SUMMER SCIENCE PROGRAM
Designing Intelligent Robots

Schedule and misc notes| Links and resources| Pictures| Tips & Tricks| Student pages

Links and Resources

ROBOLAB resources

• RoboLab Page at Lego.

HTML resources for creating Web pages

• A nice HTML tutorial on HTML from the Pennsylvania U.
• The response-o-matic site for processing html forms used for surveys.

Doing research on engineering related subjects

• The Smith library page on engineering.

Books and articles

• The Unofficial Guide to the Lego Mindstorms, by Knudsen, published by O'Reilly.
• The Art of Lego Mindstorms by Fred Martin (see other link below).

Lego Robots at Universities and Colleges

• A list of robot related sites at U. of Maryland.
• Robot competitions.
• Lego Robots at Smith College!
• The Lego Lab at the University of Aarhus, Danemark. Check the socker player, and the 3D packman games!
• Robot competitions at different colleges. Check the rules of the contests and what the robots have to do!
• Fred Martin's page. Fred Martin, of MIT, is the "father" of the RCX, and the author of several documents: The Art of Lego Mindstorms, and Learning Engineering with Lego.
• The MIT page on Lego and robots.
• LegoBots in the CS Department at Brown University.
• The robot page at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. Some ideas, some tips, some designs.

General Information Sites

• A collection of robots. Warning: some robots on steroids!
• The official Lego Mindstorms Website.
• The Gego Mindstorms WebRing. Intresting linked-list of Web sites. Just locate the Lego-Mindstorms Control Panel logo and click on Next, or Previous to jump from site to site. Each site that is part of the "ring" contains this control panel, and can be used to keep visiting sites related to Lego. Cool. Don't miss some of the Japanese sites. They have cool photos of robots.
• Ever wondered what was inside the Lego brick? Then check the The Lego Mindstorms internals page, which contains additional links.
• Lego on my mind. Check the "Hints 'n Tips" section and learn how to use sensors in different ways, such as using the light sensor to detect objects before you bump into them!
• The Lego Mindstorms at the Museum of Science in Chicago.
• Searching Google for Lego Mindstorms-related sites.
• Searching Yahoo for Lego-Mindstorms related sites.
• Searching Hotbot for Lego Mindstorms-related sites.

Books

• A goodsource of books and gadgets.

Design Ideas

• Some homebrew lego sensors.
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with legos. Some interesting projects and robots. Includes a "robots playing tag" project idea...
• Great collection of ideas for using sensors and motors in creative and innovative ways.
• Some ideas for drive trains.
• Building an arm and a gripper.
• The people at Xerox Parc play with lego mindstorms, and set their own contests up!
• The Nasa page on Lego design ideas.
• The LegoBot Headquarters.
• Dave's Lego Page, with design ideas for bumper cars, garbage trucks, brick sorters, and a line follower, among others.
• A Spider Robot implemented with a Mindstorms system.
• Joe Nagata's gallery of Mindstorms robots (Japanese). Rich collection of ideas and tips (walking robots, suspension for wheels, climbing robots, etc.)

Mindstorms tricks

• Controlling the Brick from an HP100lx palmtop computer.

Languages and software support

• BotKit and Dolphin SmallTalk. Learning Small talk with a Mindstorms robot.
• Gordon's Brick Programmer, a new environment to program the RCX.
• LegOS, a new software environment for the Lego Brick.

Misc links and other resources

• Ileana Streinu's page on Lego Mindstorms links.
• Robotics related Web Servers (Umass site). General references to robotics.

Schedule and misc. notes| Links and resources| Pictures| Tips & Tricks| Student pages