[...]... anchored to the shafts with the 16t gears 19 20 Next, start building support for the drive motors 21 Place the wire bricks on the motors, then anchor them down with the yellow plates The wires themselves will fit into the grooves on the top of the motors 22 Attach the motor wires to output A and output C Next, build the platform for the front bumpers 23 The touch sensors are attached only by the shaft... runs through them 24 Hank's left bumper is next A light touch on the bumper pushes the touch sensor Hank's right bumper works exactly the same way The bushings are pushed onto the plate in the next step Note that the bushings are not symmetrical; one side will push into the plate, and the other side won't 25 Finish Hank by attaching the bumper touch sensors to input 1 and input 3 Slide the blue rubber... electrical engineer chooses the brain, sensors, and maybe the actuators, and wires them all together This person probably selects the power supply, as well • A mechanical engineer designs the body and possibly selects the actuators The mechanical person needs to be familiar with the other components of the robot (brain, sensors, actuators, and power supply) so that everything fits together mechanically • A... snapping LEGO bricks together • The set also includes two motors Like the sensors, they can be connected to the RCX by just snapping LEGO bricks together • The RCX uses six standard AA batteries for power It also includes a power jack You can supply power in either polarity, even AC, from 9V to 12V • The set includes more than 700 LEGO pieces that you can use to build the body of the robot • You can... Download the program to the robot 4 Run the program This is only a sketch of the process, of course; it's likely you'll repeat the steps many times as you gradually improve the mechanical design and software of your robot You can create a program on your PC using the MINDSTORMS software Then you need to download it to the RCX using the IR link Once the program is downloaded, your robot is ready to go... expertise: • The electrical engineer still has to select sensors and actuators and wire them to the microprocessor These parts are inexpensive and can be bought from hobby stores or electronics part stores • The computer programmer still needs a pretty low-level understanding of the microprocessor and the attached sensors and actuators • You still need a mechanical engineer to design the robot's body 6 The. .. robot's body is simply the physical chassis that holds the other pieces of the robot together 3 Actuators allow the robot to move These are usually motors, although there are many other possibilities, such as hydraulic pistons 4 Sensors give a robot information about its environment A touch sensor, for example, can tell a robot that it has come in contact with something else The last component is not... even more challenging These robots need to bring everything along with them, including a power supply and a brain The power supply is typically an array of batteries, which adds a lot of weight to the robot The brain is also constrained because it has to fit on the robot, not weigh a ton, and be frugal about sucking power out of the batteries This Is Tough Stuff The field of autonomous mobile robotics... MINDSTORMS is the name of a product line sold by The LEGO Group The LEGO Group has a handful of product lines that cater to different age groups, some of which are shown in Table 1-1 Table 1-1 Representative LEGO Product Lines Product Line Name Suggested Ages LEGO® PRIMO™ 3 months to 24 months LEGO® DUPLO™ 18 months to 6 years LEGO® SYSTEM™ 3 years to 12 years LEGO® TECHNIC™ 7 years to 16 years LEGO® MINDSTORMS™. .. source supplies the juice needed to run the brain, actuators, and sensors For example, think about a robot that spraypaints cars in a factory Its brain is probably a garden-variety desktop computer The body is a big arm with a paint sprayer at the end The actuators are motors or pneumatic pistons that move the arm around Position and rotation sensors are used so the robot knows where the sprayer is . body is simply the physical chassis that holds the other pieces of the robot together. 3. Actuators allow the robot to move. These are usually motors, although there are many other possibilities,. of wires (the tether) to the robot, which is free to move around, at least as far as the tether will allow. Autonomous mobile robots are even more challenging. These robots need to bring everything. LEGO® PRIMO™ 3 months to 24 months LEGO® DUPLO™ 18 months to 6 years LEGO® SYSTEM™ 3 years to 12 years LEGO® TECHNIC™ 7 years to 16 years LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ 11 years and older The