Moving blogs

Well Im going into too many sites that I end up not keeping so I think I will stay with one blog. That is Tepnam. I chose that one beacuse it seems its going the farthest. so everone please do visit www.tepnam.blogspot.com

New Pneumatics from Lego Edu

Well as most of you all know there was a new pneumatics set that came out a few weeks ago. I, not having any pneumatics before, decided to buy a set. It came in a couple days ago and all I can say is WOW. This set is great for the begginer pneumatics creator. It has plenty of parts and even it you dont have the set it is supposed to be added onto (mechanisms set) you can still use this for many of your own inventions.

Here is a little info about each kind of part this amazing set comes with.

large piston/cylinder: It is powerfull and with a lot of pressure is fast but still not as fast as the mini piston. It does have tons of strength and can lift a lot of pounds. It lifted both of my nxt boxes without a problem.

mini piston/cylinder: very fast but not as powerfull as the large piston. It can be used for claws or other things not requireing as much strenth.

switch: this little valve can make direct the flow of air so that the air either goes into the top hole of the piston or the bottom. Very usefull and pretty much mandatory for any invention.

air tank: This can hold air for you so that you can pump first and then have some fun with the creation without having to pump everytime you want a cylinder to move.

pressure gauge: This little gauge can tell you in either psi or bar how much pressure is in the pipes and air tank. This way you just attach it to one of the pipes with a t peice and it will show you how much pressure has been gathered up. When pumping with the large pump it will start to slip and let air out when the gauge gets to about 45 psi.

large pump: This is the main pump that will be used for pumping air. It is big and can pump fast but once gotten to 45 psi it will slip and wont pump anymore. It has peices in the top and button so that it can easily be attached to a motor.

small pump: This pump is small and can pump air slower but is mostly meant for a motor. It doesnt have any spring making it easier for a motor to pump for you. I find it quite usefull to have it be going on in the back with my nxt motor while I pump the large one so that I dont have to pump as much.

T peice: THis peice is used to allow pipes to have 2 that come into 1 pipe or one pipe to branch off into 2 pipes. Extremely usefull for any model with more than one switch so that you only have to use one air tank or pump to power both switches. It can be branched off as much as possible.

pipes: this is mandatory for any pneumatic model becasue it is what lets the air into and out of everything and with complex models you need a lot of it.

Here is how much of each thing this set comes with.

large pump x1

small pump x1

large piston x2

small piston x1

switches x3

T peices x5

air tank x1

pressure gauge x1

pipes (various size and color) x16

I got a few extre pipes and T peices though so you might too. This is really a great set and I reccomend this to all people who would like to get into pneumatics. Here is the link to buy it http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?KeyWords=pneumatics&by=20&ID=1572&c=0&t=0&l=0

The NXT one kit wonders

Finnaly its here (tommorow). If all goes to plan a few stores (ex. Borders) will get the new book on November 1st. There are 10 projects that you can build with only 1 set! I belive I will buy it tommorow becasue my mother just got a coupon to get 40% off any book greater than 20$ and that book is 30$ that means I will get the book for the low price of 18$!!! WOW. Thats 12 whole dollars cheaper. If you have the rewards program at Borders you can get the coupon to by E-mail and get a whole 12$ off.

Poll is in!

It seems that 2 out of 3 people like the main lego site more than the lego education site. personnaly I like lego edu because they have the seprate parts (ex. 24t gears, 100 track links, 25 m pully wheels) so if you need a few parts you can get them. Pick a brick is mostly normal block lego so the edu site is very usefull. Its like a pick a brick for technic and NXT.

Which programming language?

Well the votes are in and we found that more people plrefer nxt-g over all the other ones. One person prefered nXc. Personally I prefer nXc and nxt-g. I havnt found which one i really like better because I like them both the same. If I couldnt use either of them and I had to choose which to learn I would choose nXc becasue of its power. I use nxt-g more but I like nXc a lot too.

American Sweedish Museum with Nathan Sawaya

Located is South Philadelphia, Pennsylvaina, A museum called the American Sweedish Historical Museum has an exhibit featuring Nathan Sawaya. Although non-Technic, these creations are:

1. HUGE!
2. Very Reaistic
3. Sold for $100,000+
4. Featured on many major news companies.
5. again, HUGE!


I don't have many pictures of the museum, but I have some of Nathan's creations.

I am still amazed about these beyond-expert-builder creations and I want to try to build the skateboard.

Visit their website at: http://www.americanswedish.org/frames.htm

New EOPD sensor from Hitechnic

Well the EOPD sensor has finnaly arrived and boy are we all happy. I just recently put up a post on Nxtasy asking if anyone has an EOPD(elictric optical proximity detector) and everyone said they were only out for a short period of time. Well that was 2 months ago. Now it is out. This EOPD sensor can work wonders. It looks similar to a normal light sensor but what it is a highly accurate sensor that can measure distances of up to 12 in. So now when you want to build a segway easy withought the complex programming of a gyroscopic sensor you can becasue the only other way was the US sensor and that was too slow, but with this sensor you don't have to worry about that becasue this is very accurate and fast.