Mindboards

Hey,

So I haven't been active lately and there has been talk of my "Super Secret LEGO Project", well it is officially time to announce it.

John Brost, Marc-Andre and myself worked together to bring you the first scale interactive model of NASA's space shuttle. Powered by 6 NXTs, sensors from Hitechnic and software from National Instruments, this beast comes complete with Canadarm, moving stand and working flaps, doors and rudder. You can check it out on facebook: here and follow along with Yuri's night at the Virginia Air and Space Museum!

Feel free to "like" it and look through the construction pictures. It was a ton of fun to build and a lot of fun to show off. For all you FIRST people out there, you can see it in action at FIRST World Championship in St. Louis!

Andy "We are go for launch." Milluzzi

Very impressive model! Can you be more specific about the sensors you used?

There is a wide range of sensors. It uses a Hitechnic Gyro and Accelerometer to monitor it roll and speed of the roll. It has some preprogrammed routines in auto mode that can be triggered by scanning different color blocks over a Hitechnic color sensor. There is a US sensor in the base that when in remote mode triggers some action if no one is using it. It also stops it from rolling should people get too close and grab the shuttle. There are several touch sensors on the beast that check things like door position or limit arm movement. The shuttle uses light sensors to check where the position of the arm. We even use light sensors to generate the engine light.

Like I said, it is very complex and uses all these sensors together to let people actually drive the shuttle and attempt to complete a really cool mission!

That's pretty amazing! All those sensors, all those motors, all those pieces, compiled into one robot is truly astonishing!
Thank you for posting that here, or else I might not have known about it otherwise!