How the Chicken Works...

Here, you can see a Cricket inside the chicken, between its wings. The Cricket is the thing that looks like a computer chip. It has a battery, and provides the power and direction for the chicken. You can make programs on your computer and download them into the Cricket, allowing the Chicken to do whatever you like. The Cricket also has ports for motors and sensors. The red box (lower left) is a small motor that powers the opening and closing of the egg-laying device. There is also another motor just out of the picture that is connected to the series of gears right below the wings. The motor and the gears create the chicken's flapping motion.

Below, you can see the open egg-laying hatch. The inside is sloped downward (It is attached by hinged Legos on the opposite side), so the eggs come out easily. The hatch is triggered to open when the reflective sensor (the black blob - sorry it's such a terrible picture!) is set off by someone's hand above it waiting to catch the eggs. The program also has the sensor set off the flapping of the wings, so that when the person puts there hand out, the wings flap in response to them before the eggs are laid.

The Chicken structure is based on a simple Lego walker. The walker is a motor connected to several gears that in turn connect to inside and outside legs. The inside and outside legs hit the ground alternatly as they move in circles with the motor and gears, moving the whole structure forward in steps. There is another reflective sensor mounted on the right foot of the chicken. It senses when the chicken has come across a black line (aka "the road").