So you want to be a Robotics Engineer?

Heck, I know I do! So I’ve been looking at ways I can take my love for Legos and turn it into something really geeky and I think I have found just the thing.

First off, I found this guys site(Drat Robotics), where he gets into the details ( a bit) on how he has built a few gliders out of some Lego Technics parts. Pretty cool stuff actually. The longest flight I think he got was around 30+ feet, which isn’t bad. Not too long though, and I think I’m going to have to see if I can get better than that. His Drat Glider, looks pretty standard and the design seems to make sense – and being the good Internet junkie I am – it’s an excellent jumping off point for me to give my own glider a whirl.

Then I ran across this site for the First LEGO League. Now this really got my ol’ brain a-twicthin’! It would be really cool to get a team together and get this Lego robotics stuff going for one of these League challenges. I read through their documentation and it seems like it would be a blast! With different challenges and equipment to make up the obstacles and bots, it could really get to be a lot of fun. So I’m sure I’m a bit older than the average Lego builder, but so what!

All things considered, I will most likely start of with the Mindstorm sets, and go from there. The RIS 2.0 Basics Collection is what I am looking at starting off with, and see what the heck this is all about. There is a wealth of information on the Mindstorm site, with forums and technical starter guides and links to get you going in the right direction. The problem is that there is just so much to do, and so little time to do it all in… I want to get some of the big arse Ultimate Collectors Series Lego kits for the Star Wars series, and I want to get the Mindstorm kits, and then I want to build gliders and such using the Technics kits….

I just don’t think it will ever stop. Oh, did I mention they have motorized train kits too….