

Lego's Mindstorms EV3 robots are here - cubicle67
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34441_1-57562323/get-ready-to-program-legos-mindstorms-ev3-robots-are-here/

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benzofuran
I'm glad to see Lego continuing this line of logic - it's amazing what can be
done with these mindstorms with the proper tools. When I was much younger
(about 12 years ago), I built a bipedal walker with gimbaled hips and
articulated ankles and knees out of two first gen RCX units, and it managed to
get me a free trip to ISEF, which in itself was pretty neat. I was using NQC
[1] to program them in tandem, which at the time was pretty neat sauce. I've
fallen way out of the loop with these, but it seems like Lego is encouraging
good work that removes a lot of the stumbling blocks you'll see when using
more bare-bones components like raw servos and arduinos.

My only wish was that Lego would start selling 'engineering' sets for those of
us that grew up with them to use for prototyping - I got through a few hairy
sessions in college using the tub I'd kept from when I was younger, but with
the sets these days there's a lot of stuff you don't need. Something like the
fischertechnik toys but with lego's distribution and selection of parts. Alas.

[1] <http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nqc/>

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jeffbarr
>My only wish was that Lego would start selling 'engineering' sets

Is this is what you want?

[http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/lego_mindstorms_educ...](http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/lego_mindstorms_education_resource_set/2214)

817 Technic parts go get you going.

It is marked "Lego Education." I ordered two sets using my .edu email address
and no one complained.

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introspekt
After a quick browse I found this:
[http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/categories/products/universi...](http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/categories/products/university/tetrix)

Certainly closer to real robotics, with servos, metal parts, etc.

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AlexDanger
Wow, how long has this been around? Does it use the standard LEGO attachment
system or is it all nuts and bolts? Looks sort of like Meccano.

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introspekt
It's actually produced by a Pitsco, Inc. Much like Meccano it's put together
with nuts and bolts. There are parts called Hard Point connectors to interface
with Lego.
[http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/tetrix_hard_point_co...](http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/tetrix_hard_point_connectors/1646)

Looks like a joint venture for educational purposes.

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ja27
Tetrix with an NXT brick is the basis for FIRST Tech Challenge robots, if you
want to see some examples of what high school age kids build with it.
<http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc>

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aristidb
So... back in the day I cross-compiled GCC to write code for the original
Mindstorms in C (and to some extent, in C++). That wasn't easy for my early-
teen self, but it was possible.

To which degree is it possible to program Mindstorms NXT or EV3 in a "real"
programming language?

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cubicle67
We have a NXT which we were able to programme in LUA. It had a very nice
library and worked well, much easier than the visual block programming

Edit: <http://hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pblua/nxtfunctiondefs/>

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stcredzero
Lua, btw. I wonder if someone could package a nice Lua IDE for Mindstorms and
charge $10 or $15 for it?

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andyjohnson0
Having played around a bit with the original 1998 Mindstorms hardware, I found
that the main factor restricting what I could build was the limit of three
input and three output ports. Its a bit disappointing to see that the EV3 has
added only one more input and one output port.

If Lego had made the physical connectors smaller then I don't see why eight or
more sensor inputs couldn't have been allowed. I appreciate that outputs are
limited by the on-board power, though.

Still, this looks very tempting.

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jahewson
The Sensor Multiplexer solves the too-few-ports problem, though it comes with
its own sizeable battery pack.

[http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/hitechnic_sensor_mul...](http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/product/hitechnic_sensor_multiplexer/1813)

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dschep
Didn't know they made these.

I remember building a mux for touch sensors with some resistors and reading it
as a light sensor.

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StavrosK
This looks fantastic. My main limitation so far has been memory, but 16 MB
ought to be enough for everyone (plus there's an SD card slot).

While NXC is pretty simple to program in, I would like to see someone port a
Go-like language to it. This would be a more natural fit, as the NXT brick
works concurrently and NXC has coroutines doing the work.

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doublec
The Transterpreter VM was ported to RCX if I recall correctly. It uses Occam-
pi for the development language: <http://transterpreter.org/>

Not Go, but go-like.

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StavrosK
Oh, that's very interesting, thank you!

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wslh
A video is available on TC: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/lego-mindstorms-
ev3-the-bet...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/lego-mindstorms-ev3-the-
better-faster-stronger-generation-of-robotic-programming/)

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wslh
How can you interface it, with low power consumption, with a mobile? using the
Accessory Development Kit?

