This robot delivers drinks on command. It was designed for the Design Competition amongst 400 first year students of Mechanical Engineering at Delft University of technology. The goal was to deliver the drinks as quickly as possible, while keeping them balanced, providing an interesting challenge to put the newly learned skills to practice.

Featuring the Rotacaster Omniwheels for NXT, this is the the Omnistrider, based on the Strider in my book. Contrary to most omniwheeled NXT robots, this one has an unconventional wheel orientation. The result is that it can’t turn by itself, but that’s not really a problem since it can go in any direction.

This robotic crane was my first robot arm that was actually quite functional. It could move anywhere on its treads, and the arm had several degrees of freedom, including a wrist that turns. Orginally, I designed this with the RCX (that’s why there are no NXT motors on board), which controlled Power Function receivers with...

This chimney climber should be considered as the first ‘robotic’ climber in the series. Contrary to the older two climbers, this robot uses sensors to tell the robot about its environment. A Mindsensors.com acceleration sensor measures the robot’s tilt on one axis. When unbalanced, the wheel speeds can be adjusted to regain balance. An Ultrasonic...

I received the 8273 Technic set, the “off-road truck” late 2008. Having finished building it, I thought it would be fun to add an NXT and two motors to NXT-ify it. The NXT turned out to fit nicely in the back of the truck. The steer and rear driving wheels are motorized, but you must...

The aim of this sorter was to demonstrate the functionality of a homebrew color sensor, based on the instructions in the “Extreme NXT” book. I have the first edition of the (excellent) book, but the second improved version also has instructions for this color sensor. Below you’ll see the resulting sensor. Three colored LEDs are...

This little jumping robot jumps around on one foot with the help of a walking frame. Youtube viewers collectively suggested it reminded them of an old lady (I can’t blame them). To get a good idea of how it works, just have a look at the video, which is quite self-explanatory. If you have the...

Brick sorters are one of my favorite Mindstorms projects. Simply because they’re fun, and also because they’re more “useful” than most LEGO vehicles that just drive around. This design was made in early 2007, and I shared the building instructions later that year. This was the first time I shared building instructions with the community,...

This is the first biped walker that I built with the NXT. It’s bigger than Alpha Rex, and it walks a bit less elegant. Yet, it actually lifts its feet off the ground to walk. It walks by lifting up one foot, while turning the foot that is currently on the ground. When it does...

This little dog was developed in November 2007. It walks around while wagging its tail and while looking for humans or objects in its way. You can build it if you have the NXT 1.0 set and three extra gears (details below). Building instructions and the program are available for download. This is a picture...