what should i add?

[themindstormman]

To get some added traction for the treads, you could add some 1x1 studs

good idea does anyone know of other ways to give my tank more traction but keep it sturdy?

[nxtreme]

Plasti Dip would work OK if you didn't get any in the hinge section of the track. Would also be a bit time consuming to coat 100+ tracks...

[aswin0]

Hi,

You could add differential steering. It is a lot off fun to make and to discover how this works. Here is a link to Sariel.pl that gives a short explanation and shows ome examples.

[hassenplug]

1) Here's an interesting trick for adding more traction to a robot with treads. If you have some NXT 1.0 wheels, put them on the same axle as the back sprocket of the treads. They are slightly bigger, so will grip well on a hard surface (especially, if the robot is back-heavy).

2) Additional stuff: Add a radar-dish. It doesn't have to do anything beyond spin. It will make the robot look cooler. At the same time, you could add other non-functional gears-that-spin, and pistons that slide (like a steam engine).

Another nice addition would be a soft-drink-can holder. Add a touch-sensor, and when the sensor is pressed, the claw clamps around a can to keep it secure for delivery.

Steve

[dimasterooo]

you have four motors left right? You could make an epic 4 DOF robot arm on top, and have it bring you stuff or something. If you're willing to take the other NXT off you could use it as remote (with the motors as controls) or something.

[themindstormman]

1) Here's an interesting trick for adding more traction to a robot with treads. If you have some NXT 1.0 wheels, put them on the same axle as the back sprocket of the treads. They are slightly bigger, so will grip well on a hard surface (especially, if the robot is back-heavy).

2) Additional stuff: Add a radar-dish. It doesn't have to do anything beyond spin. It will make the robot look cooler. At the same time, you could add other non-functional gears-that-spin, and pistons that slide (like a steam engine).

Another nice addition would be a soft-drink-can holder. Add a touch-sensor, and when the sensor is pressed, the claw clamps around a can to keep it secure for delivery.

Steve

answer 1: thats a good idea! i have never thought of that before. what size sprocket should i use the big yellow or orange ones or the smaller black ones?

answer 2: i was thinking about tha then i could have a scanning system on the front. good idea.

answer 3: i like that idea. i'm gonna add a grabber on the front.

you have four motors left right? You could make an epic 4 DOF robot arm on top, and have it bring you stuff or something. If you're willing to take the other NXT off you could use it as remote (with the motors as controls) or something.

yes i have four motors left. i think a four dof arm would be cool, but it is already a bit tall. i'll add a 2 dof arm on the front. as for taking off the nxt to control it i don't need to. i already have a psp-nx which will communicate to one nxt that will send the message to the other.

and for everyone i have 1 question. is putting a wire between port four on each nxt communication (i'm not sure what its called) faster than bluetooth?

[dimasterooo]

yeah, it's called RS485, I think. As far as I know, you can access it through RobotC (see this forum post) and NXT-G (mightor's post on the block). I'm not sure about NXC. It's really fast, and a lot of people (with spare sensor ports) prefer it over Bluetooth, which is kinda slow. But I'm not really sure about all this stuff

[mattallen37]

RS-485 is very well supported by NXC. I use it with almost all my two-NXT robots. The main downside, is that without the NXTbees it is a wired connection.

The speed is really incredible. On one robot I made sorta recently, I was sending about 8 bytes back and forth. The program and the communication was so fast, that I couldn't see any delay.

[themindstormman]

thanks thats what i wanted to hear. the reason i asked was because the psp-nx can send info to the first nxt extremely quickly,
but then the second nxt doesn't respond at the same time. so if i have a humonoid and try to move the arm up on it it will always
jerk...start...jerk...start and won't go up smoothly. will RS485 fix this?

[mattallen37]

RS-485 is much faster than BT. I don't know how you have it programmed, but it should help a lot.