Last week we started on our first experiment with Lego Mindstorm. The goal of this experiment was to assemble a car out of a set of Legos that as given to us, and to then make that car move in a multitude of directions and speeds. Looking at the original set that we were given, the challenge seemed daunting, especially given my extreme lack of mechanical experience. However, by the end of the assembly process we were running the system with a great amount of skill and enjoyment.

The car unit.

At the beginning of the process we were presented with a case of Legos. This case contained the standard Lego blocks, an engine with Ethernet ports, rubber wheels, and an assortment of cables. Luckily, to assemble the system there were step-by-step instructions available to us. Putting the hardware proved to be relatively easy, the only snag that we came across in that process was putting the small and dark-colored pieces together without losing them in the shaded obis of the carpet.

However, when it came to setting up the wires we had a few setbacks. There were Ethernet ports on either end of the engine, as well as on top of the wheel fixtures. With the instructions for assembly clearly laid out by or professor, we attached the cables to the ports on top of the wheel fixtures, and into ports 1 and 3 on the back and then ran a cable directly into the computer to run the program for the unit’s movement. Within the program we needed to create a controller for the actual unit, which was relatively easy. We needed to select the ports that would control the wheels in a drop down menu, but there was no option to control ports 1 and 3 in the menu. At first we were lost, but we noticed that there was an option for ports A and C that were on the other side of the engine. We then removed the wires from ports 1 and 3 and put them into A and C. We then went to our actual controller and attempted to power up the wheels, and the unit moved.

One end of the car.

When we got the program and unit up and running we got to play around with it a bit. In playing around with it we found out a lot about the functionality of the unit, such as if you power one wheel stronger than the other wheel you can make the unit turn. More interestingly, we found that if we put the same amount of energy into the wheels but made them go in opposite directions we could make the unit spin 360 degrees. However, when we were playing around with the system we would occasionally have our unit move by itself. This was due to the fact that we did not turn off the Bluetooth option on the engine and other groups were then able to control our unit from their computers. This led to the unit occasionally falling off of the table and for us to perform a quick repair on the car itself.

The other end of the car.

Overall this activity was challenging and fun. We put an actual car together and set up a program to make it move. This is something that I have not had a great deal of experience in and to finally do a hands on activity in this field was quite enjoyable.