Ever since I created the Spirograph Automaton I remained interested in drawing machines. For this years Christchurch Brick Show I wanted a more compact, easier to build version of the Spirograph. This time I used three motors instead of just one. Controlling the speed of both arms and the table was very easy this way. The Spirograph worked reliably throughout the whole show. The MinuteBot baseplate makes the construction even easier. The building instruction are available for LEGO Digital Designer. More information is available at Rebrickable.
Nokia’s update of the Withings Health Mate App is causing many problems.
I like my Withings products and the the associated Health Mate App has been a pleasure to work with in the past. Recently Nokia took over Withings and also rebranded the whole product range. They also gave the Health Mate App a complete new design. What really upsets me is that they did not manage to come even close to the functionality that Withings’ original Health Mate app offered. I received the following reply from Nokia after asking them where my swim tracking data had gone:
Below you will find a list of known issues that we are in the process of fixing:
Health Mate isn’t sending data to Apple Health
Historical weight data not displayed in app
Navigation and UI issues with weight data graphs
Temperature and CO2 widgets missing
Luminosity, Noise, and Temperature data not displayed for Aura users
Normal ranges for Weight, BMI, Body Composition not appearing in the app
Swim data missing from the app
Inability to BMI widget to Dashboard
Inability to set or edit alarms on the Aura
Inability to log food or access the Nutrition screens
Inability to link Health Mate to MyFitnessPal
Inability to edit your Profile (email address, height)
Inability to set or change a Reminder
Inability to link to MyFitnessPal
Note that this is the bugs they are currently working on, after they already released a bug fix on June 23rd (version 3.0.2). Why do they release an incomplete and buggy app? Yes, it looks fancy, but how about focusing on the functionality first? This is not a good sign for Withings products. I really hope that Nokia does not ruin their beautiful products.
UPDATE: 8 August 2017
My Health Mate App updated automatically and Nokia put up a rather apologetic message. I can’t test if all the functionality they promised now really works, but at least some connection to Runkeeper is now working. My Swimming data usually is displayed twice, which remains a bit of a bummer.
Nokia apologises
UPDATE 3 May 2018
And now Nokia is selling its health products back to the founder of Withings. A prime example of “company strategy”.
This is tutorial on how to install and run Java on your LEGO Mindstorms EV3 using Eclipse and LeJOS.
We will be installing Java and the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This will allow us to develop your LEGO Minstorms EV3 software in Java and running it on the EV3 using LeJoS. Please let me know in the comments if you encounter any problems. I will try to keep this tutorial up to date.
LEGO’s turn table has considerable friction and rotating a model at an exhibition for a whole day would ruin it. A thrust ball bearing is necessary to decrease the friction. I previously 3D printed a large bearing for my Unikitty. For this year’s exhibition I needed a smaller thrust ball bearing so I designed a new medium sized ball bearing. It includes liftarms to hold a worm wheel which results in a rotation ratio of 1:78. You can download the model from A360 and GrabCAD.
To rotate an axial load LEGO developed the turn table. For light loads this works great but the friction increases dramatically with heavy loads. This thrust ball bearing uses standard LEGO balls to transform the friction into rotations. This allows the two disks to easily rotate. The balls and an additional rim keep the two disks in place.
A motor can be attached on the inside to power the rotation. Even the smallest LEGO motor is sufficient to easily rotate this 2 kg load. This thrust ball bearing is fully LEGO compatible and even allows studs to be attached to top half. Standard 14.2 mm LEGO balls can be used. The bearing measures 20 studs across and is three bricks high. This should be big enough for even the biggest crane or MOC display.
