Well, okay, it’s only stylish if you close your eyes.

And as far as functional, I don’t know.  I haven’t hooked it up yet.

But it looks like it fits the paddle!  Which, of course, means that it’ll break into pieces as soon as I try to make it go…

Gears!  That’s the key!

The Atari 2600 Paddle has a series of ridges and grooves around the spinner knob.  I was trying to get things to grab onto those grooves, but for some reason, I didn’t try the gears in the kit.

Until now.

Groovy.

I’ve been working at the robot for the better part of an hour and a half, and I still don’t have anything that looks like it’ll work.  The main problem is that I have to work with Lego parts, so it’s hard to get anything that will fit the paddle.  They’re also the crazy Mindstorm/Technic pieces that are more like a plastic Erector Set than Lego pieces, so they’re hard to connect in the way you want them to go together.  I almost got something, but it doesn’t want to hold on to the paddle.

Back to the drawing board…

Here’s the prototype for the robot.  What do you think?

Right.  So now I just need to build a robot.  Simple…

I’ve never built a robot before.  Software I’ve done, but a robot, no.  I guess it’s sort of the same, you build software using smaller bits and pieces and building blocks, and Legos ARE building blocks.

Task List:

• Build Paddle Cradle
• Build Spinner Control using Servo
• Get Mindstorms SDK
• Figure Out How To Use Bluetooth
• Write Robot-Side App to Respond to “Clockwise” and “CounterClockwise” Commands
• Write PC-Side App to Send “Clockwise” and “CounterClockwise” Commands
• Ensure That Robot Obeys At Least Two Of Azimov’s Laws
• Hook Into Existing Game Logic Application
• CUPCAKE OF GLORY!

Yeah.  Simple.