LEGO.com MINDSTORMS Meet the MDP's Daniele Benedettelli

Daniele Benedettelli
From:
Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy

What I do besides building with MINDSTORMS:
I’m an IT engineering doctor in the class of Industrial Automation. I’m currently studying to get my MSc degree in Robotics and Automation at the University of Siena. I really love writing music.

Why I signed up for the MDP:
I must admit that I wanted, wanted, wanted to have NXT at once! But I wanted to contribute building robots and preparing something to teach children to approach this new technology. It’s the first beta testing I have done, so this experience can teach me how to work in a big team in discussing and sharing ideas.

My dreams: Publishing my NXT robots in a book and building a whole new J5! These two dreams have become true, since I wrote a book that includes JohnNXT robot.

My NeXT dream: find a job in the LEGO company!

Experience with MINDSTORMS:
I bought the first RIS 2.0 kit in 2002, my creativity couldn’t stay still anymore! Then another RIS 1.5 followed, and many inventions (both robots and electronic expansions) came out. I can program in NQC and now I’m quite skilled also on BrickOS. My most known creations are a Johnny five detailed NXT replica and the LEGO Rubik Utopy, a robot that can solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than a minute. This robot is a star by now, with many appearences in Science fairs, Italian and German TV shows, YouTube, and everywhere in the web.

NXT Project: JohnNXT 5

About this NXT Project:
This is my NXT replica of the well-known robot from 80's film Short Circuit. It is modeled after my RCX-based version . JohnNXT 5 is a non holonomic treaded robot (cars, bicycles and unicycles are all examples of non holonomic systems) controlled by two NXT microcontrollers interfacing via Bluetooth . The first NXT controls the treads and torso-raising motor, receiving external world data from a line-following Light Sensor , a Sound Sensor and a head-built-in Ultrasonic Sensor . The second NXT turns JNXT's head, moves its laser and controls the arms. If the motor is rotating in a direction, the arms unfold, the hands open and the wrist turns. When reversed, the motor turns the wrists back, closes JNXT's hands and folds its arms. This complex model can be programmed as a hand follower, a wall follower, a line follower, a sound tracker, and so on... It wouldn't miss sound features directly from the film, as speech, music and dancing!

My Links
Take a look on my website for full details, more photos, videos, programs and NXT-compatible sound files!

Main site: http://robotics.benedettelli.com

RCX Johnny 5: http://daniele.benedettelli.com/Johnny5.htm

JohnNXT: http://daniele.benedettelli.com/JohnNXT.htm