The team has previously cracked the 2G Nano, but exploiting a vulnerability for further models involves tracking down the specific part of memory their code ends up. Testing these memory locations is painstaking, and there are tens of thousands of segments, and several iPods models to test.

The answer: Automate the button pressing with the Nanobot 3000. It can press three buttons if needed, operate independently overnight, and should be able to get through over 23,000 addresses a day. Clever. [Nanotron 3000 via Linux4nano via NYC Resistor via Hack A Day]

Now, these inventions—all powered by the Mindstorms robotics kit—won't actually see the barren lunar landscape up close, like their Lunar X Prize cousins. They will however see simulated terrain, and will be asked to complete similar tasks.

One task, demonstrated by Giz reader Tim, involves autonomously navigating the "Lunar surface" without bumping into moon rocks, secret aliens, or Apollo mission film sets. In Tim and his kids' case, the "Moon" is a covered pool:

Aside from the fact that that poor little guy was probably wetting himself over being a mere inch from certain doom beneath the cover, he did pretty well. But, Tim, can you and your kid send that sucker to the moon? [YouTube, MoonBots]

For you NXT fans and collectors, here's a parts list for this fantastic creation:

- One Intelligent NXT Brick
- One NXT Rechargeable Battery
- Three NXT Servo Motors
- One NXT Light Sensor
- One NXT IR Link (HiTechnic)
- Two Power Functions IR Receivers
- Two Power Functions Light Sets
- Four Power Functions M-Motors
- One Power Functions XL-Motor
- Three Power Functions Battery Boxes
- Three Power Functions Extension Wires

Creator NextStorm promises a more detailed explanation for this fine creation, but for now this video will do just fine. [NextStorm via Brothers Brick]

Robotics nuts can do amazing things with the NXT 'bots, so I'm excited to see what kind of projects evolve from the new kits' color-sensing eyes. Also new in 2.0 is the ability to load images and sounds into your robots memory, for displaying on the LCD screen or, more importantly, allowing it to speak with the sound sample of your choice.

I'm counting down the minutes until the first Christian Bale Mindstorms (he likes black) hits YouTube. [Toy Fair 2009]

Since the electronic code, operated by the front wheels, is direction sensitive—introducing "21" to the right is not the same as introducing it to the left—that gives you 305 billion code combinations to unlock the mechanism. If someone tries to move the safe, it also has an alarm that would be fired by the built-in accelerometers connected to the Mindstorms NXT core.

• Large Digit display (using Custom Digits, and MyNumOut routine)
• Outside dimensions 38x38x38cm, creating 30 Litres of internal storage space
• Internal safety bars prevent stone walls to be disassembled
• Automatic un-Locking / Locking of the vault (Motorized lock)
• Automatic opening and closing door (Motorized door)
• Automatic burglar alarm (using HiTechnic Acceleration Sensor)
• Variable un-locking code, set by user during locking.
• Heavy, 7cm thick, door with secret Power-On/Off buttons.

If you are the rightful owner of the safe, however, it's a delight to use. Once you introduce the code, the electric motor will open the door for you.

Jesús Díaz: How much time did it take you to build from design to final?
Frank de Nijs: It took me 10 hours tot create the basic idea (mechanics), an additional 45 hours to build, and rebuild it (trial on error, you might say). And another 12 hours to think, write and rewrite the software.

JD: I know it's Lego sacrilege, but is it glued (for security)?
FdJ: Hey, we are talking about valuable Lego here! This SAFE is going to be disassabled in a few weeks to become something completely different! :D

JD: Have you tried to force it open in a hard way?
FdJ: Once I had to. When the safe is open you can pull open a small entry in the rearside of the door to recharge the NXT module. Once i forgot to do that in time... So my batteries were too low to operate the safe... And it was locked. The inside of the safe is secured with interlocked Technic Beams to avoid pulling the safe into pieces too easilly. But it is unglued Lego so finally there is allwwas a way to get in, simply by taking the door apart, piece by piece...

JD: How many pieces does it take?
FdJ: The model consists of about 2350 parts

[Lego Examples via Craziest Gadgets]

[Leggor—Thanks J.]

JD: How long did it take, total?
DK: Fudging the math here. About 3 months start to finish, working probably an average of an hour a day (more on the weekends, less during the week). 110-120 hours probably isn't too far off.

JD: Do you think, given enough time, you could use Mindstorms to recreate the arcade for real? I mean, controlling Mario travelling across the screen to the top. Too complicated?
DK: I've gotten this question a few times now.. It might be possible with some sort of magnet-behind-the-wall system, but it's not something I'll be able to attempt. I'd like to keep my wife.

JD: Any plans to do other games?
DK: I have some ideas for Ms Pacman, but it's still in the brainstorming stages. No promises..

[Vib via Brothers Brick]

The seven robots were designed to achieve seven different missions:

Brian Davis, Indiana, USA
Project: Little Joe
This robot will perform an automated free-fall in an attempt to set the record for the longest MINDSTORMS NXT free-fall. The robot will be detached from the main balloon near maximum altitude and will free-fall until the parachute deploys.

Project: Gypsy
The robot will be an automated camera platform that will take both video and still images. The MINDSTORMS NXT will control all image timing as well as pitch angle

FLL Team 90/David Levy (Coach), Virginia USA
Project: FLL Team Challenge: Climate Connections
A FIRST LEGO League Climate Connections team will build a robot to measure UV radiation as a function of altitude. The MINDSTORMS NXT will not only data log the UV sensor readings, but will also be used to rotate the UV filters in position as well as control the robot heater with a temperature sensor.

Barbara Bratzel & Chris Rogers, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA
Project: Fourth Graders
A group of 4th grade students will investigate the impact of flight conditions on yellow marshmallows (a.k.a peeps). The MINDSTORMS NXT will be recording temperature and pressure during the mission.

David Martinez, Jurgen Leitner, Sweden
Project: SpaceMasters
The robot will be measuring the change in G-forces as a function of altitude. The robot will repeatedly drop a tethered Wiimote at different altitudes to measure the acceleration experience.

Claude Baumann, Francis Massen, Jean Mootz, Luxembourg
Project : LUXPAK
The robot will be using an RCX to measure ozone concentration, air pressure, temperature (inside and outside) and reflected light from Earth during the descent.

Eugene Tsai, Taiwan
The robot will be using filtering papers to capture particles and/or chemicals in the air during the balloon ascent and descent periods. The LEGO Mindstorms NXT will be used to provide a mechanism to switch filtering papers to capture the materials in the air and then keep the papers in a secured compartment. The filtering papers will be retrieved and analyzed to see what chemicals and particles exist in different altitudes.

[More info will be posted soon at the Lego Mindstorms site]

Be warned, the video is kind of long and very repetitive (it's a robot, what else did you expect?), but watching the first couple frames is kind of cool.

–Travis Hudson

WiigoBot: The Perfect Game [BattleBricks]

The dinosaur walks, moves its head and roars using a remote control. It can also be made into a walking spider and a crawling crocodile. It will retail for $89.99 when it comes out in August.

The Ferris Wheel must be over two feet high. It's fully functional, and can be turned into a crane or working drawbridge (which both sound more interesting to me). This will sell for $69.99, and is also available in August. –Noah Robischon

We've got it on good word that Lego will be releasing a new firmware version for their Mindstorms NXT robot kit that will "open up 60 to 80% more storage space" for user-made programs. (If you read our impressions of the Mindstorms NXT, you might remember that the low storage space and lack of expandability was a huge ding against the $250 set.)

Available on August 1st, the updated software will also include a universal binary version of the NXT programming software for OS X, which should increase its general snappiness on Intel-based Macs. – Joel Johnson

Still, my initial impression is good. The included software—which was such a turd in the original Mindstorms that some builders rolled their own versions—is approachable and capable. It ran a bit doggishly on my Macbook Pro, especially when plinking together GUI bits of programming logic, but I rarely felt lost or overwhelmed.

Each step of the software leads you to the next: first a build phase, with zoomable instructions; Then, a programming phase; Finally, testing. The first model even has a separate box with its pieces, saving you the trouble of searching through the set when you're eager to dig right in.

After the jump: Where Lego went wrong.

The NXT brick, which acts as both the brains and (usually) the body of your models, has both USB and Bluetooth built-in. For whatever reason, I couldn't make my laptop talk to the brick over Bluetooth. They'd pair just fine, but the NXT software did not recognize it.

Instead I used the USB connection to load my programs, sounds, and images—the brick both makes noise and displays things like beating hearts on its LCD display—into the NXT's brain. A bit of a hassle, but livable—more livable than the tiny amount of built-in flash memory storage.

With the low price of flash storage these days, I have to question Lego's decision to limit the amount of memory to 256KB of user storage. There was not even enough space to story the four initial programs and their accompanying sound and image files. And we're talking 4-5k sounds here—not multi-megabyte MP3s. Plus there's no expansion slots for later upgrades. It seems that most Lego builders will be running out of space for their own programs soon after they begin to write their own. It's almost a dealbreaker.

The build quality is typically high, although one of the elements was bent when I received it. I was just barely able to pry it back into shape without breaking the plastic, but if I couldn't, I would not have been able to build at least one of the four main models.

I also felt a little bit abandoned after building the final project, a humanoid robot named 'Alpha Rex.' Sure, the starter instructions are more about teaching you the basics of building and programming, but it still would have been nice to have been left with a big finale for the impressive robot, like using its distance sensor to keep itself from falling off a table. Instead, the lessons end abruptly with no suggestion of where next to go. Sure, that's sort of what Lego is about—making your own fun—but some challenges or ideas would have been nice.

In all, I'm pleased with the NXT platform, but for its price—$250—I'd expect a bit more. Especially more memory, considering that this is supposed to be the first in a series of Mindstorms products over the next few years.

For dedicated Mindstormers already sold on Lego, the NXT system's pleasant and capable software package is almost worth the price of entry by itself. –Joel Johnson

Nevertheless, if you, too, pre-ordered the NXT set, expect to be building your first robots as soon as this week. I'll definitely be doing a review myself as soon as I get a hold of mine. Joel Johnson

We're tracking them down right now so we can figure out how their magical thing works. – John Biggs

Lego Robotics[Marshall.edu via SingleServeCoffee]

Jon Lund took some time out from liveblogging the CustomerMade conference in Copenhagen to email in and tell us that according to Soren Lund of Lego, the software behind the upcoming highly anticipated Mindstorms NXT will be published as open source; Lego is currently in the last stage, figuring out which public domain license to use before releasing it. Power to the people!

Mindstorms NXT has been available to pre-order at various online retailers since April 1st. MSRP is $249.99 and it should start shipping in August.

Breaking news: Lego only days aways from launching Mindstorms as open source [New Media Trends]
LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Pre-Order Starts April 1 [Gizmodo]

You fans of LEGO MINDSTORMS had better mark your calendars for April 1, as that's the date the LEGO Shop and retailers like Amazon, Target, Fry's and Wal-Mart will start taking pre-orders for the new MINDSTORMS NXT. Pre-ordering is the only way you can be sure to get a box of the highly-anticipated NXT, even at $249.99.

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT [LEGO Shop, via nxtbot.com Blog]

The NXT comes with 18 step-by-step building challenges, not including the working slot machine pictured above. And Lego has issued a call for a NXT great developers user panel. 100 enthusiasts who apply via the website will be chosen to receive a kit in February. They will have four months to tinker and create something amazing for when the NXT becomes available to the public in August 2006. It will retail for $249.99.

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