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Lego Goes Linux

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115 pointsurlwolf23 comments

Wow this is pretty cool. I have written some C (NXC, really [1]) programs for Mindstorms and it was super fun. I built a little rover-like car and wrote a program that would make the car play with my cat in the living room. It didn't work very well, but the idea of writing programs where the output was moving an object in the physical world was novel and very pleasing. I encourage everyone here to give it a shot.

In order to test out a new program, I had to hook the brick up to my computer via USB, then copy the program over, then run it by pressing a series of buttons on the brick. Also there wasn't a good way to get debug logs in real-time (it's hard to read the screen when it's driving around the living room). Hopefully with Linux that process will get easier. The idea of SSHing into a Mindstorms brick, running a program, and watching the debugs logs on stdout is very exciting.

1. http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/

I haven't heard of NXC! It looks like NXC is basically NQC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Quite_C) for the current-gen Mindstorms products?

(I only got a chance to play with the new Mindstorms kit briefly in college to setup a small demo, they got about 25 educational kits as part of some grant. I just used the included software.)

I got to do FIRST Lego League in grade school with the RCX 1.5 and later the RCX 2.0

AFAIK the rules prohibited us from using NQC at the time. I believe we were limited to RoboLab [a separate product sold by LabView] and the stock Mindstorms software. (*Which I should point out is _nothing_ like the current software. It was geared towards very young users, very "flashy", and quite buggy. -- It did, however, include lots of media and examples for the robots in the instruction manual.)

That regulation was probably for the best, as my elementary self would've probably been frustrated by C-style syntax. I knew it existed only because our coach and assistant coach were both software engineers.

Which I should point out is _nothing_ like the current software. It was geared towards very young users, very "flashy", and quite buggy.

Actually, that's been my experience with the NXT-G language (the "current software") as well.

When I was using NXT in high school for the FIRST Tech Challenge, RobotC was a proprietary IDE with its own C-like language for NXT that had wireless (Bluetooth) download, debugging, and remote control (with support for common PC joypads). I honestly thought it made NXC look like a joke.

NXC also has most of these features today.

Trouble is, that it still is kind of slow compared to RobotC.

I wonder how many of their customers are kids, and how many are full-grown geeks like me :-)

When my daughter becomes old enough, that will be the perfect excuse to buy such devices :-)

I tried that one - didn't wash with the wife.

I did! My youngest daughter (12) has an interest in robotics, so the excuse was perfect. I've played with the NXT kit as much as she has, and we're already talking about getting an EV3 kit for her birthday. (I'm excited).

That's awesome about your daughter's interest in robotics!

I'm a mentor for a robotics program that competes in FIRST competition. You should check it out and see if her schools have anything like this or if you can maybe start something yourself so other kids can learn about robotics with you and your kids.

http://www.usfirst.org/

Yup, familiar with the program. I actually spoke with the STEM outreach director for our middle school about a year ago. She was interested, but school policies would have made it difficult to get an FLL team up and running (she had looked into it in the past).

I may take another stab at an FRC or FTC team next year as I now know (personally) the chairman of the school board. He's an engineering prof/researcher at UIUC so I expect it to be a fairly easy sell, and as a school board member, may be able to "grease the wheels" a little.

+1 to that. My little clone is 2 years old now and I'm already starting to ponder whether she's old enough :-)

She is. I'm of the opinion that you can never start early enough. My daughters (I have 2) have been playing with "engineering toys" since about age 3. One latched onto engineering big time (see above) and, at 12 years old, has even selected her preferred universities (in order: MIT; UMich; UIUC; CMU)

edit: grammer

I got to see a demo of this at CES. Very neat. I asked about downloading custom firmware to the brick, and they said it would be supported. Since is runs some version of the Linux kernel now, that should really expand the range of software which can be run. It has a USB port, so WiFi networking is now also a possibility.

Since it supports Bluetooth (presumably serial port profile), that makes communication to smartphones easy.

I'm hoping 3rd parties will make more sensors and motors for this platform. I can envision uses for small solenoids, and maybe stepper motors too.

I had a course on using Lego DACTA (lego mindstorms without the mindstorms brick) when I was in fifth grade. Pure awesome.

Too bad mindstorms are ridicously expensive here in Brazil, I am yet to put my hands in one.

We had Dacta in the UK. It was paired with a BBC Micro and we wrote our own software in BASIC. Was awesome.

> Too bad mindstorms are ridicously expensive here in Brazil, I am yet to put my hands in one.

This is a lot worse than it seems. Protectionism in Brazil goes further than Mindstorms and protectionism in the world goes further than Brazil.

What stupid (and heavy lobbied and bribed) politicians will never get is that protectionism is also cultural isolationism. By keeping good and inspiring technology off the gates they are actually limiting engineering creativity and imagination. They're actually stifling innovation and progress, not stimulating it.

Brazilian culture grew so much when it imported other people's culture and modified it to their own. Jazz was imported and became bossa-nova. Soccer was brought in by British workers in the railways and became "jogo bonito". Corbousier's modernist architecture was assimilated by Oscar Niemeyer and changed into Brazilian architecture. If culture was walled by protectionism, these developments would never happen. Similarly, technological development will be repressed by protectionism.

Aren't legit copies of video games especially difficult to find in Brazil? And when you do find them they are > $120 USD? That is just what I've heard, I wonder if it is due to this protectionism that you mention?

Protectionism might be a factor but in this case is not the only one. Heavy taxation and costs of distribution and marketing are more relevant here. Pirates evade all of them.

For games it is mostly taxes ( including protectionist taxes )

A congressman here calculated that a videogame may get taxed 273% on its original import price without shipping costs.

That number is staggering! Thank you for your input. =)

Protectionism was integral to the rise of the East Asian Tigers, as well as the recovery of post-WWII Europe. There is a time and place for such policies.

I can't wait to see the LEGO hacks after this is released to the public.

No, LEGO Mindstorms is not a replacement for an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi, but...

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