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HanoiSolver picks up Lego 'discs' and moves them between three different 'posts' to solve the Towers of Hanoi puzzle. The program is capable of solving for any number of discs between 1 and 5. The bot has a pneumatically powered claw which travels vertically on a forklift-type boom to grab the 'discs' and pick them up.

In the classic puzzle, the posts are located in a line, but in my version they are located in a semi-circle: the entire grabber assembly rotates on a large Technic turntable to transfer the discs from one post to another. The picture below shows the main grabber assembly, the 'discs', and the 'posts'.

What the heck is the 'Towers of Hanoi' puzzle? The 'Towers of Hanoi' is a classic puzzle in which you have three 'towers' sticking up (numbered 1, 2, and 3) and a number of different sized discs threaded on them. At the start, all the discs are threaded on post #1 in order of size -- the biggest disc at the bottom and the smallest at the top. The object is to move all the discs to post #3 -- the solution is complete when all discs are on post #3 in the same size order as they started on post #1.

You can move one disc at a time. The tricky part is that: you are not allowed to put a bigger disc on top of a smaller disc, you can only thread a smaller disc on top of a bigger disc (or onto an empty post), and you can only move the topmost disc from any post. Sounds easy? You can try it online here.

MECHANICS OUT_A controls the compressor and the switch for the air supply to the small pneumatic piston that opens and closes the claw. OUT_B sits below the central turntable and rotates the upper portion of the turntable via a motor-12db:20db-8:turntable gear train. The top of the turntable supports the upper frame, on which the claw assembly is mounted. OUT_C at the rear of the upper frame powers a chain-drive to move the claw up and down the boom. This motor has a motor-24:8-worm:24(chain) gear train which allows rapid movement of the chain. Rapid chain movement is not always desirable -- if the movement is halted (as when the claw reaches the top or bottom of its travel) the chain can be broken apart. However, the initial 24:8 gear ratio means that, if the chain is halted with the motor still running, the motor will stall before the chain breaks. Note that the RCX used here is a RIS1.0 unit and electrical power is supplied by a 9VDC wall-wart transformer rather than batteries. The chain drive that moves the grab up and down is pretty frictional and needs the extra power of the external transformer. If you're running from batteries, you might want to change the OUT_C drive from motor-24:8-worm... to a motor-16:16-worm... or even motor-8:24-worm...

CONTROL

Control employs four touch sensors.

The first two touch sensors control the up/down movement of the claw.

• A long axle assembly reaches down, through a 1x2 Technic brick, to a gray axle hub suspended between the grabber claws. Tucked behind the small pneumatic cylinder which powers the claw is a touch sensor. When the grabber moves down the lift boom the hub makes contact with the top of a 'disc', pushing the axle assembly up against the touch sensor. When the touch sensor detects the pressure of the axle, the RCX halts the downward movement of the claw and trips the pneumatic switch to close the claw.
• The second touch sensor limits the upward movement of the and is located so that it is tripped when the claw has traveled to the top of the lift boom.

A third touch sensor controls the rotation of the frame. This sensor is located at the bottom front of the grabber frame, and is activated by Technic axle-balls, friction fitted into a short stack of 2x2 round plates in front of each of the posts. To move from one post to another, the RCX first powers the rotation motor for a preset time which is sufficient to rotate the touch sensor very close to the next ball. The RCX then commands the rotation motor to make a series of small, stepped movements in the same direction until the touch sensor is pushed by the tip of the ball. The grabber arm will now be directly facing the post, with the claw centered over the post. (The height of the axle-balls in the 2x2 round plates needs to be adjusted up and down slightly to fine-tune the point at which they are detected by the touch sensor.)

The final touch sensor is used by the pneumatic system to monitor air pressure.

PROGRAM The program uses Er's non-recursive solution to the Towers of Hanoi problem. Viewed from above, there are two directions of rotation: clockwise or anti-clockwise. Before the program is started, the grabber arm must be rotated so that it is slightly anti-clockwise of post #1. Also, the compressor must be allowed to work until the air pressure switch turns it off so that we have sufficient air pressure at the start of the solution. A number of Lego 'discs' (between 1 to 5) are threaded onto post #1.

When the 'Run' button is pressed, the RCX moves the grabber to the top of the lift boom, opens the grabber jaw, and then rotates the grabber assembly clockwise until the bottom touch sensor detects the first axle ball. The RCX then waits until you send it a message (e.g., using RCXCC) which contains the number of discs. Once HanoiSolver has received the message, it begins the solution. After it has finished solving the problem, it returns to the 'ready' position and waits for you to thread some more discs onto post #1 and send another message telling it how many are there.

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