There are actually 2 reset buttons on the brick.

The first is in the body of the brick in the outer most mounting hole of the dark gray plastic under the USB connection.  If you look closely, there is a metal tab deep in that hole.

The second is a small rubber "button" in the battery box.

Also try using regular AA batteries - others have attributed erratic performance to bad rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

From: First Lego League in Virginia and DC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sonya Shaver
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 2:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] Programming/brick problem

I'm sorry Sherene.  I don't have any answers, just to say that our robot is doing weird things at times too.  Like we will run a certain program and then it just starts skipping steps that are in the program, for seemingly no reason.  It will do that three or four times, then suddenly start working again.  I have no idea.  We are getting it to work most of the time though.  It sounds like what you are going through is really frustrating!  I would encourage you to not pull the plug on your team competing though.  That seems unfair to them with all their hard work.  The robot game is only 25% of their total score.  They will still be able to talk to the judges about their robot design and programming, even if their robot does nothing on the actual table.  And they will give their presentation, and show their teamwork!  Good luck, and I hope someone can answer here!

Sonya in Harrisonburg

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Sherene Silverberg <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
We're having a huge problem with our robot.

the programs are not downloading from the computer to the brick properly.   Despite the message on the computer saying it the program has uploaded, it is hit or miss if it does.

We're running firmware version 1.28 on Mac OS 10.5.8.

I've done the Mac OS 10.5 firmware fix as indicated here
http://mindstorms.lego.com/support/updates/.

The programs never run the same way twice. It's like the NXT brick has  a life of its own.  We deleted all the programs on the brick and then downloaded just one of the programs.  When we ran the program, it bore no resemblance to the one we uploaded.  Rather, it looked like another one on the computer that goes by a different name.

I thought to try to reset the brick but for the life of me I cannot find any reset button.  Apparently "The hardware reset button is located within the LEGO TECHNIC hole below the USB connector on the NXT brick.".

For the life of me, I cannot find this hole.

If I can't find a solution ASAP, I am going to pull the plug on the team competing.   We cannot waste any more hours trying to fix buggy Lego equipment.

Can anyone help me?  I'm at the end of my tether.

thanks

Sherene
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