domstat.net

Website loading time

during the test: 2.24 s

cable connection (average): 2.83 s

DSL connection (average): 3.42 s

modem (average): 34.64 s

HTTP headers

HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Expires: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:41:13 GMT

Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:41:13 GMT

Cache-Control: private, max-age=0

Last-Modified: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:19:35 GMT

ETag: "9a673c18-2509-4585-9656-42cdce3eada2"

X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

Server: GSE

Information about DNS servers

Received from the first DNS server

Request to the server "thenxtstep.blogspot.com"
Received 41 bytes from address 184.107.100.12#53 in 30 ms
Request to the server "thenxtstep.blogspot.com"
You used the following DNS server:
DNS Name: ns2.panelboxmanager.com
DNS Server Address: 184.107.100.12#53
DNS server aliases:

Host thenxtstep.blogspot.com not found: 5(REFUSED)
Received 41 bytes from address 184.107.100.12#53 in 19 ms

Received from the second DNS server

Request to the server "thenxtstep.blogspot.com"
Received 41 bytes from address 72.55.186.20#53 in 9 ms
Request to the server "thenxtstep.blogspot.com"
You used the following DNS server:
DNS Name: ns1.panelboxmanager.com
DNS Server Address: 72.55.186.20#53
DNS server aliases:

Host thenxtstep.blogspot.com not found: 5(REFUSED)
Received 41 bytes from address 72.55.186.20#53 in 9 ms

Subdomains (the first 50)

Typos (misspells)

Location

IP: 209.85.175.132

continent: NA, country: United States (USA), city: Mountain View

Website value

rank in the traffic statistics:

There is not enough data to estimate website value.

Basic information

website build using CSS

code weight: 226.79 KB

text per all code ratio: 17 %

title: The NXT STEP - LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT Blog

description:

keywords:

encoding: UTF-8

language: en

Website code analysis

one word phrases repeated minimum three times

two word phrases repeated minimum three times

three word phrases repeated minimum three times

B tags

=====> Do you happen to have a list of supplies needed? Nope... so let's make up a recipe and parts list on the spot :)A lot of people make a sumo ring out of plywood (often 1/4" or more) supported off the floor with 2x4's or something similar. That's really heavy, and really needs sanding to produce a smooth surface, and can warp when wet, needs a lot of paint, etc. So here's my version.Materials:• A 1/4" thick, 4x4 sheet of MDF board (also called "Hardboard"). This is inexpensive, and already has smooth, finished surfaces. It's also not terribly strong and would not support itself well (a good thing). See possible alternative at the end.• A square of 4x4, 4" thick styrofoam insulation sheeting. Very light, fairly cheap, and can be cut with a hot-wire cutter (can be picked up at a craft store for a few bucks) nice & smooth.• Flat white & flat black spray-paint.Tools:• Saw to cut MDF board (jigsaw works well, but you have to keep the board supported when cutting it)• Hot-wire cutter (to cut foam board)• Painter's masking tape (wide, 2" wide if possible)• String.Procedure:1) Stretch string from corner to corner on 4x4 MDF board, marking where it falls across the middle of the board (do that twice, once from top-left to bottom-right, once from top-right to bottom-left). Where the two diagonal lines cross is the middle of the 4x4 sheet.2) Pin or hold one end of the string to this center point, and tightly hold or wrap a pencil in the strong 2' away. You now have a great big compass to draw a 4' diameter circle. Note: the lower stretch the string is, the better. Upholstery thread is actually really good for this if you have some (stuff is strong and nearly zero stretch). A survey tape works too (eh, I'm a caver, I actually have this stuff lying around).3) Use the makeshift compass to mark out a really big circle, and cut it out. You might want to sand the cut edges of the board to round them just a bit and take off and rough edges.4) Lay the 4' diameter circle in the middle of the 4x4 foam board, and trace the edges. You now have a marked circle of foam board you can cut out (using the hot-wire cutter for the final shaping) that can be slid under the ring to raise it a uniform 4", but is really really light so it's easy to transport. Also, since it is rigid and supports the entire surface of the ring, the somewhat floppy MDF board isn't a problem... in fact if it warps a little, just laying it flat usually solves the problem (the ring I have is about 6 years old, and has been sitting on edge in my basement most of that time... but is nice and flat when I lay it down).5) Spray-paint the outer 3" or so of one side of the MDF ring flat white. Don't worry about the inner edge being irregular, just make sure the outer 2" at least is a nice uniform flat white. MDF board takes paint well, and probably a couple of coats is all you need.6) Once the white outer edge is completely

U tags

I tags

"Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), which organises the national heats, distributed 10 of the kits to each state school in Abu Dhabi last year and has been training teachers to incorporate the kits into their maths, science and technology curriculums."

each

woman in science, technology, engineering and mathematics who has influenced us over the years

"helps engineers and amateurs alike design and build their own customized robots, programmed however they desire. A diverse set of projects is accompanied by building tips, programming code, complete 3D-rendered building instructions, and hundreds of illustrations. The NXT intelligent brick’s Bluetooth capabilities are introduced, as are the newest available parts, from GPS to the RFID sensor, in this useful handbook that serves as the perfect compliment to the LEGO NXT kit."

completely

heck

outside

not

Let's just soak in that picture for a moment.OK, moment's over.However there's more to this picture than a fun (& really really old... more on that in a minute) robot. This robot isn't mine. I've never touched it, or even seen it in person. It was built by Joe Meno (who writes Brickjournal), using on-line plans I put up on Bricklink. He was having trouble programming it, which he mentioned on Facebook, and we then started emailing back and forth, trading NXT-G programs via YouSendIt. He had to leave for the event he was displaying this at before we were finished, so a portion of this conversation and troubleshooting was done while he was literally on the road. He wanted to show this to some of the folks that work with the real thing, and I couldn't be more happy about that.The robot cost about $200 in hardware (the LEGO one... you don't want to know what its big brother behind it costs). The fact that I now, finally, years later have a picture with Packbot next to its inspiration is worth far more to me. The fact that all this was done remotely, using commonly available and free tools on-line, in a collaborative process with other AFoLs... is, as they say, priceless. This could have been done with NXC instead of NXT-G, or using plans generated in LCAD or LDD, and presented on-line at Flickr or NXTLog or MindBoards, and the communication could have been via Skype, Google Wave, or community-wide at MindBoards forums or any number of other mechanisms. Joe even mentioned how impressed he was with the way I routed torque through the center of the large Technic turntable to power the "Flipper" treads... which is a trick I was inspired on due to another AFoL, the remarkable Jennifer Clark, who was posting LEGO models of construction vehicles so realistic (in both form & function) that they might as well have been the real things. So this is a collaboration spanning multiple people and multiple years (decades!).On a slightly different note, this has been a remarkably long-lived robot for me. While testing a program for Joe (the wonders of LEGO... commonly available identical HW platforms are really

images

headers

H1

H2

Pages

Oct 15, 2011

Oct 14, 2011

Oct 13, 2011

Oct 10, 2011

Oct 8, 2011

Oct 7, 2011

Oct 4, 2011

Oct 3, 2011

Oct 2, 2011

Sep 29, 2011

Sep 28, 2011

Sep 27, 2011

Sep 26, 2011

Sep 24, 2011

Sep 21, 2011

Sep 20, 2011

Sep 19, 2011

Sep 18, 2011

Sep 17, 2011

Sep 16, 2011

Contributors

Blog Archive

Recent Comments

Subscribe To

Follow by Email

H3

Pages

Oct 15, 2011

Oct 14, 2011

Oct 13, 2011

Oct 10, 2011

Oct 8, 2011

Oct 7, 2011

Oct 4, 2011

Oct 3, 2011

Oct 2, 2011

Sep 29, 2011

Sep 28, 2011

Sep 27, 2011

Sep 26, 2011

Sep 24, 2011

Sep 21, 2011

Sep 20, 2011

Sep 19, 2011

Sep 18, 2011

Sep 17, 2011

Sep 16, 2011

Contributors

Blog Archive

Recent Comments

Subscribe To

Follow by Email

H4

H5

H6

internal links

external links