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)

Writing the code

The coding for the guitar is based on a very simple premise but allows for a complete individual interpretation on how you want to play the guitar and how you want the guitar to sound.

The program we are writing as an example will showcase some possibilities, but utimately, you should be brave and tinker around to get the guitar to sound how you want. The beauty of music is to express yourself the way you want to. This is your moment! Combining coding and music is an exciting combination of awesome.

The ports

There is not a lot to plug in for this build. You will connect the distance sensor into port D. You will also add the color sensor plugged into port C.

The following screenshot illustrates this:

Figure 4.93 – Port view in the MINDSTORMS software

The basic layout of the program will follow this structure for each of the colored items on your guitar fretboard.

You will start by adding the yellow event block called when...