Jim-jams and sunshine

Why Jim-Jams (peculiarties)?

     Well, we did everything wat we were supposed to do to install Labview and the Labview Lego NXT module but it kept on failing. The problem with installing Labview was that at the end of the installation there was a report on specifying the driver location, we ignored that message and it seemed that was some kind of false alarm.

But when we tried to install the module for Lego Mindstorms NXT in labview we kept getting an error that there was a missing .dll file called fantom.dll.
So while searching on the web we came to the simple solution of installing the driver called fantom.dll. So  after some time and midnight binges we could finally solve the problem and start exploring the possibilities of Labview.

Sunshine?

     Because we can play with Lego! Seriously, what’s more fun than that?
Anyway, after some fiddling with Labview we decided to build the construction. This was going rather smooth (due to the preparatory work). But we were missing some parts so we had to interrupt our work.
This brings us to last Friday and we made some serious progress. The construction is almost completely finished (photos will be online this Friday to show how it looks). And I must say we’re a good team. We’re very complementary when it comes to making Lego constructions.
We decided also it would be wise to ask some advice from our lector on how to program a motor and it helped us a lot. We’re now able to rotate a motor and change direction when the pressure sensor is touched.

What’s next?

     * using the ultrasonic sensor to determine the other turning point

     * synchronize the rollers with the sensor/print mechanism

     * finishing the construction

Kick Off

So it begins

     We’ve decided to use a blog as a way of communicating with our lector and others who are interested in what we are doing.

Introduction 

     For our project we decided to choose a proposal made by our lector. The project involves working with the lego Mindstorms NXT set* and the, until now unfamiliar, programming language Labview. We had some ideas on what we could do with the set, the one less feasible than the other. But after some serious deliberation and counsel we’ve decided to create a copy machine**

As you may notice, we’re a bit late with the publishing of our first blog post but we’re making up for that by posting 2 in one day. In the next post we’ll be discussing our first progress, which is more then we first expected.

Extra

     * For more info: http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx?domainredir=legomindstorms.com
     ** For the technical info on that matter please leave a comment.