LEGO.com MINDSTORMS Meet the MDP's Philippe "Philo" Hurbain

Philippe "Philo" Hurbain
From:
France, near Paris

What I do besides building with MINDSTORMS:
I'm an electronics engineer working for a small design house in Paris.

Why I signed up for the MDP:
Of course to get the NXT as soon as possible. I am eager to discover the possibilities offered by the new sensor interface.

Experience with MINDSTORMS:
I got my hands on the RIS 1.5 in late '99, and never recovered... I was of course interested in building new sensors for RCX, and I started documenting them on my website. I also did some reverse engineering on LEGO sensors, especially the rotation sensor that has problems at slow rotation speed.

I was very enthusiastic with Steve Hassenplug's GBC (Great Ball Contraption) concept and built a lot of modules (most of them are not MINDSTORMS based though). I don't have much competitive fiber, nevertheless I built a few winning robots for MINDSTORMS forums competitions.

My other LEGO interest lies in LEGO cad software, especially in LeoCAD that I actively promote... I am also a part reviewer (I was not so much successfull in part authoring...)

NXT Project: NXT Joystick

About this NXT Project:
I needed a remote to control my spy rover, so I built this joystick which controls the vehicle via Bluetooth. The motor is topped by a touch sensor form the joystick arm, providing an ergonomic grip. Motor encoders are used to read the position of the joystick. These values are sent to the controlled device through Bluetooth. A message is also sent to the remote device when the trigger button is pressed. The trigger button is also used at the beginning of the program to calibrate the joystick (set the zero position).It might also be used as a "shift key," to control two actions when the trigger is released, two other actions when pressed. Both motors are directly coupled to the joystick arm, this increases precision by avoiding looseness (though some gear backlash inside the motors can't be avoided).

My Links
More details, programs and building instructions can be found on:

Philo's NXTLOG
and on Philo's website:

www.philohome.com

NXT Project: Spy Camera Rover

About this NXT Project:
I started building this little rover to test Brian Davis' ball caster. While I was the first to demonstrate the use of NXT ball as a caster, Brian design is far superior to mine... Then I got my wireless camera and used the rover to remotely explore my house. It can either be remote controlled using my NXT joystick (or any other Bluetooth remote control program, see bottom of this page), or wander by itself, using the ultrasonic sensor to avoid obstacles.

My Links
More details, programs and building instructions can be found on:

Philo's NXTLOG
and on Philo's website:

www.philohome.com