[ProgSoc] Lego Robots - use Linux!

[Jay Banyer <jbanyer@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

Hey all. I was on the team that built the noughts-and-crosses robot last
year. It was an enjoyable challenge.

To spark your interest, here are some technical details of the Lego
Mindstorms kit:

CPU: 16MHz Hitachi
Ram: about 32Kb
Inputs: 3 analog
Outputs: 3 analog

Supplied devices:
Input: 2 touch sensors, 1 light sensor
Output: 2 motors
We also connected an electromagnet which we picked up from Dick Smith.

The development environment that comes with it from Lego is very
limited. We used 'legos', which allowed you to write programs in C++ using
gcc. These are compiled to the Hitachi architecture and transfered to the
'Brick' (control unit) using an infrared link. Our entire program was
about 7K, most of which was navigation and control code. You can do a fair
bit with 32K!

See http://www.noga.de/legOS/ for legOS info. It's open source.

I also discovered http://lejos.sourceforge.net/ which is a Java VM for the
Brick.

The Brick can operate completely independantly (as ours did) or
controlled in real-time with a computer via the infrared link. Two Bricks
can also talk to each other via infrared (they can send as well as
receive). I haven't seen that done, but the possibilities are interesting.

Plus you get paid!

Cheers,
Jay.


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