28/02/2011
One of the main attractions at the LEGOWorld event in Copenhagen was the flying LEGO MINDSTORMS robotic airship, called C5 (named after the exhibition hall number).
Taking off from the LEGO MINDSTORMS booth several times a day, the C5 airship would be flying over the heads of the many visitors, who would look up in surprise at seeing a real flying LEGO model!
C5 has been created by university students Kenneth Madsen and Lasse Lauesen from Aalborg University in Denmark, who have spent many hours developing the model using standard LEGO MINDSTORMS elements for the control and the remote control, though using some old TECHNIC motors for the propellers, and using an alternative programming tool called leJOS to make the balloon follow their commands.
The balloon uses three motors; two for forward, upward and downward motion, and one for the rear propeller that makes the model turn.
See the video of the airship's first official flight here.
At the LEGO MINDSTORMS booth visitors could also try out building their own sumo robots and challenge each other with robots that could be controlled via colour codes or by using an app on their phone (see the recent news story about MINDdroid).
NXT Soccer was a football game where you could control a robot to play football, by putting a special helmet on your head, and wawing your head back and forth, or side to side. It was fun to see up to four players all shaking their heads to make the robots do what they wanted them to!
You also had the opportunity to see and play with what is probably the largest robotic chess set in the world - Monster Chess! Thirty-two robots was lined up and waiting for spectators' suggestions for moves of the robotic pieces. Read about the development of the Chess set here.
There were many funny, large, small and crazy robots at the event - and we will show more of the fun soon!
The LEGO MINDSTORMS team would like to thank all those who helped out at the booth and especially all those who came to visit LEGOWorld and played with our robots. We are looking to the next time we can show some of the best robotic creations from the world of LEGO MINDSTORMS!
The LEGO MINDSTORMS Team