LEGO was all over World Maker Faire! Besides FIRST LEGO League, LEGO was a common sight. LEGO provides a flexible building platform and Makers love LEGO. While it might not ship in a final project, the iconic, modular bricks provides an unmatched ease of use for prototyping. This has been one of my favorite posts to write, showing off all the awesome creations of the community! Follow me after the break to check out more of the LEGO sights of World Maker Faire 2016!
Posts Tagged ‘Maker Faire’
LEGO at World Maker Faire
Posted: October 19, 2016 in LEGO, NewsTags: EV3, Health, LEGO, LEGO MINDSTORMS, LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, Make, Maker, Maker Faire, NXT, Raspberry Pi, World Maker Faire
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LEGO MINDSTORMS Aerial Camera Bot
Posted: October 13, 2016 in Engineering, LEGO, RoboticsTags: 3D Printing, Camera, GoPro, LEGO, LEGO MINDSTORMS, LEGO Technic, Maker Faire, World Maker Faire
As I mentioned last week, I want to share a really fun robot. Sorry for the delay in this post, but I needed to make a quick video of the footage for Youtube. The Maker movement is all about fusing different mediums to create something unique. For this ROBOT MAK3R, that means mixing 3D Printing, LEGO MINDSTORMS, Spider Wire, and a GoPro action camera.
Capturing events is always a challenge for me. While I am displaying, I am typically very busy answering questions and meeting everyone. I really wanted a way to document these awesome events that still allowed me to be social. Sounds like a robot to me! With some on-site programming I was able to achieve this goal! While the bot needed a bit of tuning, movement along its wire was smooth and pan and tilt controls worked as designed! Not bad for a quick build! Check out the footage from World Maker Faire 2016 and learn about this awesome bot after the break!
World Maker Faire 2016
Posted: October 5, 2016 in NewsTags: FIRST, LEGO, Maker, Maker Faire, mindsensors.com, Power Wheels, Sculpture, World Maker Faire
This past weekend was World Maker Faire 2016 in New York. Maker Faire is a celebration of creativity, technology, and invention. I was lucky to attend the event again this year, showing off some LEGO robots at the ILUGNY booth. While the booth was constantly busy, I was able to explore and see some truly amazing projects. Follow me after the break for more photos from this incredible event!
Building Robots and Maker Video
Posted: September 5, 2016 in NewsTags: Building Robots with Gracious Professionalism, Core Values, EV3 Lessons, EV3lessons.com, FIRST, Gracious Professionalism, Maker Faire, Sketchup, Who are Makers?, World Maker Faire
This week I thought I would write an extra post to share a couple of links that I was involved with. The first comes from an outstanding MINDSTORMS resource, EV3lessons.com. I was offered the opportunity to write a guest blog post. Naturally, I took this opportunity to share my thoughts on Build Robots with Gracious Professionalism. Head over to EV3 Lessons and checkout the post!
The other link comes from Sketchup. Last year at World Maker Faire in New York they had a camera crew capturing the event. They interviewed me, asking about making. The video is above. I did so many interviews, it was tough to keep with all the final videos. A friend of my brother found this video and shared it on social media. Check it out the awesome video and learn a bit about us Makers!
LEGO Technic GoPro Mount
Posted: October 19, 2015 in Engineering, LEGO, RoboticsTags: 3D Printing, EV3, GoPro, GoPro Mount, Gyro, LEGO, LEGO MINDSTORMS, LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, Maker Faire
Remember that LEGO GoPro Gyro Stabilizer I showed in my Make Faires post? If not, check out the picture below!
Now you can 3D print that same GoPro to Technic Mount! I have posted it on Thingiverse. Go Check it out! All you need is 1 EV3, 3 Gyros, 3 Motors and an afternoon to make your own! Have fun!
Maker Faires
Posted: October 15, 2015 in Engineering, LEGO, News, RoboticsTags: GoPro, Graffiti Cube, LEGO, LEGO Cube, LEGO MINDSTORMS, Maker Faire, Maker Faire Orlando, World Maker Faire
September was a busy month for me! The highlights were both Maker Faire Orlando at the Orlando Science Center and World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science. You might have noticed a hint of what I have been up to over the past weeks. This post will be pretty heavy when it comes to pictures to help share the AWESOME that is the maker movement.
Never heard of Maker Faire? A Maker Faire is an event put on in conjunction with Make: magazine to celebrate “makers”. What is a maker? Well that is a little more difficult to understand. At its core a maker is someone who makes things. There is no age requirement to be a maker. There are lots of different types of makers. Some are ROBOT MAK3RS or people that make with LEGO MINDSTORMS. However that is hardly an official category. You might make robots, cars, giant flaming robot sculptures, paper models, apps, clothes. Making can use a range of materials from 3D printing to LEGO to metal/wood to fabric. Making is a form of expression and hands-on learning.
You can checkout coverage of the LEGO MINDSTORMS Booth, including some of my bots at The NXT Step!
Follow me after the break for more.
2013 Orlando Mini Maker Faire MATLAB Demo Part II
Posted: December 11, 2013 in Engineering, LEGO, MathWorks, News, RoboticsTags: Image Processing, LEGO MINDSTORMS, Maker Faire, MathWorks, MATLAB, Mobile Robotics, NXT, Orlando Mini Maker Faire
Remember that Maker Faire demo I posted about a few weeks ago? Well as promised here is Part 2! This time I dive into the new features I added for the demo. The video format is a bit strange in that it presents a PowerPoint, but that was a requirement for a class. I ended up leveraging this work for my image processing class this semester.
One of the easiest ways to make a demo interactive is to kid a child a maker and say draw. That is exactly what this demo does. As the child draws, the robot or swarm will follow the line. I do some image processing to find the line. The first step is to reduce the search area. This is a huge time saver when it comes to processing and removes many of the issues of shadows or various markers and body parts the camera may see. Then it does a search in this region of interest (ROI) and looks for where the line intersects the ROI.
I tried to keep the new feature as streamlined as possible to avoid the issues of degraded performance. Image processing can be quite processor intensive. Since the code was already doing a lot of processing to get to this point, I wanted to ensure that any further enhancements did not add lag.
There is always room for improvement and one of those areas would be actually projecting the line to calculate the intersection. This would probably help for the cases where the line does not intersect the edge of the ROI, but that is a feature for another time. Check out the video for more details. It came together really well!
MATLAB and Simulink Mini Maker Faire Demo
Posted: October 30, 2013 in Engineering, LEGO, MathWorks, RoboticsTags: LEGO, LEGO MINDSTORMS, Line Follower, Maker Faire, MathWorks, MATLAB, NXT, Orlando Mini Maker Faire, Simulink
I am happy to share Part 1 of the demo I took to the Orlando Mini Maker Faire. This video covers the basics of what The MathWorks provided me. As you can tell by the video, it is somewhat dependent on lighting. But let me describe what the base demo does.
The setup is 3 NXT robots running Simulink code that communicates with my computer. There is a camera positioned about 6 feet above the robots. Each robot has a unique pattern that can be seen by the camera. Using this pattern we can determine the position and heading of each bot.
The demo tries to get the robots to form a triangle. The position of the triangle is determined by the user. The robots will follow the triangle as the user moves it. Check out the video above to see the tech in action! While the video was shot in my apartment, the picture, right, was from the Orlando Mini Maker Faire.
Now I love sharing cool tech with people, but I also love to put my own twist on it. What if we made the demo interactive and allowed kids to draw lines? One might think a robot or a group of robots might follow that line. One might also thing that adding more lines of different colors might allow different robots to follow different lines. Of course that is all speculation. Maybe the photo below will be a helpful hint. 😉
Orlando Mini Maker Faire
Posted: October 7, 2013 in Engineering, LEGO, MathWorks, News, RoboticsTags: EV3, LEGO MINDSTORMS Space Shuttle, LMS Shuttle, Maker Faire, MathWorks, MATLAB, MCP, NXT, Orlando Mini Maker Faire, Robots, Simulink, The MathWorks
This past weekend was the Orlando Mini Maker Faire at the Orlando Science Center. I am not sure of the final attendance numbers, but I was busy the entire time. I brought a total of 15 robots to display. Naturally I had the Shuttle and segway bots, but this event featured a new NXT project in partnership with The MathWorks, makers of MATLAB and Simulink. The video will be coming (due to poor lighting at the event, I am having to shoot the video at home) but the project features control of the NXTs from MATLAB. Navigation is done by processing the image from a camera positioned above the bots, as you can see in the first picture. I will go into more detail soon, but The MathWorks provided a good foundation for the demo and I then added a few enhancements. The code running on the NXTs was written in Simulink and the image processing and control as in MATLAB. The bots communicated with the computer via Bluetooth. I was able to demo both the example The MathWorks provide and my enhanced version, but since the lighting was spotty, I was only able to do it once. (It was very sensitive to people walking by and casting shadows from the overhead lights.)
I also brought a long a few EV3 bots. I had a couple of ‘kit’ bots that were built with the instructions (EV3RSTORM and a robotic arm), but I also decided to make my own flyer stuffing robot. I will save the details of that bot for another post as well, but it is safe to say it was a hit with every one in attendance. You can see it right on the corner of the table in the picture below.
Below are a few more pics from the display. Everyone really seemed to like the interactive display. Other members of my LUG had displays that ranged from a trick or treating street, motorized technic models, and a BrickPi. We really had a nice showing and attracted a ton of attention.
I look forward to the next event, although I might need to scale it back a bit. 15 bots was crazy! Plus, I wasnt able to bring a few of my other projects. Stay tuned for more updates. I have quite a backlog and I hope to be updating them soon!
Milluzzi Labs 
