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Lego Mindstorms DJ
jagger writes: "How often have you heard someone at a party say, 'Oh, change the music, nobody is dancing to this song!' Well, that problem is now solved with this lego dj that detects whether the dance floor is hopping or not and also responds to hand motions from people in front of its camera."
The porno applications of this device are staggering. Dirty Nurses isn't working for you, it'll know and pull up the SSK divx-cd for you.
I like the product, and it has an excellent price for what you are getting, but I would be willing to pay $150-200 if it was wireless. Heck, it would be more useful if it had a longer cord - but wireless is truely where it would be great.
Imagine creating a web-cam bot that could roam around the house (at least until its batteries died) under control from a web page based interface!
I guess until they do this, one will have to cobble together thier own wireless cam solution (maybe one of those X-Cams mounted on the bot)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
What would be interesting would be to combine the CueCat scanner and the Lego Mindstorms. For instance, I am sitting at my desk. In my cd-player, which has a massive sound system, I want to change the CD. Instead of getting up to do it, I scan in a bar code related tot he CD I want to hear. The robot changes it for me.
I am not sure how either of these two devices work (yet), but the fusion of the two could be kind of cool.
-Frijoles-
Calum
as for skipping.... the kick ass CD players that DJ's use are so anti-skip its silly...
and the stability of a 30 lbs. 1200 spinning vinyl with an actual physical contact point of the needle is amazing... 1000's of decibels and no skippy...
anyway - in summary ... if you are concerned about these things... especially the drinking... you arent going to the right parties... :-)
tagline
... hi bingo
All right! Now we've replaced the band, we've replaced the DJ... In a few years, we'll finally be able to replace those blasted dancers! Behold, the party of the future: perfect and pristine.
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I am not a mindsorms owner (IANAMO), but I believe that there have been ports of several languages to the platform. For example, there's an old /. article that discusses one.
If it's just registering pixel changes, then I presume a few flashing disco lights or even a sad disco mirror ball would count as motion or "dancing". Too bad he didn't describe any in-situ testing; I'm guessing it doesn't really work at all except under the most controlled circumstances.
Still, you've got to applaud the changer itself, which is a nice bit of lego robotics.
Yes, I know. They're third party programs. (Lego actually supports third party software... What a concept!) I usually use NQC. However, the camera needs software to handle the vision system. Unfortunately, there does not yet exist any third party software to handle this and it will likely be a great while before there is any.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
I so agree. Paul Oakenfold is god and none shall mess with him...even Legos.
"How often have you heard someone at a party say, 'Oh, change the music, nobody is dancing to this song!' Well, that problem is now solved with this lego dj....[snip]
1) If your DJ is lame enough they can't figure out no one's dancing, they deserve to be replaced with a Lego animatron.
2) Sarcasm aside, this is ingenious. I'd use one myself at a party: not so I can take half-hour breaks from DJing, but to give the party attendees something extra and interactive to play with.
I wonder what software they run to get the hand motion recognition
Can it adjust record speeds, and synchronize with the finesse of Paul Oakenfold?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Lego, not only is your cookie block stupid, IT DOESN'T EVEN WORK! Oh, and you would happen to be using this cookie stuff to be monitoring kids under 13, would you?
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This post sponsored by the American Obstetrics Society:
The disk changer is an impressive piece of robotics to build out of Legos. Note that it really does grip the disks, rotate them, and put them in the CD player tray.
I got my Vision Command the other day, and I must say it is pretty impressive. The camera is actually pretty descent and the Lego studs make it the coolest computer cam out there. The software could stand to be more powerful, but at the price it's pretty good. Unfortunately, you are still stuck with the lousy Mindstorms programming "language." Also, the camera's observations are unchangable and execute continuously (ie. you can't detect motion in the upper-left corner now and look for blue later). You also can't observe two things simultaneously. However, the abilities that it does have (observe movement, color, light and interact with the RCX) are quite versatile. I expect Lego to be updating this software in the future and this idea has a lot of promise. Overall, this is probably the coolest thing to come out of Lego since the original computer interface in the 80's. For under $100 (including camera, software, and a good assortment of pieces), you'd be crazy not to buy it.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
...and if still no-one's dancing, it goes to the "crappiest lowest-common-denominator novelty tracks of the 70's and 80's" CD (featuring Mickey, YMCA, Blame It On The Boogie and their ilk) and leaves it on repeat for the rest of the night :(
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Let's see the Lego DJ do that.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
This just another cool hack from lego. I love mindstorm it allows you to be creative in so many ways it is amazing. This would be great a any party just for as a conversation piece alone.
Man, this guy had way too much time on his hands. And maybe a few too many Lego Mindstorms. I mean, who in their right minds would build such a thing?
Needless to say, I am in envious awe. Bravo!
-TBHiX-
Feel free to add that to your, and your friend's, cookie.txt file. :)
The ultimate site for lego news is probably http://news.lugnet.com. It's where all the cool lego'ers hang out :)
~luge (lugnet member #482)
IAAL,BIANLY
Is it really hard to load the page at threshold 0, use your browser "find" feature to look for the word "cookie", and add your worthy comment in a corresponding thread?
And remember, what you write is archived forever by slashdot, so people will laugh at you forever unless you moderate yourself down, as redundant.
what happens when it gets 30yrs old?
Does it get overweight, short, loud, annoying, lose any trace of wit and intelligence it may have had in its 'younger years', and play mediokre venues to chat up hundreds of women a nite and finally pull the dirtiest 'famous for fifteen minutes shag' girl, and ends up getting her famous for only 15 seconds then collapsing in a 'coronary waiting to happen' type slouching pile on the edge of the bed?
Good, cos I hate DJs who do that (PS sorry for the rant, I been listening to some asshome DJ on Radio 1 here in the UK and he been pissing me off
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PROUD to be GEEK
*Man walks up to the camera, gives it the finger*
Computer:
Command interpreted, beginning the purge function... activating lasers... targetting... targetting... target acquired...
Lasers firing.
Complaint remedied.
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Even scorpions dream, Boone... give it time...