A Kinect-controlled LEGO MindStorms tribot

A gesture-controlled robotic vehicle.

EDIT: both in the video and in the description below, I incorrectly attribute the OpenNI library to National Instruments, while "NI" actually stands for "Natural Interaction". The LEGO libraries, on the other hand, are made available by National Instruments.

The two independent motors are controlled by my arms, as if I was handling two levers (as seen in some escavators and in tanks).

Implemented with some C/C++ code, using open libraries to acquire Kinect input (National Instruments' OpenNI + OpenKinect), for body tracking (by PrimeSense) and for controlling the LEGO MindStorms NXT kit (again, National Instruments' OpenNI + Fantom).

See http://rasomuro.org/20110326.html for details!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Robot
• Kinect
• LEGO
• MindStorms
• NXT
• OpenKinect

[SpiroEx]

I'm impressed.

Impressed by the setup. Even more impressed that no-one has cried 'Fake' yet.

Not that I think it is fake. Just that pretty much everything impressive or creative on YouTube has at least one Troller calling 'fake'.

[rasomuro]

@SpiroEx Ouch... Obviously it isn't impressive enough to attract trolls. I'll start:

ITS A GUINEA PIG ON A TINY BIKE! GO FULLSCREEN IF U DONT BELEIVE ME! FAKE!!!!

[H00D04]

This is great! I am doing the same thing for a project at school. if I have questions along the way would you mind if I bounced them off you?

[rasomuro]

@H00D04 I'll be glad to help if I can, although I'm not an expert neither on Mindstorms nor on the Kinect... I can only use so much time, and my last two attempts at installing the OpenNI software on different machines have been complete failures!

[H00D04]

@rasomuro Im trying to get your code that you provided on your site up and running. So far no luck. Any tips on how you put it all together? As well do you think it is possible to use Stephen Howell's new OpenNi2Scratch GUI? As well how did you use scratch?

[rasomuro]

@H00D04 I didn't use Scratch, but the OpenNI2Scratch program was a good starting point to send the joint location data to my program, so I took it and modified its output. In principle, the same modifications should work with the GUI, but you still need to patch the code so that it outputs what you need. As for putting things together, there are many possible problems: start by seeing what doesn't work: do the two programs compile? Do they output anyting?

[greenXxXghost]

thats cool lol

[CoolMehdi1]

i really like nxt and kinect my favorite hobbys

[H00D04]

@rasomuro Ok good to know you didn't actually use scratch, I was confused about that for sure. I personally can not get the two programs you have on your site to compile at all. I'm using VS2010 and have tried to add the files and headers and such. But I still get a build error .I don't really know how to use VS2010 and am very new to this. How did you acquire the data from the OpenNi2Scratch so that you could use it?

[yojavierortiz]

Awesome!! Great job!