Transportation touches our lives everyday. You travel to the places you live, learn, play, or to visit friends and family. You also travel to get the things you want, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the water you drink, and the medicines you need. You travel over highways, on paths and trails, along railroad tracks, up and down rivers, over mountains and deserts, and along the streets we live on. Information travels to us from experts, teachers, friends, and family. It comes to us by word-of-mouth, over the phone, in books, from websites, in text messages.
Now, consider. A potato chip can travel through a factory—flying from machine-to-machine without being broken—but more than 50,000 kids who traveled on skateboards had to be taken to the hospital. Is all this travel as safe as it could be? Millions of people (and the things they need) get stuck in transit every day. Is all this travel as efficient as it could be?
What kinds of problems keep people and things from getting where they are going safely? What kind of problems keep people and things from moving efficiently, getting where they are going quickly and using the least amount of energy? How could your MINDSTORMS NXT robot design help solve one of those problems?
Awards will be given in 4 areas. Award winners will be featured on LEGO MINDSTORMS News.
1) HUMAN TRANSPORT:
This award goes to the user who best creates the most efficient mode of human transport for the future.
2) ANIMAL TRANSPORT:
This award goes to the most innovative animal transport device.
3) INFORMATION TRANSPORT:
This award will go to the robot with the most innovative way to transport communications.
4) CARGO CARRIER:
This award will go to the most creative design of transporting cargo in the future.
ALL ENTRIES need to consider how goods and information can be transported safely and with clean energy. Well-documented NXTLOGs are a plus!
All entries to NXTLOG fall under the Terms of Service: http://mindstorms.lego.com/nxtlog/Terms.aspx Entries must be submitted by March 1,2010 All entries must be tagged "smartmove.” Only LEGO elements may be used. There's no limit on amount of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT sensors, LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX sensors, motors, NXT programmable bricks, HiTechnic sensors, Codatex RFID sensors, or Bluetooth communication you can use. A programmable LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT brick must be onboard the robot and must control the robot's actions for an autonomous robotic arm. If you create a remote control robotics arm, a MINDSTORMS NXT must control the robot’s actions. You may enter more than one robot. You may enter a robot that was previously submitted to NXTLOG (just remember to add the tag, smartmove) All documentation must be posted on NXTLOG. You must include the following in your NXTLOG Building Challenge entry: Description - Careful, well-written explanation of how the robot was designed. Pictures of the robot - Clear, well lit pictures - (no blurry ones!) .rbt Program(s) - Annotations within the programs are a plus! (Optional) LEGO Digital Designer File (LDD) - you cannot submit an LDD file only. Your LDD file must document some or all of your robotic entry. (Optional) Video Videos cannot be larger than 4MB and they cannot exceed 2 minutes in length. The allowable video formats are: .mov, .avi, .mpg, .wmv Please only upload only one video per project. Videos cannot contain music. You CAN include the noises that your robot makes. Videos cannot contain people in them Videos cannot contain speech. The contest will be judged by the NXTLOG moderating team.