoulders
Bend elbows
Bend wrists
Rotate hand 360+
Move thumb out/in
Bend all five fingers on each hand
Lean head to the sides
Nod up/down
Rotate head 360+
Jaw open/close

I started with the head. I wanted to use the windows as eyes but did not realize how big this would make my Mecha, I did not back down from the challenge when I later realized this and due to lack of red parts and not the highest LEGO budget I decided to cover only the front.

Also the size and weight made the joints weak, I did not fix the worm gears so there was some play in the gearboxes leading to a _very_ unstable Mecha. In fact I was afraid to sneeze while taking the pictures :)

A few lessons learned to my next Mecha I hope...

Here he is in all his mighty glory. Or at least here it is :)

I had to use a baseplate under him to get more friction or the feet would slip apart. He's not attached to the baseplate, just uses the stud surface for grip.

I'm pretty satisfied with his feet.

Next time I build a Mecha this big I'll try to minimize the slop in the worm gears :)

Since my collection of red was next to nothing compared to Lucifer's size I did not work much on the appearance on him.

Here's the knee joint, it turned out all right after quite a few attempts.

As you can see I did not cover the outside of the legs, I thought about covering it whole with 1 x 4 plates but I liked the striped design better.

Hand and lower arm.

Upper arm.

Here's the head that started the whole size issue. I got the tip from Eric Sophie to start with the head when building Mechas. Now I now why his Mechas are so big :)

Looking down on the shoulders etc.

Here's the chest. I had my eyes on a couple of Alpha Team set's with transparent red radar dishes but...

As I mentioned, my collection of red was vanishing and vanishing fast. I don't think it's common to give Lucifer ribbed tights :)

And my humble hand.

Here's the ear, another part that I'm satisfied with. Lucifer can flap with these...

Shoulder, could use a little work and so on...

Minifig view.

Another sort of Minifig view :)

A little minifig from the Extreme genre did a daring climb up to Lucifer's head.

Scale comparison.

Yep, that's me :)

Looking down...

Top of the head.

The fist from hell :)

Bending the arm... This is as much posing as I dared try :)

I felt it was time I made Lucifer sit before something terrible happened.

Underside of the foot.

Here's the naked back. See if you can spot the minifig that had an accident when I was shooting the pictures :)

Details of the arm mechanism. I think this is a new solution? It's a form of snap hinge, the springs come from standard Technic shocks.

While taking Lucifer into his atoms here's a picture of the two pilots.

And the computers that almost keeps him standing :)

Under construction.

This is the first time I tested to make him stand, it was a lot easier w/o the head and body armor!

Sit! Good Lucifer! Good boy! The night I had him resting here my g/f was certain he had moved during night 'cause she heard some odd noises from the geek room :))

Computer + devil = Linux? Nope, I run Windows 98 on that machine .)

And as everybody could guess, Windows 98 is not a very stable platform and rebooted Lucifer's antlers and ear...