Lego Mindstorms Elevator for Duplo Train

This is my first Mindstorms creation: a fully automated elevator for my toddler's Duplo train. It opens the gate when a train arrives, loads the train into the elevator, moves the elevator up, unloads the train into the track, and goes back to the ground level to load a new train.

Main components:
- 1 NXT motor to power the elevator.
- 2 Hitec servos (connected via NXTServo-v2 from Minsensors) to load/unload the train and operate the gate. I could have easily used standard NXT motors for this, except that I am planning to make the elevator much bigger for my next project and wouldn't have sufficiently long cables to operate the NXT motors.
- 2 touch sensors, one on the ground floor and the other on the upper level to detect the elevator.
- 1 color sensor to detect the train.

Except for the Hitec servos/cables and the string pulling the elevator, I've used only original Technic/Mindstorms/Duplo parts. The string was actually wrapping a box of Duplos purchased from Walmart, so that could be considered a Lego part too... :) The program was written in RobotC. The entire project is quite simple, but not too bad for being my first Mindstorms/Technic contraption. My two year old is amused, but he'd rather move the elevator up and down by himself... so I'll be removing all the electronics soon and move on to a new project while he takes everything apart :)

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Lego
• Mindstorms
• Duplo
• Train
• Elevator