Bulldozer Sumo

[Cabal777]

Palestinians' worst nightmare!

[RandomRocker1000]

um... can anyone tell me wts the nxt ir receiver for?

[brdavis5]

@RandomRocker1000 Well, you can use the IRLink (a 3rd party external sensor that functions as an IR *transmitter* for the NXT) to allow the NXT to imitate the LEGO IR remote controls. That's how the bulldozers were controlled here - they all used PF motors, but the NXT riding along could control those motors via the IRLink.

[MultiDjfa]

you guys are too old for this.........

[brdavis5]

@MultiDjfa Not even close. When are you too old to have fun?

[chaosweaver1000]

LEGO!!!

[SeAnStAmOn]

Something tells me that there were a couple of programming errors?

[Spitfire727]

How do you programm them or what do you do to them to move like that?

[brdavis5]

@Spitfire727 Well... you program them. You program them to stay in the circle, and/or to try to find the opponent, to detect when they've been hit, and from where, and to take evasive maneuvers, etc., etc. There's a lot of things you can program them to do.

[90panni90]

Ur laughing is funny xD

[anzimals243]

to stop them driving out of the circle hook up a line sensor to the under carriage and program it to not go out of the white

[brdavis5]

@anzimals243 Umm... yeah, right, I should try that ;)

All the robots you see here (well, 90% of them anyway) use one (or more!) downward looking light sensors to detect the ring edge. But that doesn't always work (being pushed, hitting the white line at a glancing angle, specular reflection int the light sensor, etc.).

[19f97]

change the control thing 1 2 3 4 and you can steer the other bulldozer :=)

[brdavis5]

@19f97 Too easy to jam :)

[chooney991]

awsome dude



[MyTOYOTAMAN]

Как детишки маленькие разыгрались мля.... А ржут как кони!

[250kman250]

this is like geek squad football!

[MultiDirtbikekid]

It would be a lot better in real life but this is still good

[robson1014]

0:40 xD Remote control or automatic ?

[brdavis5]

@robson1014 All automatic - no remote control on any of them.

[Xstioph]

@brdavis5: wtf, that's bad ass =D and the video was hilarious

[BigGigantos]

Why can they only steer in one direction?

[brdavis5]

They can steer in either direction - but it's usually best, and easiest, to turn in only one direction while "searching" for an opponent in an event like this.

[RibsLewis36]

hillarious  loved it

[mrminic]

nice bulldozer wepons

[GilbertFloresIII]

are you brayn mahony ?

[brdavis5]

No.

[MrSuvvri]

it's like Robotica (or something else) on discavery xD

[azayles]

Those are brilliant! Such fun to watch :-D I didn't realise how big they were till I saw one being picked up at the end.

Are you using differential subtractor steering?

[brdavis5]

Thanks - the bulldozers are actually almost stock LEGO models, and they do not use a differential adder-subtractor. There's not really a good reason, as a robot with such low-friction treads isn't going to drive straight even if the left & right treads were physically tied together.

[piplup2009]

0:17 its that big ass wheel on the thornatus v9

[iDesignos]

It is not good to place 2 ultrasonic sensors next to each other they will produce very wrong values as us-sensor 1 will take echo from sensor 2.

[brdavis5]

Have you tried it to see? I agree, it would seem that way... but in practice, as you can see, it works just fine. You can also toggle the US sensors so that they are fired in a staggered fashion, and to prevent possible collision of such signals, but in practice... well, you should try it :).

[thelarsdude]

cough*nerds*cough

[brdavis5]

Sure, nerds... but we're nerdy enough that LEGO likes what we do enough to let us in on some of their developments, ask our opinions, and send us toys.

Sometimes, being a "nerd" can be a valuable (and productive) skill. :)

[mistersmilesthekille]

what did he say?

[brdavis5]

He's been filtered out by too many people giving him a thumbs down, but essentially we was saying I was a nerd and totally uncool.

Since his wasn't an opinion I valued, this was sort of laughable :).

[mistersmilesthekille]

yep,lego is cool no matter what,he is jealous or got screwed to hard XD

[uuppssssss]

hehe nice answer xD

[bigubaby]

this by far have ben the coolest video i have ever seen my life is complete

[thing2liv]

ive made some remote sumos but i dont have NXT, do you think its worth buying the NXT set just to make them into robots?

[TNSthetormentor]

Well, making robots is the whole point of NXT! But if you want just to motorize 1 set forever then its not worth buying it.

[dirtbikerboy202]

would the infored not mix up it does on my rc or ar they different

[VelikiyKrestonosez]

constructicons?

[Murcielago533]

sweet,

im thinking about picking up a 8275 Bulldozer for $220 CAD.

is the set worth it?

[brdavis5]

I don't know - it may be "worth it" to me, and not to you, or vise versa. I can tell you it['s a very nice set, with some great functionality, a lot of very useful parts, etc.

[xxrobby]

Where are you getting it from? Ebay?

[thebomguy]

lol the one that throughs stuff is soo cool

[54spiritedwill54]

lol thats so cool i have gotta try this

[bestamerica]

use R/C or not

[brdavis5]

I'm not sure what you mean. While the Bulldozers *could* use RC, they did not in this video - it was all autonomous operation, controled by the NXT.

[skatingleo]

so they were normal lego bulldozers?

[brdavis5]

Yes, essentially "normal" Bulldoozers (with some weapons added), being controlled by NXTs. The NXTs used a device called the IRLink so they could send IR commands to the Bulldozers, just like a remote would normally.

[skatingleo]

woah i have to try it where'd you pick up the NXT's

[brdavis5]

From the NXT set. The IRLink you need to purchase separately from LEGO or HiTechnic.

[StockTradingGuru]

Nice video, thanks for sharing......

[MCR01234]

nice work not!!!!!!!!

[brdavis5]

Well, perhaps not... I guess you must be much better at designing and programming robots. How many large-scale robotic sumo contests have you entered or organized? This one involved folks from all over the world (well, at least four different continents). So, sorry you didn't appreciate it ;).

[airoscar]

who's laughing? it sounds terrible

[breckmail]

moin moin leutz

[fear3bk]

lol that was funny!

[lego5engineer]

could you please tell me the element id for the new tread on lego set 8275 thanks im trying to buy some ,if you know leave comment on my page

[brdavis5]

I'm not sure where you're buying them from, but if you look on Peeron, each set has the inventory completely listed. BrickLink also has complete inventories... so just go to one of those, find the set, and browse through the inventory...

[naetoru99]

I actually have some friends who are interested in doing the Battle Bricks league. can you give me some info on what it takes to start a BB team?

[brdavis5]

Nope - because I've never done that. How about making up your own rules, or looking around for other groups with published rules?

[naetoru99]

well I have looked and there are no teams in our area. but as for making up our own rules, we decided that if there are no teams in our area we'll just follow the official BB rules and fight amungst ourselves.

[pinhead1304]

lol thats pretty cool.

[raintheimmortalvamp]

awesome!!!!!!

[werta5000]

This is grate

[92EmAnUeLe92]

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hoser1358]

ever think of only using power fuctions? with the powere fuxtions remote you wouldnt have errors like that unless the drivers an idiot still looks fun but boring. just watching...

[brdavis5]

You could do this with just power functions using stock, out of the box bulldozers... but actually I think that would be boring, as it requires no creativity or innovation. Which is why we decided at a minimum to require completely autonomous behavior. After all, 'robotic sumo' uses robots, not RC...

[Hoser1358]

oh i didnt no they came with power fuctions =P

[brdavis5]

Yep - fully remote controlled right out of the box (and a lot of fun in that mode as well... the bulldozer video near the end of another of my YT videos "QuAZLR: Frangible LEGO" is all under remote control.

[naetoru99]

but why use PF in the first place? with the nxt servos you get power and precision.

[brdavis5]

Because as I mentioned, the PF motors were already built-in (they are in the stock out-of-the-box model). Why modify something that already works? Remember the precision in controlling the NXT motors does you know good if the treads slip even a little... and in sumo, they tend to slip a *LOT*. So I save the NXT motors for places they are needed... and yes the less expensive PF motors where they are sufficient.

[azerrlight]

What material is rthe ring made out of?

because i finaly got this set but the tracks seem to come off quite a bit on carpet?

[brdavis5]

The ring is just sanded plywood (IMS) painted flat black. I've also used MDF board in my own rings, it works pretty well (just don't get it wet). Yes, these treads do tend to seperate under high tensions, especially is "sheared" (forced at an angle to their line of connection).

[55elementskater55]

I wish i had a mindstorms kit nice though.

[pimpim881013]

Haha, thet looks like a lott of funn, i whish i hade some Lego Geeks wher i lived!

5/5 Verry entertaining

[azerrlight]

can some 1 plz tell em if there is any difference between black and grey tracks plz and are the sprockets the same to drive them?

thx=D

[brdavis5]

The grey tracks that are on the bulldozers come in the bulldozer sets, as well as a recent (2008 new release) Mission Mars set. These come as individual tread links that can be joined to form a tread of any length you want. The black treads that are on LNE/Packbot are from the recent Exoforce sets; these are single-piece rubber treads. The two tread systems use different driving sprockets.

[azerrlight]

do you know where i can get the lego 8275 bulldozer sets chear(or cheaper then £99.99) or like $200

or any other lego sets like 8295or general cheap lego , thx =D

[brdavis5]

No, I don't.

[azerrlight]

how did u use the xk and m motors on the bulldozers with nxt, i know u use ir link , but how did u get them to movew so much?

because u cant tell them to do so many rotations,?

do you use seconds as the guidline for the motors through ir link?

plz reply thx =D

[brdavis5]

We used the HiTechnic IRLink to control the PF motors. We just controlled them the same way you would RCX-style motors: run them for set periods of time. There's no need for precision in this case.

[brdavis5]

Well, that's actually the "collection" of about five or six different people, and some of the hardware you see has been donated or given as gifts, so we didn't buy all of it. But yes, it's a lot of (expensive!) LEGO.

[Legoweapond]

woow that shoud cost lots of money to buy all

[burdokzII]

Dude I have here something like $437 (700reais) but i live in brazil and this shits are sooo expansive... a NXT mindstorms is 1900reais (something like $1187) and the bulldozer I saw yesterday for 514reais ($321)... How I whish to live in US to buy this things :/

I'm thinking if I buy a bulldozer..

[Scorge120]

lol nice flywheel, is that wheel powerfull if it gets a good hit?

[brdavis5]

I'm not sure which you mean. The one that "throws" a wheel can actually break the treads if it gets a lucky hit (rare, but very cool when it happens). The one with the spinning "blade" on the back doesn't do too much damage, but could snag some wires if it gets lucky.

[Scorge120]

yeah the one with the spinning blade, oh okay thanks. So I guess the one that "throws" a wheel is better than the flywheel. I saw it wreck some havoc in your vid. Very nice designs.

[brdavis5]

Thanks - it was a lot of fun making/running them.

[lilperch64]

nice, im saving my mponey for one of those, right now i have like $1.60 lol

[skunko144]

lol thats so cool i have gotta try this

[BiggestKornFan1993]

I wanna get a Lego bulldozer to destroy every lego thing in it's path

[ejeap]

Man, you laugh weird

[brdavis5]

...and you know that's my laugh because...?

[nutsforlego]

that video is better than bluetoothkiwi sumo brian your cool

[brdavis5]

Well, I had help - after all, there were five of us with NXTized bulldozers, and BTKiwi only had one :)

[hassenplug]

QuincyRobinson: if you're interested in finding out more about this group, just search the web for Team Hassenplug.

[brdavis5]

It is a lot of fun :) The folks in the video are a loose-knit group around Indiana & Illinios, and there are several LUGs (LEGO User Groups) in Indiana alone. There are some in Ohio as well - you might want to drift over to LUGNET and take a look from some people or groups in your area.

[paland3]

how did you connect the 8275's motors to the nxt?

Thanks: paland3

[brdavis5]

The IRLink is a "sensor" from HiTechnic (also sold through LEGO) that allows the NXT to mimic the IR commands of the PF remote. The PF motors are not wired to the NXT, but the NXT with IRLink "drives" the Bulldozer motors via IR commands. Rather easy, actually, under NXT-G.

[dubz20dubz]

lawl

[hypermeezers]

LOL

[MaverickHunter75]

at 1:51, there is living proof that robots are beginning to rebel against humans. :P

[Raeven05]

The bots and the way you filmed the matches were both good.

[Raeven05]

Nicely done!

[brdavis5]

Thank you! Are you talking about the video, or the building and running of the event?