LEGO car is better at parallel parking than you are

Now that all those cool kids are getting self-parking cars and being all big-headed about it, a fresh Mindstorms NXT creation has come along and put them all in their place. The SPC (Self Parking Car) can detect a space large enough for parking all by its lonesome, do the parallel parking deed, and then at your verbal command of "GO!" return to the road, ready to park another day. For a mere $249 (the price of the kit), you too could be this awesome, not to mention all the gas you'll be saving in the process. Of course, that whole "people moving" situation could get a bit sticky, but we're sure you'll work something out. Peep the video after the break.

[Via TechEBlog]

[Richard Lai @ Dec 13th 2006 8:02AM]

Nice work!

[Phil @ Dec 13th 2006 8:13AM]

Very creative! I have the MindStormsNXT, and while it is a lot of fun I have to say that it IS NOT worth $250.00. The controlling unit is like a PalmII with BlueTooth but even less powerfull storage/processing-wise. Someone needs to come out with a chassis with the type of I/O and electric motors that the MindStormsNXT has, but for $50 and an interface to PocketPC's. That would make for a truly cool robot with decent processing power and storage, and for less than $200 you could get a decent PPC to run the thing.

[David @ Dec 13th 2006 12:28PM]

Out of the box, the Mindstorms software isn't all that great -- it runs a custom bytecode format that only allows very limited computation and data storage. But the processor itself isn't bad; it's a 48MHz ARM with 64KB of RAM and 256KB of flash, which is pretty respectable (although not at the PocketPC level, true). Now that the firmware source code available, it should be possible to write much more powerful software in C or assembler.

[Aaron @ Dec 13th 2006 8:35AM]

Dude! That thing was totally all over the curb!

[Sc00ter @ Dec 13th 2006 10:46AM]

Not to mention he totally used the braille method when pulling out.

[fanguad @ Dec 13th 2006 8:53AM]

Just don't be driving the LEGO car in front of that one. It ran into the car in front of it twice on its way out. Or... maybe it did it on purpose? All hail our parallel-parking, hit-and-running LEGO car overlords!

[Bjarke Andersen @ Dec 13th 2006 9:44AM]

erhmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What does the tapes represent? If that had been real world in city, then the car's rear would end up on the sidewalk. And after the perfect parking, it actually starts bumping into the tapes when leaving.

[Tavis Veighey @ Dec 13th 2006 10:53AM]

I have to totally agree! That thing would have taken out the corner of the car in front of it!

And it was all over the curb! Granted that was mostly because it is SOO LONG compaired to a normal car, but if you think of it as a truck, then it sucks at paralell parking. It needed the rear wheels to turn as well.

[Aaron @ Dec 13th 2006 11:35AM]

I made an autonomous car with a Basic Stamp (and a gold-tub RC10 for all you old school RCrs) and am impressed none the less. You would be amazed at how many behavioral problems you can run into. The first car I made naturally gravitated into corners and couldn't go down a hallway without turning around every three feet. I'd be curious to see that thing be let loose in a living room or something.

[Lee @ Dec 13th 2006 12:30PM]

that hit the blocks twice i can park better than that and my test isant till monday (wish me luck)

[Christian @ Dec 13th 2006 4:09PM]

Everyone in SF does that type of parallel parking; soft bumps. Specially when you're boxed in and people around you didn't give you enough space. I must say that Lego did have more space in the back though that it could've reverse first to get out. Tweek the progamming a little more I say and it could be better.

[R P @ Dec 14th 2006 3:59PM]

It's funny to hear people "hating" on this impressive Lego demo because it's not as good as what 100 Engineers at Lexus built. :-)

Some guy probably did this in an afternoon, and uploaded the video for fun. Give him a break! It's pretty cool!