Bangalore: The robot, which we are assembling, is called the Lego Mindstorms NXT. It is a programmable robotics kit released by Lego in late July 2006. It comes with programming software called NXT-G. As you can see, a lot of parts are involved, but it can be put together by a trained instructor within minutes.

A robot comes with a lot of sensors that tell it what is going on. A sensor at the back (not shown in pic), for instance, will tell it if it has hit any object while reversing. Here, you can see the sound sensor causing the robot to move forward when the instructor snaps his fingers.

The robot can be programmed to move towards a ball placed on a stand and hit it, but since you don't want the robot to hit everything it sees, the programming is done very carefully so that it only recognises a particular colour. In fact, in our experiments, the robot only hit this ball, ignoring another ball which was just a shade different.

For more gyaan

Silicon Kids offers courses in robotics for 8-14 year olds. There are a total of four levels in the course, involving robotics, electronics, advanced robotics, and advanced electronics. Each level lasts 48 hours, spread across several weeks. The robot, featured on this page, will be built by students in the third level, namely advanced robotics. The courses are available in various centres in Bangalore and other cities. For more details, visit siliconkids.com