This entire situation was inspired by the new lego bulldozer. Power functions provides the essential box of tricks that lets people at home make remote control robo-things without expensive engineering equipment. Being able to make a wheely-thing and zoom it about the living room is pretty awesome, especially to a bunch of big kids like us.

The buldozer's power functions setup provides the following:

	Battery box, with switch. This takes six AA batteries, and is sized to fit the new studless beams (it's 11 studs wide, and no stud-compatible areas anywhere. Although this can connect directly to a motor (the switch provides forward/backward control) this system connects it to:
	2 IR sensors/controllers. Mounted on a 4x4 tile, each of these sensors has a large band selector switch on the front. The black IR-pickup has a good all-round view, front and back. Each of these sensors has two attachment points, marked red and blue. Several motors can be connected to these control points.
	2 Size M motors. A mostly-studless design (the bottom is compatible with a 2x6 plate) these motors are designed to be mounted around the axle, and have peg-hole on the face. These are the faster, but less powerful motors of the set. For bigger jobs, you need...
	2 Size XL motors. Much larger, slightly slower, and with internal gearing to provide much more torque, these are the motors that get things done. Completely studless, they do have additional mounting sockets on the face, as well as mounting holes along two sides.
	IR remote control. This takes 3 size AAA batteries, and has a band-selector similar to that on the IR sensors. The two levers can be extended using axles or pegs, and are marked red and blue (again, similar to the sensors). Additionally, there are tiny sliders that allow you to reverse the operation of each lever. The handset has mounting holes along the sides, which would be useful if you had more than one controller - you could join them together and control all your sensors without having to change bands.

IR control rig as used in the bulldozer.

Note that the cables are fixed to the sensors and motors, not to the battery box. This 1-to-many approach allows both Sensors to connect to one battery box. I suspect the number of sensors is limited only by the power output. Note also that the orange forward/backward switch on the battery box does not affect the output from the sensors.

Two size M motors are connected to one sensor, one to each of the blue and red connection points. The red and blue levers on the handset now have forward/backward control of one motor each. As with the battery box, both motors could be attached to a single control-connector, which would result in both being slaved to the same control lever.

The second sensor is used to control the two size XL motors. Operation is exactly the same as for the size M motors. Ensure the sensors are set to use different bands.

More to come...