What I Did Last Weekend
I've told people this tool can be a nice way to tell your friends and family (and Lego fans) about "what I did last weekend". Here's an example:
I spent a ton of time last weekend (probably too much, but it was fun) working on a subproject in my grand Lego Mindstorms project. The task at hand was to test/prove the idea that a crane can be built, to solve the problem of moving an object across a relatively very large vertical distance.
Here are some pictures from my first crane experiment. As I was building this thing, I was thinking about my web content... often it is too distant/cold/logical, and about computing and not people/feelings/emotions. So I broke out some "people" and wow, I really added a human touch don't you think?
Ha ha. Hope you enjoy!
The test was mostly successful. I was nervous about the bucket spinning and not being directed to the target properly, but it didn't seem a big problem. And the rotation sensor did its job perfectly, I had control down to less than a few millimeters, really tight. The crane arm had only two positions (above the calibrator, and above the target, limited by a peg in the rotation gear and a slip gear on the engine).
Oh, it was way too tall. My standard rotation hack worked fine, but it was a bit wobbly and definitely not suitable for the next phase of the project.
Bottom line, I'm still uncertain about spotting the target accurately with only a rotation sensor on the spool and a known distance to drop the bucket. But the bucket will defintely go in the hole! If I can arrange to allow a bit more slack in the line (without worry about it tangling up in the spool), and maybe resynch the top of the line each time -- perhaps as the ball is delivered to the destination? -- it should work.
And yeah, if I can communicate from the target area back to the crane, it'll be a piece of cake.