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Building a mobile robot with NXT brain

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Objectives

• Learn more about the robotic platform called NXT
• Build a mobile robot
• Begin to explore programming the NXT

Tools and Parts Needed

• NXT brick with charged battery pack and Mindstorm kit

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In all of our earlier labs, we have focused only on programming.  In this lab, you will first build a mobile robot from the NXT robotic platform.

Build-time Team Roles

In the first part of this lab, you will build a mobile robot from parts by following pages 8-23 of the Lego Mindstorm Education Guide.

• Foreman: This person will manage the Lego Mindstorm Education Guide and will direct the Parts Manager and the Engineer in the construction.
• Engineer: This person will be the primary member of the team to put together parts of the robot according to the Lego Mindstorm Education Guide
• Parts Manager: This person will find and disrtibute the needed parts for the build.

Note that every few steps of this build process, build-time roles should rotate in the following way:

• The foreman should become the engineer.
• The engineer should become the parts manager.
• The parts manager should become the foreman.
  

When the entire build is completed, your team should shift roles again.

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Program-time Team Roles

Decide which of you will fill each of the following roles for the remainder of this lab:

• Engineer: This person will be the primary member of the team to handle the USB Firewire cable, NXTrobot, and sensor attachments. The engineer should have THIS web page open on his/her laptop in order to know what to do next.
• Programmer: This person will run the NXT and/or RoboLab program and will create all of the required RoboLab programs. 
• Scribe: This person will guide the discussion and type the Lab Report as you work on this lab. The scribe should have Word (or another editor program) open on his/her laptop.

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Your Programming Exploration

In this portion of the lab, you will try running built-in robotlab programs on the NXT.  

1. It is possible to program the robot with simple programs directly from the LCD screen.  The Lego Mindstorm Education Guide gives some examples of these programs.  Give them a try.
2. The primary outcome of this lab will be the Lab Report, so please carefully answer the questions in your Lab Report.
   

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Your Lab Report

All lab reports should be self-contained and should contain all of the following information at the top:

• The lab number: Lab 10
• The teammates:
  • Team-member 1:
  • Team-member 2:
  • Scribe:
  for this lab.

As usual, for this lab, your team will submit two files: the Lab Report entitled yourteam-L10. For the report, your team should discuss the answers to each of these questions. Using correct spelling and good grammar, this lab should then address the following questions:

1. Your Build: In a paragraph, describe the ease and sucess of your build process.  How easy were the instructions to follow?  How well did your team members swap roles?
2. Your Success: In a paragraph or so, describe whether or not you were able to run th built-inn programs on the robot as desired. If not, why not?  What goes wrong and under what conditions?
3. Comments and Suggestions: Write a paragraph that summarizes your team's reaction to RoboLab and to this lab. If there are any problems you encountered or any questions that remain, please ask! Also, be sure to include any suggestions you have for how this lab could be improved.