NXT Tutorial This tutorial for LEGO Mindstorms NXT is divided in two sections. The “Essentials” are things every NXT programmer should know. Some of these movies have exercises directly under them. It’s important to do these exercises, not just assume you “get it.” The “Advanced” section is for reference purposes. These lessons assume you have a basic robot with two drive motors, a touch sensor and a light sensor. If you need to run this tutorial at a location with poor internet service, you can download a special copy here. This tutorial was designed, and maintained by Dale Yocum, Engineering Program Director at Catlin Gabel School. LEGO®, the LEGO logo, Mindstorms and the Mindstorms logo are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which did not create and does not sponsor or endorse this tutorial.
Hacking the LEGO NXT If you are a millionaire and able to buy a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, you may find kind of difficult to hack it or create homemade sensors. I believe you already noticed the particular jack that comes with the NXT. It looks like a telephone jack, but the latch is located in one side, making difficult to connect any other cable. That is not a big problem; filling off the latch from a 6-wires telephone connector (RJ-12) may do the job. Once I was able to connect a telephone cable to the NXT, I started to test the signals. Here is what I found: Holding the connector as the picture shows. White wire - Used with the black wire, this pin provides power to the motor. Free Lego NXT MindStorms NXT-G Robotics Challenges Tutorials At the request of Tasmanian teachers Miss Clare Neilson and recently retired Mrs. Juanita Airey, activities using Lego's NXT 1 MindStorms Robots have been developed for use in School-based 2-hour sessions. Some, but not all, will work with the new NXT 2 kit (click here for more information). Challenges with an "M" after the challenge number include mentor notes. First Challenge (NXT 1) - Building Robot 1.1 "TuftsBot" - click here. First Challenge (NXT 2) - Building Robot 1.2 "MiniBot" - click here. First Challenge (Apple videos) - Building Robot 1.2 "MiniBot" - click here. Challenge 2M - Teaching your Robot (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 2M (Apple videos) - Teaching your Robot (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 4M - Teaching your Robot to move, smile and speak (NXT1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 4M (Apple videos) - Teaching your Robot to move, smile and speak (NXT1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 10 - Building Robot 2 "DomaBot" (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here.