WiigoBot melds Lego with Wii bowling, knocks down all 10 pins in our hearts

If a lowly blogger could die from awesomeness, we're pretty sure we'd be keeling over right about now. The Lego Mindstorms geekz0rs over at BattleBricks have managed to reach new heights of human ingenuity, melding a Mindstorms NXT kit, some clever programming and Nintendo's Wii to create an unstoppable bowling machine capable of tossing a perfect game without breaking a sweat, growing a nasty mustache, or sporting a beer belly. While the BattleBricks folks don't provide precise instructions on how to build this yourself, they've got plenty of evidence that it does, indeed, bowl like a champ. So peep the action video after the break, and then start plotting your own NXT creation conquer some other form of automated Wii Sports point inflation -- we never could quite get the hang of tennis.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[elan @ Mar 30th 2007 11:22AM]

The human race is so lazy... we construct robots to interact with entertainment systems in our place!

Lego Mindstorms are incredibly awesome.

[Arglor @ Mar 30th 2007 11:27AM]

i thought when you get multiple strikes in wii bowling they call it fancy names like "turkey" and so on. this seemed to only show "strike" and "strike"

[Caleb @ Mar 30th 2007 11:29AM]

Yep Arglor, you are right. When I get three strikes it does say turkey. hmmmmm......................

[Steele @ Mar 30th 2007 11:35AM]

It does say turkey, and forth, and so on. But it only says it underneath the STRIKE popup thing, in yellow writing or some colour like it, which would be hard to see when filming in such a manner as it was filmed here.

[Mills @ Mar 30th 2007 11:28AM]

that could quite possibly be the coolest thing i have ever seen long live wii and legos

[Phil @ Mar 30th 2007 11:54AM]

LOL @ Elan

This is pretty pointless really but I suppose you have to admire the engineering of it.

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[KC @ Mar 30th 2007 12:42PM]

Urm... you don't need anything special to make it bowl a strike everytime. Just roll the ball straight down the lane with the same speed. As you can see, the bot does not even have the ability to twist the controller to put a spin on the ball. Even my 4 yr old is able to get turkeys easily.

[Shmoe @ Mar 30th 2007 1:02PM]

It would be better if after the last strike the machine released the Wii controller and hurled it at the screen.

[dynamicD @ Mar 30th 2007 1:27PM]

First a machine to pretend like you're bowling, now a machine to pretend that you're pretend bowling!

[Steve @ Mar 30th 2007 1:55PM]

I agree with Shmoe. . .I mean isnt that how you play the Wii? Your supposed to toss the wiimote at the screen and then try and get pity from people who still cant find a Wii in stores.

[kevink @ Mar 30th 2007 1:48PM]

reminds me of

http://www.gotfuturama.com/cgi-bin/imageview.cgi?/Multimedia/FrameGrabs/1ACV02/Grabs/pic00225.jpg

[Greenline @ Mar 30th 2007 2:41PM]

Awesome!

[NHAnimator @ Apr 2nd 2007 10:57AM]

I don't think that wrist strap is attached correctly!

Oh wait. There's no wrist.

[Peter Kruger @ Mar 30th 2007 4:26PM]

And he did it with all brooklyns, damn....

[Matt @ Apr 1st 2007 4:56PM]

And I suppose Pitchomat 5000 was just a modified howitzer.