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Lego Mindstorms + Lasers

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:28 PM
from the robots-with-friggin-lasers dept.
Toys Hardware Hacking
hamsan writes "My brother just hacked a laser pointer into an NXT light sensor and fully documented the process. From the page — 'Total Project Cost — $16.99 plus shipping. Time Required — Approximately 2 hours of tinkering. Having an Alpha Rex with a Laser — Priceless!' Of course, the usual warnings about voiding warranties and avoiding lasers apply."
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  • At lasst! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrNaz (730548) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:29PM (#16332167) Homepage
    I can now have sharks with frikkin' laser beams! Albeit, Lego sharks instead of real 400kg Tiger Sharks and laser pointers instead of 2kW flesh-vaporising, ship-sinking Frikkin' Laser Beams(tm), but it's a step in the right direction.
  • Truly a milestone for Lego on their march toward their destiny as rulers of the planet.

    I, for one, welcome our Lego overlords.
    • I deeply fear for the human race caught in the cross fire of the impending Lego vs Tesco world war then. Hopefully I'll fall victim to some collateral ClubCard points though.

  • Small Child + Lasers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nead (258866) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:42PM (#16332283) Homepage
    How do you explain to a small child not to stare into a laser beam? The little guy in one of the last pictures obviously couldn't read or understand that safety label.

  • And he can say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xybot (707278) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:43PM (#16332291)
    "My brother just hacked My Webpage into a 'Service temporarily overloaded 502 Error' and fully documented the process. From the page -- 'Total Project Cost -- $00.99 plus shipping. Time Required -- Approximately 5 Minutes of submitting site to SlashDot. Having a DIY Geek project page -- Priceless!' Of course, the usual warnings about 'cannot process the request due to a high load' apply."

  • [Nearly] Pointless Hack (Score:3, Insightful)

    by runlevel 5 (977409) <g,p,patnude&gmail,com> on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:47PM (#16332323)
    Not to sound like a naysayer, but honestly the laser adds almost no functionality whatsoever to the Mindstorms kit. In a course I am taking we are designing and building ten different kinds of robots out of these kits, and there isn't one that would benefit from having a frickin laser beam on its forehead.

    • Re:[Nearly] Pointless Hack (Score:5, Funny)

      by MrNaz (730548) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:49PM (#16332349) Homepage
      Truly, your team's lack of vision is astounding!

      • Truly, your team's lack of vision is astounding!

        They must have been staring into the laser beams ...

          • The REAL joke is you're not going to go blind from a few seconds of exposure to a laser pointer, but everyone is too freaked out by the word "laser" to use some common sense, or do a bit of research.

            The laser pointers you buy in stores (especially the cheapie ones you can use to tease the dogs with) don't produce a beam that's focused enough or intense enough to cause damage in a few seconds ... " even a minute didn't cause any decrease in eye function. You're most likely going to have a red laser, which

    • Re:[Nearly] Pointless Hack (Score:4, Funny)

      by creimer (824291) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:59PM (#16332421) Homepage
      Get a fog machine and Borg music from Star Trek. The possibilities are endless.

    • Re:[Nearly] Pointless Hack (Score:4, Interesting)

      by naoursla (99850) on Friday October 06 2006, @01:00AM (#16333117) Homepage Journal
      Add two cameras a known distances apart. Write a blob tracker that can locate the point where the laser hits. Use the difference in the laser point positions seen by the two cameras to determine the distance the surface hit by the laser. Now make the laser track back and forth. You now have a poor-mans SICK laser range finder (which cost thousands of dollars).
        • They sell wireless webcams. Just fasten a couple of them to the lego bot. If you can modify the light sensor to be a laser pointer you can do that. A blob tracker is nothing but a program that looks for a color range in the image and takes an average position of the colors that match. It doesn't take much effort to figure out how to pull images out of the camera and run a color match filter over the picture. You can coordinate everything using Microsoft's Robotics Studio, which is preconfigured to work with
          • mod parent up.

            I figured that there would be more use of a retrofitted laser on a lego mindstorms bot.

            Perhaps one could create a bot that would be able to launch projectiles while moving and be able to acquire targets using its laser pointing device.

            Who knows... someone can always find a use for this mod.

    • Not to sound like a naysayer, but honestly the laser adds almost no functionality whatsoever to the Mindstorms kit. In a course I am taking we are designing and building ten different kinds of robots out of these kits, and there isn't one that would benefit from having a frickin laser beam on its forehead.

      But think about it, you could have a robot that.... uhm... points at things? ... from a very low angle?

      Come to think of it, what is the point of a laser on the robot? I would find playing with a laser p

  • I'm a hardware geek, but I don't really see why a laser pointer in the robot is so great?

    Now, if it was a green laser, with a visible beam, that would be cool!

    Mind you, you'd have to put a '1' in front of the price tag...

    • Re:Ummm.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by BronsCon (927697) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:55PM (#16332391) Journal
      Mind you, you'd have to put a '1' in front of the price tag...

      1$16.99? What the hell country do YOU live in where THAT is the proper number format for currency?
      • I always wondered why some countries put the currency sign BEFORE the number. You don't say "miles 500" or "farenheit 40", why do you write "dollars 500"? It doesn't make any sense to me. Can someone explain?
      • I think that "laser" and "visible beam" pretty much contradict each other, unless you either look straight into the beam, or set your room on fire to fill it with smoke, neither of which can really be recommended.

        Not so. The green lasers he mentions are often capable of casting beams that are visible without using smoke under low light conditions. Google "green laser pointers."

  • Earn money through slashdot. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LoverOfJoy (820058) on Thursday October 05 2006, @10:52PM (#16332375) Homepage
    1. Build something extremely nerd-friendly out of items found at Amazon.com 2. Create website explaining how to do it (complete with amazon referal links) 3. Submit website to Slashdot 4. ??? 5. Profit!
  • In Soviet Russia, Lego Mindstorms tinker with YOU

    ...and put Friggin LASERS in your head!

  • Not a laser rangerfinder. Not even a sensor (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats (122034) on Friday October 06 2006, @12:52AM (#16333087) Homepage

    My first thought on reading that was "wow, somebody built a laser rangefinder for Lego Mindstorms". No such luck.

    Biggest problem with amateur robotics is crappy sensors and lack of feedback. It's getting better, especially in Japan, but slowly.

    • Building a range sensor into the RCX is not really that difficult. I built one for the older version (2.0) as part of my final project at university in 2004. The biggest problem was (and perhaps is) that the schematics included with a few of the books simply don't work. Before you say, "Hey, maybe you read them wrong," I'll simply say that I'm an Electrical Engineer and I know how to read a schematic.

      Anyway, it used IR, not lasers, but it had a ranged temperature and distance sensor. It used that informatio
  • I for one welcome our new laser-armed lego overlords!
  • This is exactly a useful, innovative, or even challenging mod.

    Whats next? We'll see the Slashdot headline "Man tapes laser to his dick: Fully detailed instructions with pictures"
  • Total Project Cost - $16.99 plus shipping.
    Time Required - Approximately 2 hours of tinkering.
    Bandwidth Bill For Slashdotting $5,000.00
    Having an Alpha Rex with a Laser - Priceless!!!
  • Come on. This is a 1mW visible laser. If you avoid staring directly into it for long periods of time, you'll be just fine. And it would be pretty hard to stare into it anyway without blinking or looking away. The real dangerous lasers are the ones that have enough power to cause damage instantly, or that are invisible (usually NIR), so that you don't know that you're getting zapped by them.

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