Book Image

Smart Robotics with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor

By : Aaron Maurer
Book Image

Smart Robotics with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor

By: Aaron Maurer

Overview of this book

LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor is the latest addition to the LEGO MINDSTORMS theme. It features unique designs that you can use to build robots, and also enable you to perform activities using the robot inventor application. You'll begin by exploring the history of LEGO MINDSTORMS, and then delve into various elements of the Inventor kit. Moving on, you'll start working on different projects which will prepare you to build a variety of smart robots. The first robotic project involves designing a claw to grab objects, and helps you to explore how a smart robot is used in everyday life and in industry. The second project revolves around building a working guitar that can be played and modified to meet the needs of the user. As you advance, you'll explore the concept of biomimicry as you discover how to build a scorpion robot. In addition to this, you'll also work on a classic robotic challenge by building a sumobot. Throughout the book, you'll come across a variety of projects that will provide you with hands-on experience in building creative robots, such as building a Dragster, Egg Decorator, and Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants. By the end of this LEGO book, you'll have got to grips with the concepts behind building a robot, and also found creative ways to integrate them using the application based on your creative insights and ideas.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Chapter 8: Building an Egg and Ornament Decorator

Around the holidays, we all love to design objects for the season. Having your kids or younger family members design objects such as ornaments and eggs can be a great way to pass some time, together as a family, and create some new traditions. In this chapter, you will be building a robot that will spin around objects such as eggs or ornaments for you to be able to design patterns using markers and other art materials. In the following image you can see how the build can be modified easily to decorate a round object like an ornament and also an egg:

Figure 8.1 – Top view of the decorator you will build in this chapter with both egg and ornament examples

In this chapter, we will break down the build and program as follows:

  • Building the base frame
  • Building the motor parts
  • Adding motor parts to the base frame
  • Adding the adjustable pieces to fit the size of the object
  • Putting it all...