I know an amateur filmmaker who gets visibly upset at the advantages today’s kids have. Specifically, Lego comes up. A few years back LEGO released a filmmaker kit containing a camera with their plastic building blocks, encouraging children to film stop motion sequences with their creations — capabilities aspiring filmmakers dreamed of as a child. It’s the same case for budding kid-engineers growing up today, by using LEGO, kids can get a leg up on robotics.
The latest release of an Android robot-controlling app called MINDdroid may garner LEGO a few more fans to their line of robotics kits — I know I’m seriously considering one now. The MINDroid app works in unison with the LEGO Mindstorm NXT sets, a powerful robot-creating toolkit that comprises a small brain for your robot, a micro-computer called the NXT Intelligent Brick.
The NXT robot-brain is equipped with sensor ports, outputs for attaching motors and USB ports for uploading and downloading data. And, the toolkit comes with building elements, gears, wheels, tires and instructions to create some really cool robots like the Shooterbot, a moving vehicle watchdog for your office that shoots balls at intruders. A very geeky toy indeed.
Using the MINDroid app, Android users can remotely shoot balls, drive and interact with their NXT robots by utilizing the device’s accelerometer and tilt sensors — as if being a kid in 2010 wasn’t cool already. Using Android as a remote control simply requires that the NXT intelligent brick has bluetooth activated in order to pair the robot with the app.
The children of Android-user parents may find their LEGO MINDSTORM NXT SETS magically disappearing from their bedrooms.
Anyone Remember Zack?
