Stephen Coast
University College London
<steve@fractalus.com>
LEGO Mindstorms is a LEGO-based construction kit. It includes an
intelligent
brick which contains a processor, display and I/O functions designed for
use by
children.
Windows based programming and program-transfer tools are provided, however
many
Open Source tools have been written for use with Linux.
The intelligent brick is interfaced via I/R and a proprietry transciever
provided by LEGO connected via serial or USB. When autonomous, the brick
controls LEGO motors and receives input from various sensors sensitive to
temperature, light and touch.
The graphical tools provided are very limiting to a professional
programmer,
including no recursion or access to the hardware. Open Source tools allow
programming in C, Java and many others using either the existing kernel or
a
replacement. Tools for transferring code have also been written.
Detailed descriptions of the hardware and programming tools are presented,
with
live examples.
Stephen Coast is an undergraduate student in Physics at University College
London. He has worked at Elonex, Wolfram Research, Computer Exchange and
the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL.
His work has been varied including polyhedral models, internet maps and
timetabling. Stephen lives in London and will complete his degree in two years.
Last modified: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 21:08:47 +0200