Subject:
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Re: lego Technic "class"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.edu, lugnet.technic
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Date:
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Fri, 29 Oct 1999 06:44:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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8019 times
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In lugnet.edu, lehman@javanet.com (Todd Lehman) writes:
> [...]
> Anyway, a really fun experiment that kids and adults alike seem to enjoy is
> simply to hook two 9v motors together with a regular connector. Then turn
> one motor and watch the other one turn in perfect a mimic. It's really
> amazing how energy-efficient the LEGO motors are.
One other idea on that same line of thought -- the very first thing I wanted
to do as soon as I got the two motors hooked together and working (which
really only takes a couple of seconds) was to make the wire longer -- to put
more distance between the motors. So I grabbed more wire, something like
six of the 1.5m wires -- and made a much longer wire from those. I kinda
expected the resistance to go up significantly then at that distance, but to
my surprise, I really couldn't tell a difference, and that made me even more
excited.
One thing that might be fun is to hack a Technic wire connector (you know,
the black ones with the 2x2 electric plates at the ends) apart and resolder
it together with 1,500 ft of cheap telephone wire from Radio Shack.
I wonder at what point the resistance becomes so high that the motors will
no longer turn?
At the MIT Media Lab (where I tried some of these motor experiments during
MindFest™), they've got a big open room ("the Cube") with offices along the
walls. From any office on the first floor, you can basically see into any
other office. I thought it would be fun if someone snuck into a coworker's
office during lunch and placed a LEGO Technic motor up on their shelf
beneath, say, a plant or a knick-knack on their shelf, then ran a wire from
that motor all the way around to another office. From the second office,
you could wiggle on one motor and cause the other motor to move -- and you
could do it just when they weren't looking but would see it out of the
corner of their eye. They'd either go crazy wondering if they were seeing
things, or they'd figure it out, but either way, it could be a fun prank.
The 9v LEGO Technic motors can also power 9v LEGO Technic light elements
(although it's possible they could burn out if you turned the generating
motor too rapidly).
I'll bet if you show kids the basic premise that two motors can be hooked
together directly and that a LEGO motor can act as a generator, I'll bet
they can come up with dozens of new and cool interactive applications. If
you try this, I'd love to hear what happens!
--Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: lego Technic "class"
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| (...) Last week I built a little non-robot vehicle using four of the new internally geared-down Technic 9v motors. Two of the motors were connected directly to the wheels, the other two motors served as human-cranked generators to power the motors (...) (25 years ago, 29-Oct-99, to lugnet.edu, lugnet.technic)
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