Good luck with your display!

I just found this before.. you might be interested in:

http://www.battlebricks.com/makerlegobot/

Neato way to pickup and place bricks...

and I see he uses a flexible Znap axle in there too...

RB

I was made aware of the project of Will Gorman and even have spoken to him in person at LegoWorld in Zwolle. He was there as well with his MakerBot. It's a really interesting machine which works excellent. Although the concept between them is somewhat different, there are quite some similarities between his project and mine. Some of the techniques we use to pick up bricks and place bricks are pretty much the same.

TheNXTStep indeed has a picture currently on the blog. During LegoWorld we have made about 1.5 hours worth of video, which needs to be edited, merged together and put online. I expect this to happen upcoming weekend after I have revived a bit after 9 days of LegoWorld. Once these first video(s) are online, I'll be adding them to this topic and the videos of the factory will also appear on various common Lego blogs and sites. In about 2 weeks from now I hope to have some updates to the functionality (especially the programming of the factory) which will further improve it's efficiency and after that I will create some high quality video's showing every aspect of the factory without all the "noise" in the video with the crowds at LegoWorld walking by and such.

Edited October 27, 201014 yr by Dryw Filtiarn

I'm really looking foreward to those video's. The working model I saw at Lego world is really remarkable

It has taken a while, but here is a first video that shows all of the factory's features in a single video:

De video recordings have been made (and edited) by Mahjqa (Peer Kreuger) on the last day of the LegoWorld 2010 event (in Zwolle, The Netherlands). Unfortunately by then we were unable to make recordings showing some advanced models being build as during the event a lot of dust and dirt collected in the factory's mechanics, causing it to loose it's accuracy and making it very unreliable.

Anyhow, this video will now show you a bit more of the factory and it's functionality then the "work in progress" video's shown so far. At a later stage I will make new video recordings in a "studio" setting, and with a cleaned up and reprogrammed factory. The video's that will be recorded then will certainly show a lot more of what the factory is truly capable of!

@ Martijn: Wow, 150 hours and 25.000 bricks! This factory is very impressive -- the lucky people who attended the show really saw a masterpiece. Accompanying your

, you wrote:

"This is the first video of the full functionality of the Lego Mindstorms - Factory 2.0 project. All video was recorded during the LegoWorld 2010 event in Zwolle (The Netherlands) from October 20th until October 27th.

The factory is capable of building virtually anything using the 95 types of bricks available in the warehouse. Models for the factory are designed using Lego Digital Designer (LDD) and are interpretted by custom written Windows software (For an example of this:

) . After interpretting the LDD model building instructions for the factory are generated and are sent to the master NXT of the factory.

Creator: Martijn Bosgraaf (Dryw Filtiarn)

Total construction time: 4.5 months (June 2010 until October 2010)

~ 150 hours of Lego building + ~ 100 hours of programming (5 NXT's + LDD model processing software)

Total amount of bricks: Estimated to be around 25.000

Warehouse: 95 different bricks with a total of 1520 bricks in stock

Maximum model size: 16 x 22 x 11 (width x length x height in bricks)

Controlled by 5 NXT's

Models designed in Lego Digital Designer (LDD)

A great thank you to Peer Kreuger (mahjqa) for his effort to record the video and editing it to get this video online. Visit his channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/mahj ."

Edited November 3, 201014 yr by DLuders

It has taken a while, but here is a first video that shows all of the factory's features in a single video:

That's fantastic - what a labour of love! Very nicely done video too. I can't wait to see the full videos with some big models being built! Don't suppose you're touring it to New Zealand any time soon?

I have a tonne of questions, feel free to answer as many or few as you like

Looks like this model has got to the point where it is almost entirely programming now.

Does the building robot run in open loop, or does it use feedback to sense when to release the bricks?

What happens when something goes wrong - does it realise and tell you?

How pipelined is the production process - do the fetching, rotating, and building robots work independently, or does the entire fetch-to-place procedure happen before the next one starts?

What are the limitations on the models? Do they have to be formed in separate layers, or can you mix and match heights? (e.g. could you put a plate beside a brick, and then build on the plate?

Any plans to try to increase the speed?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of this project!

This is really spectacular! Can we get a speeded up video of a bigger model being assembled?

That's fantastic - what a labour of love! Very nicely done video too. I can't wait to see the full videos with some big models being built! Don't suppose you're touring it to New Zealand any time soon?

I have a tonne of questions, feel free to answer as many or few as you like

Looks like this model has got to the point where it is almost entirely programming now.

Does the building robot run in open loop, or does it use feedback to sense when to release the bricks?

What happens when something goes wrong - does it realise and tell you?

How pipelined is the production process - do the fetching, rotating, and building robots work independently, or does the entire fetch-to-place procedure happen before the next one starts?

What are the limitations on the models? Do they have to be formed in separate layers, or can you mix and match heights? (e.g. could you put a plate beside a brick, and then build on the plate?

Any plans to try to increase the speed?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of this project!

Technically the model is completed both in brick-building and programming. But Indeed, I will be investing some more time to get things working in parallel. At the moment everything is build around a task-based instruction, where basically one of the NXT's is the master which sends a sort or remote control command to the other NXT's and waits for the response of that. The current implementation of the software therefore means that everything is sequential. I'm going to rewrite this so that the robots will work more independent of eachother so I can create a situation where one robot is placing a brick in the model, while the other one is retrieving the new brick from the warehouse.

In regards to limitations to models, basicly there aren't really that many limitations. Due to the way I handle bricks you obviously need to use stud-on-top building. There is also a current (software) limitation that you can only place parts at straight angles (0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees of rotation). This can be changed through software though, where nearly every angle would be possible. The situation you describe of placing a plate next to a brick and then continue building on the plate isn't a problem. The current building head can handle a 1 stud height difference between elements. My factory is capable of the following situation for instance (which I think is an excellent example of the posibilities in regards to how you can build a model):

┌─┬───┐
│o│o o│
│ ├─┬─┤
│o│ │o│
├─┴─┤ │
│o o│o│
└───┴─┘

Take above sitation, 4 1x2 bricks placed in a "circle" with a clear stud in the centre. My factory can place a 1x1 plate or 1x1 brick in that empty centre hole.

One thing you obviously do need to take care about is that Lego elements in a model are supported on both ends by other elements. The factory will pick up an element at one end of the element and after initial placement will push the element again on the other hand. If elements aren't supported this way of building will obviously result in the model being destructed again.

So:

┌╨─╨─╨─╨┐
├─┬─────┘
│ │
└─┘
INVALID!

┌╨─╨─╨─╨┐
├─┬───┬─┤
│ │   │ │
└─┘   └─┘
VALID!

The above situation where the 1x4 plate on top is only supported on one end by a 1x1 brick can't be done. Placing might go right, but once the element gets pushed on the other end of the element things will break down again. Even when I would not do this extra push it will certainly go wrong at a later stage when you would try to put other bricks on top of that plate.

The bottom example is possible, as the 1x4 plate is supported on both ends by a 1x1 brick. It won't break when placing the 1x4 plate itself and you can build on top of it without any issues.

The first example with the clear overhanging of a part is possible though with slopes! as long as the stud of the slope would be above the 1x1 brick. The sloped side of brick will never be pushed in any way, so that's a valid (and safe) building method.

Finally in regards to the speed, there isn't much to speed up in regards to the robots. If I would use higher motor speeds it will also result in less accuracy. The factory can only function with the correct balance between speed and accuracy. Overall the building of a model can be done faster though once I get things reprogrammed so the robots will work in parallel to each other rather then sequential. Currently it takes about 1,5 to 2 minutes to build a brick into the model (so a 60 brick car will take around 2 hours).

For further information on the project (and future versions of the factory... yes I'm already planning on Factory 3.0 which will be even more advanced possibly using SNOT and tiles) I will create a website with information about the factory, it's development and the techniques used (though some things I'll keep a secret as I consider it my trademark and I want people to think about it for themselves). Once the website is up and running I'll announce it here (and elsewhere ;))

This is really spectacular! Can we get a speeded up video of a bigger model being assembled?

More video's will come later also showing bigger models being assembled, but that will take a while. I'm going to improve the programming first so that the whole assembly will become faster overall and then I will try to get Mahjqa to come to my place to do some recording again. Don't expect these video's to come very soon though, it might be halfway or late next month.

Edited November 3, 201014 yr by Dryw Filtiarn

Thanks for the clarification! It's truly a master achievement you've made. I tip my hat at you sir!

what a tease! only seeing a few seconds of that christmas tree at the end!

can't wait to see a time-lapse/sped up version of something being built!

RB

Take above sitation, 4 1x2 bricks placed in a "circle" with a clear stud in the centre. My factory can place a 1x1 plate or 1x1 brick in that empty centre hole.

That is impressive, especially with the plate, as the slightest bit of inaccuracy will make it not fit into the hole

One thing you obviously do need to take care about is that Lego elements in a model are supported on both ends by other elements. The factory will pick up an element at one end of the element and after initial placement will push the element again on the other hand. If elements aren't supported this way of building will obviously result in the model being destructed again.

Makes sense. Does the building robot lower the part down until it meets resistance, at which point it lets go, or does it let go at a predefined point in space?

Again, really awesome model! So many possibilities!

In regards to the release of the part being placed in the model, the build head triggers a sensor as soon as it hits something. That means that it will simply keep going until it senses resistance. At that point it will increase it's motor power for a short moment to really make sure the part is really attached and not just lays on top of previous parts placed.

To answer a previously asked question I have not answered yet: Is the robot aware of failure to place a part. The answer is no. It's very hard to determine whether placement fails or not, unless you would have some really intelligent video monitoring of the building area. It would be possible to realize such a thing, but the amount of effort you would need to put into such a thing is insane. Obviously things do go wrong in placement and that will basically mean, that you will have to stand by the factory during building to correct possible failures to place a brick.

In regards to the number of failures in actual building. After some fine-tuning (which could have been improved even further if I would have put some effort into that) at the LegoWorld event, I got to a point there where only about 1 out of 50 bricks failed to be picked up by the build-robot. And about 1 out 10 failed to be placed in the model. I expect to get the placement failure-rate to be reduced when I improve the programming in the upcoming weeks and I'm hoping to get it reduced to about 1 out of 25 bricks failing. At that point, considering the accuracy needed for a piece of machinery like this, I think I can be pretty happy with the reliability.

A situation where not a single brick will fail, will probably not be possible to achieve when you consider that the margin between correct placement and failure to place a brick is about 0.1 to 0.2 millimetres. In theory that even is a level of accuracy which is technically impossible to achieve with Lego, when you consider error margins in the rotation-sensors of the motors, the slack you have in gear transmissions, etc.

Edited November 3, 201014 yr by Dryw Filtiarn

Here is a short time-lapse of the set-up of the factory after transport:

The photo's have been made when I set up the factory at the office I work at. You will not that at the end of the animation the sun starts to set causing the photo's to be a bit darker. All in all it took me about 5 hours to set up, but I must say that it didn't help that people kept me from continues building as they had all sorts of questions ;)

You know I like...a lot...

Here on Eurobricks too, I like it a lot, yes I do...!!!

hey there, no news about your project anymore?

I started building my own Factory inspired by your achievements ;)

and I have to say that I cant come up with a better Storage Solution than yours!

Hope to see some more videos!

greetz

I realy realy like this creation

dutch i see

(zou m graag is in het echt zien)

would like to see it in reallife

greetz rien uit lelystad