Lego Mindstorms using Lejos
 

If you've never heard of Lego Mindstorms, you're missing out. These things are awesome little toys to play with when you're bored, and just see what you can get them to do. Basically, it's a legos set which you assemble into a car, man, whatever you like. They come with sensors, motors, and other parts which allow you to build a robot, and they are incredibly easy to program -- write the program in Java using their API, and upload it by a tower which uses infrared and hooks into your computer's USB port.

The problem is, I'm running out of ideas of what to do that aren't incredibly complex. I haven't been able to mess around with it too much, but here's what I've done so far:

• Got it moving
• Got a bump sensor on it so it reverses direction any time it hits an object
• Have a light sensor attached to the bottom so it doesn't roll off a table (99% of the time anyway ;) )
• Have it follow a wall
• Working on getting it to follow black tape on the floor

As you can see, nothing that is too difficult to do. The only problem is, I'm all out of ideas as to what I can get it to do next. Any ideas?

You could get it to pick up small objects and move them to different locations. Perhaps throw the object at your cat and see what it does. :D

Create a dynamic path planner. It's not exactly a simple task, but it will keep you busy for awhile.

These things sound fun -- like an early introduction to robotics. I may be buying in the near future :p

I love lego. I have a whole room full of it :D Unfortunatley I don't have the mindstorms. When I was a kid, I wasn't into programming, so I was never interested in the mindstorms. Didn't know you could program it with java though. It's sound like loads of fun. Anyways, as for ideas, perhpas you should just come up with a little lego city, and see if you can muild a monster to wreck it :D

I got the chance to do this once at school. We all made robots which played football (soccer) with each other. The pitch had a different colour floor at each side so that the robot would score in its own goal (use a light sensor to check). Then there was a special ball with flashing red LEDs in.

It was quite fun watching 2 vs 2 robot football and it was a good challenge to make one of the robots (even if one had a moving "arm" and which attacked other robots o_o).

EDIT: you say you're trying to get it to follow black tape on the floor, we did that aswell. I used a light sensor facing downwards, and then i made my robot turn left until it sensed a big change in light, if it did it would turn right. It wasn't perfect but it worked.

My computing teacher got himself a set, along with a few other teachers in my school. They did a course with the Open University or something. I want in!