Classroom Antics is very excited to hear that Dexter Industries announced the release of a new sensor for LEGO MINDSTORMS. Dexter Industries is a leader in advanced sensors and peripherals. The sensor is a proper 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) Inertial Motion Unit (IMU) sensor. Thus, it measures the rotation and acceleration of robots built with the LEGO MINDSTORMS system.

The Inertial Motion Unit sensor is both an accelerometer and a gyroscope for the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. The new sensor can measure acceleration, tilt, and rotation on all 3 axes. As a result, users can now build LEGO MINDSTORM robots to know which way is up.

Dexter Industries, has geared this new sensor specifically for middle-school and high-school STEM programs. Primarily, because of its educational applications in high school physics, math, and engineering. Since Classroom Antics day camps are also highly focused on STEM education, we are excited to hear that this new sensor will work with the NXT-G blocks. Namely, because we use them in our curriculum for LEGO Robotics Camp.

To see a quick video of how a few people are already using the new internal motion sensor. Like this SEGWAY type robots click below.

PS – The blue light, on the side of the NXT brick, is the new IMU sensor.