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I want to get us set up to do some fun stuff, and I don't want things to be too hard so that we never really get started. One of the obvious choices for this is the Lego Mindstorms system, but the software that comes with it is designed only for Windows and Macintosh systems.
Fortunately, there are free software alternatives. I've been casually interested in robotics for years, but I've never really been able to afford to experiment with it. So this is an opportunity for me as well as for my son. On the other hand, I've collected electromechanical junk for years with the hope of being able to use it in a robotics project someday.
And I have collected machines so that I have a small machine shop set up by now, just waiting for the opportunity to be useful. This will be fun!
We could just launch into building a robot entirely from scratch, but as novice as we are, I'm afraid we'd get quickly bogged down in piddling details before we got anything working. So there's a lot to be said for a kit-based approach -- at least at the beginning.
Lego Mindstorms came out many years ago, and quickly became a favorite, not just among kids, but also adult robot experimenters. It is very versatile, allows you to use existing Lego brick parts, and it's relatively cheap. As might seem reasonable for its market, Lego Mindstorms uses a very simplified, GUI-assisted programming environment, which is proprietary and runs only on Windows or Macintosh computers.
My son's goal is to create a walking robot -- in other words, a "hexapod". This is pretty advanced and complicated, so I suggested inserting a basic wheeled "mouse" robot as an intermediate step. A "mouse" robot is sort of the "hello world" of robotics -- it's a robot that simply controls wheels so that it can move around on a flat floor. So I'm going to want a system that will let us do both stages. Unsurprisingly, there are much better kits available for Lego, so the way to start out is with one of the kits.
This kit contains the NXT "intelligent brick", which consists of a bit microprocessor, an LCD display, 4 input ports, 3 output ports, bluetooth support, and a USB port.
With this are two touch sensors, an ultrasonic range sensor, and a "color sensor" I think this means a light sensor that reports the color of the light. Three motor-powered servos are included. And it comes with a large collection of passive components including Lego "Technic" parts, wheels, and treads there's a total of parts, which presumably includes the NXT brick, servos, and sensors as well as the passive parts.
It can be found a little cheaper than that if you shop around. This kit alone is adequate to make simple "mouse" robots, and can do a few things beyond that. However, there are a lot of accessories we'd be likely to want fairly soon, and we'd clearly need more components to build the hexapod design.
This is frankly a very attractive solution for our situation, but the sticky part comes when we look into the host-computer software for working with the NXT. Lego makes a fairly big deal about their "intuitive" and "easy-to-use" NXT-G programming environment which is a graphical, object-oriented language based on plugging together software virtual bricks.
It's a cool idea, and it's easy for me to see why this is particularly good for younger users. On the other hand, I've heard complaints from more serious experimenters that the software is very limiting in what it allows you to do.
Whether we like the NXT-G software in concept or not, though, it is proprietary and it is only available for Windows and Macintosh operating systems! Plus, he's also avidly studying Python programming -- so I suspect he is imaging using Python to program his robot. This argues for us to instead go the route of installing one of the free software alternatives for programming Lego microcontroller bricks. The NXT is the newer microcontroller, and it is unfortunately not compatible with the software developed for the previous RCX intelligent brick.
This would probably mean my son would have to learn the specialized "Not eXactly C" language, although that probably wouldn't be a show-stopper.
I'm not aware of any Python bindings for NXT as yet. I didn't find any analog for the current NXT-based controller, although it's probably not that hard to write code for an NXC module to talk to the host computer and a Python package for the host to talk to it. Scaling up to a more complex robot seems hard with NXT hardware -- the intelligent brick provides few ports for additional servos or sensors. Technically, it's a "six-legged walker", but it's obviously a bit simplistic, since the legs aren't independent.
Going beyond simple "mouse robot" designs will quickly require additional components to extend the NXT system. Of the accessories sold by Lego, I think we'd probably want to add these not all at once, but as we go on:. What we really need is an ability to extend the platform with a bus controller.
Some third-parties have provided such extensions. This attaches to one of the sensor ports on the NXT via the I2C protocol, and allows control of up to 8 standard servos of the type used in radio control airplanes and cars i.
They also sell servos of this type, along with Lego-compatible mounting hardware. Obviously, I could cut corners in some places, or spend more in others, depending on the details, but I think this is a fair estimate of what I'd be getting myself into. Illustrations and modifications to illustrations are under the same license and attribution, except as noted in their captions all images in this article are CC By-SA 3. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Hobby Robotics with Free Software: A hexapod robot Photo Credit: The Lego Solution Unsurprisingly, there are much better kits available for Lego, so the way to start out is with one of the kits.
This argues for us to instead go the route of installing one of the free software alternatives for programming Lego microcontroller bricks The author even wrote a nice book called LEGO Mindstorms NXT Power Programming: What about the hexapod goal? Of the accessories sold by Lego, I think we'd probably want to add these not all at once, but as we go on: License Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.