Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Other => Topic started by: Michael_Lee on September 06, 2011, 01:56:04 pm
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My local robotics club thought it would be cool (well, I thought it would be cool, and pushed the idea) to buy several sets of Lego Mindstorms (or something similar) so that newcomers could gain some experience playing and building stuff with them.
I'm currently in the process of researching what kind of kit would be best, but because I'm really new to this, I wanted to get some suggestions on what we should look into purchasing, and if there are any better alternatives to Lego Mindstorms. Ideally, it should be a fairly versatile and large kit so we aren't limited to building only a few things, and needs to be programmable.
Suggestions? ;D
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I want Lego Mindstorms so much...
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My school has 10 boxes of Mindstorms RCX, it's kinda fun, and it comes with a graphic programming language. It's rather nice for newbies, I recommend it, but if you want more features you can go with the NXT.
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NXT is the way to go, it is programmable in java, has 3 motors that can be controlled with high precision, 4 sensor inputs including touch, light, sound, and distance, and has a variety of awesome things to build ^^ We played around with NXT robots in my computer programming class, and we built things like dragsters, sumo bots, and so much more ^^
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I kinda liked the original lego mindstorms RCX over the NXT, since you could hack it to run NQC and make your own homebrew sensors.
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I ran NQC on my RCX ^^ Freakin Smart!
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If I remember, NQC compiles down to the same bytecode as the Lego software. There is also a version of it for the NXT, Not eXactly C if anyone is interested, it works in the same way.
The RCX can also be programmed in C(++), Pascal, and Java, so it is also quite flexible, it just has slower hardware.
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Cool, thanks for the suggestions.
So... RCX is more flexible then NXT, but is slower?
Just to check, both of them DO support C++ (or a C-like language), right? With OOP and everything?
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Yeah, there are C and C++ compilers for both, I know the RCX has a 16mhz H8 cpu and I think the NXT has an ARM one.
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Sweet!
Question: would about 2 months be a reasonable timeframe to build a fairly complex robot? We're considering introducing the kits sometime in October, and having a mini-competition (just within our club) in December.
Also...
*Michael crosses his fingers in hope
Is there a Python interpreter/compiler for either of them?
I have to admit, I'm a bit of a Python fanboy ;D
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I think there's one that converts python to NXC on the NXT, you should take a look at that.
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And 2 months should be plenty of time to build a very complex robot, especially with a team. I've built complex robots before in less time by myself ^^
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You could also look at Vex, which is more advanced, but that happens to be more expensive and you can't just drag out your box of Legos if you need more spare parts.
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(necropost ?)
Sorry for being interested in that thread only now, but my parents may buy some for Christmas :D
So is it sure that the NXT supports C++ (so my sister can learn me >:D) ?
What is NQC ?
I didn't understand, does the NXT support it (NQC) or something similar ?
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I think it supports C++ indeed, and NQC is Not Quite C, so it's something that looks like C, but made for the NXT I think.
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I think it supports C++ indeed, and NQC is Not Quite C, so it's something that looks like C, but made for the NXT I think.
Ok.
Has someone a NXT 2.0 ? If yes, can you tell me if you had problems with it (like bugs or something (hoping you'll answer no ;)))
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<a href=http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1879>nxtboy III</a> does I believe. You should ask his opinion. He also has a thread requesting sprites for a game he's working on for it <a href=http://ourl.ca/14543/272622>here</a>.
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Ok, thanks, but it is too late :P (my parents already bought it)
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Ah, ok. :) They seem to be fairly interesting devices, though I have no experience with them myself.
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No need to have experience. Building with Legos is easy (and I am sure you already had Legos in your hands ;)) and there is a language for complete noobs (the one I am going to use :P)
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Mindstorms is one of those things that is simple enough that a child can use it, but complex enough that adults participate with competitions using them! :D
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I didn't know that had competitions for adults with these things. O.O It seems they are much more popular than I thought!
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I participated to one of those competitions last month in France, my college were pretty impressed.
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I have both a NXT and NXT 2.0. Personally, I like them for different reasons. 1.0 has more of the longer bards, but doesn't have a color sensor or two touch sensors, which is useful. Also, 2.0 has several other pieces that 1.0 doesn't have and vice versa. As for software, my personal favorite is lejos, simply because I can compile and know how to modify the underlying firmware. As for which robot to get, I would suggest to build robots, I would suggest 2.0, especially if you want them to move about.
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Hey guys!
This is sort of off-topic, but since we are talking about Mindstorms, I wanted to share a game I made for the NXT. I also needed help for an NXT game, so maybe you guys will know what I should do since a lot of you guys want/have an NXT.
Here's my game:
http://ourl.ca/14923
And here's a help topic:
http://ourl.ca/15236
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Wow games for NXT, I have not even considered that for the NXT 1.0 I bought 5 years ago, actually I have seldom touched it because I didn't know what to do with it besides run some sample programs/tutorials.