Slashdot Mirror
Lego Mindstorms AT-AT
cybercuzco writes: "Lego has just released a new mindstorms add-on that lets you 'create a fully operational Imperial AT-AT walker.' Pictures and specs are available here. The price is rumored to be $99, so start saving your nickels."
Somehow I don't think there'll be rebel-scorching LASER CANNONS attached.
But by golly gee, if there are... who do I have to kill?
Ok, so you put a few extra dollars into this kit, buy a couple of 6.5 megawat lazers to replace the lego "swords" and then, you got your self an awesome toy!!!
DW
If you've got deep pockets, get the Mindstorms base kit and add 'Vision Command' ('http://guide.lugnet.com/set/9731') to it. Vision Command comes with a small USB video camera which can be programmed to watch for movement in various 'zones' of its field of vision; what it sees is sent to your computer via USB, and then your computer can send that information back to the Mindstorms RCX unit via infrared. The result is that you can make a robot which turns its head to watch you as you walk in front of it (as in, make it turn its head to the right if it sees motion to the right of center), or which can orient its gaze on anything it sees of a specific color. Very cool!
If you're interested in LEGO at all, check out the Lego Users Group Network at 'http://www.lugnet.com/'. They have discussion groups for everything from robotics to train sets, they link to set instructions and CAD programs and information on programming the Mindstorms RCX in Java. Also, there have been two books published (one by O'Reilly) about building robotics with Mindstorms.
I agree.
I clicked on the link, willing to be talked into blowing money on a new toy, but I was not about to update Junkbuster's cookie file just for this.
The idiots are costing themselves customers. I would understand requiring cookies in some sort of shopping cart system once I had chosen to add the item to a cart. But just to check it out?
Forget it.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
AT-AT? Nay, I want a Mindstorms BattleMech! Sort of like these, but with motors and programming capability. And working lasers, of course! =)
I saw this the other day at K-Mart, and it was around $100. They also have a new (non-mindstorms) series of Star-Wars Technic sets that are designed to be models. The X-Wing is fantastic (about 2 feet long), but weighs in at $150.
I see. Yoda was just a burnt out FORTH programmer.
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Kind of the way that Mercedes-Benz is an average car in Germany but roughly twice as expensive in the US.
Have you considered checking major on-line toy stores? I haven't checked, but I'd be surprised if someone like Toys'R'Us didn't ship abroad.
Obviously toy stores maybe aren't going to be as cheap as direct purchase from Lego, but it may be cheaper than buying locally.
~Cederic
What makes this site 'require' cookies? That really pisses me off and I don't think it is worth going back to see again. There was nothing on that site that I required a cookie being set on my system.
On another note. If you are into robotics this is probably a really neat toy for you to get.
Sure and this is where someone calls me a troll and moderates me down. Remember this thougth. Cookies are used for tracking visitors. Doubleclick has devised a way of tracking visitors and knowing where they are located in the US based on there IP address and using the cookies to see if they are a repeat visotor at another site that they are serving ads at. Or to put it more simply. You visit here site once. You get a cookie. The next time you visit a site that has ads served by doubleclick your cookie is checked. They now know what type of sites you like to visit. They know where you are by IP address and depending on the site that you are visiting and weather you have an account and the privacy policy they could have all sorts of information and they do!
Hey I am not using Mozilla M18 with the new cookie tool so that I can go to a site and have them set a cookie (like mindstorm) just because they want to access my system. I have a right to reject cookies. If you want to refuse my viewing your site because I reject your cookies you have that right too. But when there is NO benifit to me to accept your cookie then you loose page views. Your loss not mine. And yes I did delete there cookie after viewing the page.
Hmm ever wonder how much info slashdot has about you? They have every article that you ever posted against, every article you clicked on, if you have an account, whoa..... Okay I'm not parynoid, but....
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
The web site just says that you have to have cookies enabled to access it. Now I wonder what they want that for. No way I'm visiting sites with such ridiculous setups, bye-bye lego.
TA
I'm saving my money for that fully operational death star they are working on.
(I think I'll spring for the redundant power supply option though...)
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Um, that means the rest of the legs would keep trying to move, which is just as bad! Try this instead:
/* 1=OK, 0= Damn Rebels */
int i;
struct leg {
unsigned int status;
unsigned long odometer;
unsigned int rebelSquishCount;
unsigned int running;
} theLegs[4];
int stopLegs(void) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
That just had to happen... *sigh*
/* 1=OK, 0= Damn Rebels */
Um, that means the rest of the legs would keep trying to move, which is just as bad! Try this instead:
int i;
struct leg {
unsigned int status;
unsigned long odometer;
unsigned int rebelSquishCount;
unsigned int running;
} theLegs[4];
int stopLegs(void) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
theLegs[i].running = 0;
return 1;
}
void gpf(void) {
sing("Daisy");
while (1) {
justSitThere();
}
}
for (i = 0; i < 4, i++)
if (theLegs[i].status == 0)
if (! stopLegs(i))
gpf();
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
No, Lego don't win either: they lose a lot of potential sales.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Actually, some languages with C-ish function call syntax, such as Perl, allow parameter-less functions to be called without parentheses. From the explicit then statement, it's obvious that the OP is not using C.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Of course. C is the programming language of the Dark Side of the Force; all good Jedi Knights are expert FORTH hackers. This is why we don't see many of them nowadays...
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
The blurb commented on the "steep" price - $99 US. Well, I recently decided to buy a Mindstorms set for my 12 year old brother, to see if I got him interested in programming. (He is already an avid Legoer, and has a lot of engineering potential...) On the Lego web site, I found one which looked good - only $60 too. Problem is, I'm in Brazil, and they don't seem to ship overseas. So I go shopping, and I find out that they don't sell this set here for less than R$280, which is about 150 dollars!
After some research, I found out that these kits are also ridiculously overpriced in many other countries outside of Western Europe-US-Japan. This is really too bad; there is a big market of hacker-larvae around the world who would kill to get one of these, if only they could afford it. By limiting their market like this, Lego are causing a situation where no one wins.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
The Imperial R&D Department, in the basement of the Death Star...
Clinko Palpatine, age 12, the Emperor's nephew and head of development, is working on the control software for the new AT-AT model...
> IF legs == blocked, THEN stop walking
A few days later - the AT-AT, sent into battle, falls into a trap...
TYPE MISMATCH: legs is of type LIMB, blocked is of type BOOLEAN
FATAL ERROR: stop walking is not a known function
TOO MANY ERRORS
SEGMENTATION FAULT
DISACTIVATING UNIT
With programmers like clinko running the thing, it's no wonder the Empire lost!
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Maybe because people post inflammatory advocacy messages without bothering to provide any proof for the points they make?
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Perhaps if they get enough of these notes they'll wise up... after all, Shopping Season is close upon us.
services@lego.com is the address to bug'em yourself. Yes, I know this is liable to slashdot'em. Serves'em right, IMHO.
I'm a big fan of parental responsibility; what your kid sees and does on the net is YOUR problem. But when I can't get in to have a peek and make sure the site is legit because someone insists on shoving a cookie down my craw, it rather sticks there. Yeah, yeah, there are other ways to track, but my inside addresses are NAT'ed and my outside one is part of a huge ISP's block, so a whole lotta damn good that's going to do them... but nooooo, Lego isn't satisfied with a good generic demographic, they want it ALL...
Well, they shall get none from me.
--
"If you don' like it, you can kiss my furry little butt!" -- MiB
Really? We can witness the power of this Fully Operational AT-AT?
Who would have thought that the first affordable blaster would come from Lego! Now mindstorms ust need an X-10 interface and I can set a cadre of these to guard my house...
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
$199 for the base + $99 for the AT-AT * 48 = $14.4K... No wonder you didn't get the raise.. ;)
Sure, they're very intimidating... but all you had to do was throw one grenade through that eye window in front and it was done for... or funnier yet, simply get those legs twisted up and they instantly toppled. Why on Earth build a vehicle with enormously long legs that invariably do nothing but topple the whole thing if they get snagged.
I'm much prefer that giant quadrangle thing the guys who collect robots had. You weren't going be tying any strings around that thing.
--
RumorsDaily
Here's the space fungi thing you're referencing.
9 &mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/02/19122
--
RumorsDaily
Turbolasers and all? Mischief night might get a bit more fun with one of them! (Egg doors? why not blow 'em in!)
...Sony Aibo ripoff! I would love to have a lil pet to put together, with most of the same feature set of the original Aibo's. I would actually just like an Aibo that I can *afford now*, but that seems unlikely given their $1500 price for the dog, $170 for the Energy Station, $100 for the Lithium Ion Battery. This doesn't include the price on software for it or anything else. Check out Sony's pricelist for the Aibo at Aibo's Pricelist on Sony's site. Even if it were only half the price of the Aibo's, it would be a step in the right direction.
Check out a two-legged walker here.
"comp.lang.forth has been talking about a Forth logo ... an anime Jedi warrior girl, scantily clad."
--Chuck Moore
Let's see a camel or a cup of coffee compete with that!
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This isn't really a mindstorms expansion; it's a new set, using their Scout microcontroller (handicapped RCX: only 1 motor, only 1 light sensor, but intergrated into the computer brick). I fully expect that the normal mindstorms users could build this sans the kit (provided either a) you don't mind using yellow and red for your AT-AT, or b) you have lots of grey parts). We'll find out in a few hours, though!
And, they could also be a violation of the new COPPA law. Follow me here folks, these passages are from their own privacy statements:
What if I don't accept the cookie?
You still can participate in many of our online activities. However, if a LEGO Cookie is not present, it may limit our ability to customize and deliver a better online experience and improve our features.
Does LEGO.com Use Cookies?
Yes. When we ask to add a cookie to your computer, we are not collecting personal information, but the non-personal information that we do get helps us give you a better online experience.
Non-personal responses collected during a guest visit are used to help us make sure that our products and our communications to our guests are responsive to their interests. We hope to be able to continue to make the LEGO World Wide Web sites interesting and entertaining for users of all ages, and to ensure that we continue to make the kind of products that children love and parents trust.
Now, if cookies arent required, why cant you even get into the home page, without accepting them? If they arent using them to track info on users, why the barrier to the home page? If they are using it to track users, then they arent making people aware of it. And, furthermore, I would assume that may be their aim, otherwise, why require a cookie?
And, if that is the case, and they are forcing children at browsers to accept the cookie, they could be in violation of the United States COPPA law. Personally, im dismayed at such a level of irresponsibility from such a distinguished company.
Bah.
Supernaut
NO, you're not reading the error message correctly. It doesn't say, "No Cookie" -- it says "No Wookie". Any idiot knows that you need a Wookie to compromise Imperial security!
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I just hope when I'm 70, I can glue some pieces together and make myself a lego cane! Yep, an old fart still playing Dead Milkmen in the car...
Rader
...is make the ball/socket joint an "official" part.
What do I mean by this?
Go buy one of the ThrowBot kits. In each one of these kits, there is one, sometimes two, springy throwing "arms", that allow you to flick the included disks. These arms (as well as some specialized pieces) have a knob "ball" end that snaps into a socket, to allow you to position the arm just about anywhere.
Now, the sockets are nice - pretty standard style pieces in the LEGO fashion. But the ball arms that fit are anything but standard. The hard plastic ones are shaped weird, and are hard to use in anything but these ThrowBots. However, the soft plastic, springy throwing arms...
See the ball on the end? It is attached to the rest of the arm by what? That's right! A short length of cross-axle! Cut the ball off, leaving the cross axle attached, and then it becomes VERY versitile - allowing you to extend it with other axles, attach gears, etc. - the movement is kinda stiff, but a little sanding of the ball with 120 grit and some silicon oil will loosen it up some, allowing you to make great walking machines or any other creations that need such a joint.
I wasn't the one who first noticed this, someone else did - but this is a part they need to make standard (instead of making us cut up LEGO pieces). A standard ball and socket joint - for making walking machines and other things (right now, in order to do something similar, you esentially have to build with universal joints (weak), or use you own system (bulkier, and heavier UJ style constructs) in order to build walking bots).
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The problem with getting other kits is that you have to only make use of the grey or black parts to make sure they blend in right. [I've actually debated on buying another Dark Side kit just so I wouldn't have so many damned yellow and blue parts that I never use.
In messing about with another kit that I got late August, I mounted a catapult to the top of my AT-AT, and it fires after taking a few steps forward. [a worm gear kicks a block out of the way, which releases the arm to fire]
My problems right now, however, is that it slowly tears itself apart [after each firing, you need to retighten a few parts to make sure it's still solic], and the catapult partially obscures the light sensor, so I can't quite use it for an alarm system at work [damned flourescent crappy lighting]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I bought the R2D2 set from Toys R Us since it was on sale for $50. It is by no means part of the official Lego mindstorms set. The scout core(just like on the ATAT) only has a light sensor, and 1 motor that can go forwards/backwards. I should have saved my $50 towards a real mindstorms setup. I do like the new 10 and 20 tooth gears though. Good for making new transmissions.
You can have all but the Ewoks. Chewie, Leia and Han are all available in the Millenium Falcon set retailing at US$99.
Guess which two sites I'll never visit again?
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Just chmod your cookie file to be read-only. Works like a charm. Your browser accepts all cookies until you shut it down, but it never writes them. When you shut it down, they all go away.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Let me preface this by saying:
1)This is a serious post...not intended as flamebait.
2)I never owned my own lego set as a child, although I always wanted one.
What is the fun in getting a mindstorm kit like this AT-AT. It is so specialized... I never much liked the specialized (non-mindstorm) lego kits either. I'd much rather have a generic building kit, or different sets of generic building kits. But they always seemed hard to find. There were lunar lander kits, and castle kits and what not, but a plain generic set of assorted rectangles was hard to come by.
I suppose you could cannabalize these specialized kits for your own projects. Is that what you guys like to do?
--Scott
Wow .. gotta get me one of those!
--- This meme is memory intensive
if (walk.status && (check_distance() == 0))
walk.stop;
Now we're getting somewhere (no we're not)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I want a fully operational Death Star
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Sheesh, that AC wasn't even me... and sorry about that, I wasn't really trolling, I just wanted to compliment the first poster on his web site, but... guess I offended some people. Sorry!
Free music from Jack Merlot.
*poof*
Free music from Jack Merlot.
I saw it in a store on Saturday. now I have to save my pennies to buy a Mindstorm kit and this work of art. If only lego had student discounts ;)
I want a lego set which emulates Meccano. Yep - for all those who haven't a clue what meccano was, go play with your lego, or anything else for that matter... Ah, those heady days of bolting together bits of metal with holes in them whilst listening to the buggles or madness on the radio feel like yesterday ! Lego - well, you can't bend a piece of lego to get it to do what you want, but it seems that you can make a small nuclear reactor powerfull enough to supply the average non-american household with it these days. Kids just aren't the same any more, for one, they are anywhere between 0 and 50 and for another, they just don't have the same values anymore, the little blighters ! Stick your lego where the sun hasn't shone yet and give me a shiny new set of meccano - it had motors before lego had even considered it !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
I sometimes get the impression that there are far too many rich bored americans on the planet. Whilst the rest of us are battling with everyday life, some geek who gets payed far too much is building a replica of a robotic vehicle from an overated movie out of bits of plastic that kids play with and then somebody reports it as news. Oh boy, is there any hope for us !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Blue Neon - A delightfully insane online comic
I normally browse with no cookies set (except slashdot and e-mail) and when I clicked the link, it gave me an "Incorrect Access Permission" page. I personally don't like the idea of forcing people to accept cookies for marketing data.
In the spec sheet, I see that the thing that controls the AT-AT is called a Microcomputer(TM).
Do they feel bad that Lucas owns almost all the other trademark on the product that they had to come up with their own?
As they say in wrestling, "Is that legal?"
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"And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold."
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Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
Luckily, a lot of effort has gone into reverse engineering the Mindstorms Brick. Russell Nelson has a lot of good information at http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics/
I have been working on a Java toolkit for programming the Brick, and for manipulating it interactively. My kit, called RCXComm, can establish serial connections with the RCX brick via the IR port, and can handle packet communications, upload programs, send messages to active RCX Programs, as well as a few other things. The RCXComm classes can be used as standalone software, but they are really intended for incorporation into other applications.
Java tools for playing with the RCX are available at: http://www.popbeads.org
If you use the kit, I would appreciate hearing any feedback you have.
Incidentally, Java classes for decoding CueCat scan data are also available at http://www.popbeads.org
If you watch TV news, you know less about the world than if you just drank gin straight from the bottle.
... Drool Wait, why does it only barely resemble an AT-AT?
although I had to pay $120 for it at FAO in New York. anyway, right now my AT-AT model is perched on top of my computer monitor. I never really had a lot of trouble getting it to walk.
And for those people who say that the lego "developer kits" aren't true mindstormes because they use the Microscout controller... just wait. Sometime within the next 3-6 months, LEGO is going to release hardware to allow you to program the microscout (but only up to 15 instructions *sigh*). I remember reading about this on a LEGO reverse engineering site, but unfortunately I didn't bookmark the link.
If you've got $100 to spare, and already own some mindstorms sets, it's a good set to buy.... Otherwaise, I'd suggest saving the money for one of the Hyperdetail sets that LEGO just came out with.
As they say in wrestling, "Is that legal?"
"I shall make it legal!"
I'm sorry, but that had to be said.
So, when are these things going to be available to us non-Americans?
Maran
Does any one know if this is supported under Linux ?
he said "start saving your nickels", haha how optimistic, im getting 99 bucks with nickels in now time now charlie... btw, yes that was a pesismistic remark, not the sickening mind-wobbling persistance to pertrane accuracy in the reports... *clears throat* duh... :)
Istigkeit -"is-ness" being and becoming & i'dfiying it with the mathematical abstraction of the idea
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Heck, I have cookies enabled and it still gives me the error!
"Nasdaq crashed this week... guess it must've been running on Windows 2000." -Dennis Miller Live 4/7/2000
/.'s 10 Millionth
A fully operational AT-AT walker? does that mean I can shove about 30 stormtroopers in it and take over a military base with it? Fully operational and for only 99 dollars? I am gonna buy 20 of them and take over microsoft by force!
The anti-salmon
Lego really should have an option to buy just the drawings to make all these cool vehicles and stuff. Through 20 years of buying Lego, I have more than enough parts to build any kit they have come up with so far, perhaps except for a few very specialised parts. Wich they come up with a bit to often for my taste.
.
.
I remember 15-20 years ago, when I got my first kit, the yellow forklift. The steering had to be made manually from the 2x2 rotating plates and some 2x2 bricks. Sure, it didn't look quite as slick as all the new models, but you could build anything with what you had. Not like today; trying to build one of the newest kit strands because there is some odd-loking twisted part you don't have. .
Anyway, they should sell just the prints for building the stuff. .
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This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
I'm 22 and I'm getting back into Legos! They're really nice for helping you see things in different ways and polishing logical and visualization skills. Plus, the Destroyer Droid Technic model looks really cool.
Devolver's Homepage... more fun than a box of crackerjacks.
legs blocked? IF stop walking ! THEN
This assumes that legs and walking are I/O ports of some kind and stop is some control bit pattern. The operation of blocked is obvious (ie @ BLOCKFLAG AND)
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
What is wrong with you guys? The AT-AT's were government vehicles, so naturally they were programmed by the most incompetant lowest bidder they could find. The code probably looks like something microsoft would shun.
/end sarcasm
10 REM AT-AT DRIVER
20 GOTO 10
-Space for rent
Son: Daddy Daddy! Can I get that for my birthday?
Father: Son, that costs lots and it says ages 11-13.
Son: I DONT CARE!!! BUY IT DADDY BUY IT!
(Father buys toy)
Two weeks later:
Dad: So how are you enjoying that mindstorms set?
Son: I don't know, but when i click on done, the freekin think goes bloop blee bloop then nothing happens!!
------------------------
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Is your sig file boring?
This is probably scary enough to guard your house without being fully operational.
Look at the size of those things...(and you wonder where Lego gets its ideas)
- - - - - - - - -
I said it first! Look at the third post!! (it's at the bottom of the comment.)
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Or maybe he'll just kick them.
Either way it would be cool.
And you could call it a beowulf cluster too.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I wouldn't worry - their cookie handling is so screwed up that it is not RFC compliant and only works on a small subset of browsers - I just tried (my browser accepts all cookies by default, I clear out periodically) and it told me I need to accept cookies!
:(
Ho hum
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
I'm building my set now and plan to test how space worthy it is in a couple of months. My main concern is how space fungi resistant they are. I don't want to be battling the Ewoks one minute and cleaning the interior of my death machine the next.
On the other hand, if they could arrange a chance meeting between my newly acquired instrument of destruction, and Jar Jar, then I just might put up with it.
I'm reasonably sure (still having the battery packs and motors) that Lego already has a line of mechanized toys. Not too sure what the line was, but it was something along the lines of "Mechanix", and sold for about $40 CDN.
Aside from a few "specially-molded" parts, this is pretty much the same thing, isn't it? I think I'll take the older set, and live with my ATAT Walker looking a little blocky, thank you very much.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I need one more Lego toy, like I need everlasting debt...
Now where is that damn visa card...
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Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm 18 and I think Legos are cool. I'm really getting back into them. I especially like to kick over lego structures that kids have spent hours building and laugh at their pile of Lego rubble, then scold them for their lack of structural integrity. Sometimes I pick up the whole thing and throw it against the wall. It breaks a lot cooler that way. Kids have to learn to start building things that don't break or we're all going to be screwed in 20 years when they start building actual houses and airplanes. So whenever you see some stupid kid thinking he's the Master of Engineering, give that thing the kick-test. If it breaks into hundreds of little pieces, laugh at their pathetic little structure, and tell them to build something that damn well better hold up next time. They'll thank you for it.
I'm 18, and I think Legos are cool. I'm really getting back into them. I especially like to kick over lego structures that kids have spent hours building and laugh at their pile of Lego rubble, then scold them for their lack of structural integrity. Sometimes I pick up the whole thing and throw it against the wall. It breaks a lot cooler that way. Kids have to learn to start building things that don't break or we're all going to be screwed in 20 years when they start building actual houses and airplanes. So whenever you see some stupid kid thinking he's the Master of Engineering, give that thing the kick-test. If it breaks into hundreds of little pieces, laugh at their pathetic little structure, and tell them to build something that damn well better hold up next time. They'll thank you for it.
anyone else sick of web sights that wipe out your back arrow's history?
Screw AT-ATs! Where the hell is my working Mindstorm Lightsaber?!?
walk.stop makes no sense. It should be walk.stop(), since it is a function.
Hah. I actually found an error in someone else's code. Am I good or what?
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Misspellings and grammatical errors in this document are intellectual property of the author.
I want one of these just so i can wrap up its legs in dental floss and laugh when it falls over.
I'm no super programmer or anything, but you would think the programmer of the walkers in the movie would add something like:
"IF legs == blocked, THEN stop walking"
That's of course if they were real.
I've even seen this set on the shelves in the local toy store here in Faraway Town(tm), Norway.
I don't understand why people have got to blast everything on slashdot. I'm 19, and I'm willing to admit that I still play with Lego sometimes. I've been playing wince I was 4. Lego helped me look at stuff in different ways, and think about plot, and different worlds. My interest in engineering had it's roots in Lego when I'd figure out complicated stuff to build, and then build it. The feeling of finally finishing a complicated Lego project is the same as Finally getting a real complex piece of code to compile without errors.
Mindstorms are just the next step. I wish I had them when I was a kid, to be able to actually control what my Lego would do througha computer... WOW! Sure it's kinda crappy, and maybe lame right now, but all cool stuff evolves, it just doesn't come into being. In another 10 yrs these will be the forefathers of all the cool toys that we'll be too old to play with. Wouldn't your grandfather have loved all the toys you played with?
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-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
It is amazing to see how far legos have come in the last, oh, 20 years. They have gone from simple building toys, to having electronics in them to being able to program them. I honestly have to admit that I still collect and play with my legos, and if I can use my programming skills to make and AT-AT walk around, then I am all about that.
Cogito, ergo sum.
Hi Requiem.
Despite what you'd like to think, you're not integral to the Linux community. In fact, you're a loser, a wanna-be, and a never-was. Nobody enjoys your prescene here; your trolls irritate the fuck out of people. Don't like me? That's fine. Have some common courtesy, stop trolling, and go back to playing with the gimp. Just leave me the fuck alone, you goddamned loser.
Bowie J. Poag
Founder, PROPAGANDA Desktop Enhancement Graphics (Enjoy!)
... else my girlfriend will leave me for laughing out my breakfast :))