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Category: robot

Worst. Carnival Ride. Ever.

Worst. Carnival Ride. Ever.


Let’s face facts: Robots are cool. You can be the biggest dweeb in the world, but mention you work on the “R” word, and chicks will be all over you. Robots are chick magnets. Well, they might be magnetic, I don’t know, I don’t make robots. They look vaguely magnetic. This one is financed by DARPA. That’s the cool military thingie that wastes money on laser beams and death rays and stuff like that instead of on $500 hammers and $1000 toilet seats. Those sorts of things aren’t going to get you any chicks like a robot will. Well, the $1000 toilet seat might, if it was heated and you remembered to leave it down and not sprinkle it.

Robots Are Cool. A Robot Riding On A Segway Is Cooler. A Robot Riding On A Segway, Made From LEGO? Epic Win

Robots Are Cool. A Robot Riding On A Segway Is Cooler. A Robot Riding On A Segway, Made From LEGO? Epic Win

I love it when things that recently were science fiction become mundane. When you’re building it out of LEGO, it’s no longer futuristic, is it? Robots riding Segways. Yawn. Let’s put frickin’ lasers on their heads. Then you’d have something.

The beauty of the design is using a simple light sensor, instead of using gyroscopes, to continuously measure the distance from the ground, while constantly adjusting its drive motors with the info, to keep the thing upright. The second iteration on the video makes the robot lean forward or back to operate the scooter, just like a real Segway works.

Building instructions here: nxtprograms.com

LEGO kit here:

Come on, Mom and Dad; a LEGO Death Star costs $399, and after an hour isn’t good for anything but supplying pieces to step on in the dark when you tuck junior in. $289 and your kid’s a robotic engineer. Pony up!