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MindStorms Madness
plluke writes "I'm a Teaching Assistant for a course named CS148: Building Intelligent Robots offered by the CS Department at Brown University. Our robots were made/programmed/run on Lego MindStorms (with LegOS). Tres funky results include probabilistic sonar mappers, a bipedal walker, and a bartender. The final exhibition page is here and contains the aforementioned funky results."
In my "Advanced Architechture" course at university, we got to build robots out of mindstorms as well... had to find their way around a maze and other various tasks. Interesting entries. Definately cool and a fun semester.
University - a box of academia nuts.
From the course intro page:
The only requirement for the project is that it be "extremely cool"
This is the sort of academic requirement I can live with!
The 14th Sign of Alcholism:
When you spend an entire semester designing legos to pour drinks for you. It's time to get help. Run, don't walk, to your nearest AA meeting.
Subscribe to the lego-robotics mailing list.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm a Brown ugrad who saw the walker demoed...the cool thing about it was not that it walked, but that it started with no knowledge of how to walk (ie used random movements) and over a series of attempts learned which sequence maximized distance travelled per step. (Obviously there were some constraints placed on the movements so that it couldn't fall over or break itself.)
I know it's probably hard to kill a .edu, but those detail pictures are about 1.5MB each. /.ing here we come
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi
I'm not sure, but I think the use of the word "funky" was banned internationally in 1984. Unless you're into crafts with beads and rope, I'd suggest avoiding the word.
Also, prefixing it with "Tres" is seriously fucked.
Well, I was at Brown College,
a four-hundred level course in C.S.,
but I didn't have the knowledge,
to build a robot that could play chess.
I asked my lab assistant,
how could I get a passing graaaade?
And he gave me the answer, (yes he did)
he told me that I had the curve made.
So I started stackin', and hackin',
and 'loadin through my modem,
and just when, it hit me,
my classmates turned around and shouted,
"Build that funky robot, white boy!
Build that funky robot riiiiight!
Build that funky robot, white boy!
Lay down some legOS and build that funky robot til you die!"
Does noone have a clue about Navigation?
Striking a Theme?
I'm wondering about the quality of this program, folks.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
These robots are all cool but I quickly found my two favorites.
For non-technical reasons, the RoboTender (bartender robot) is by far the coolest. They even make a point of mentioning that this bartender will never cut you off. Pretty cool for a bunch of geeky CS students.
On the technical side, by far the one that impresses me the most is the Bipedal Robot. It starts only understanding 3 basic commands and being fed a random sequence of those commands. Then it uses trial and error in the form of "genetic algorithms" to "learn" how to walk. As an enthusiastic but very amateur programmer, that amazes me.
Anyway, I have to go now. Speaking of bartenders, the wife has been drinking tonight and every time that happens she gets all worked up and "needs" me for something.
(Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on Slashdot is sex starved. That woman's hitting her "prime" and wearing me out!)
But I have to say, the "robotender" makes me want to pick up a Mindstorms kit. I wish this is what *my* CS classes had been all about. Kudos to Brown for allowing innovation and experimentation in learning!
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
Honestly, I don't see why this is front page material. I programmed Lego Mindstorms in C using legOS in one of my intro to engineering classes. The difference was that instead of the sole requirement of "being really cool," ours actually had to perform a specific task; i.e., autonomously maneuver through a 10x10 ft maze while keeping accurate track of distance and perform various tasks. We were graded on our ability to complete the task, and the amount of time required to complete the task, not solely "was it cool or not," although that was a part of it. Oh yeah, and the code. =)
h -mindstorms.slashdot.org. We'd also have 25 stories a day posted to that section. Nothing new here that is worth seeing.
The big headache was that you had to compensate for the shitty quality control in the Lego components whose tolerances are so absurdly wide that it's just ridiculous. Also, you have to work within the restrictions of a certain number Lego parts, with little to no modification. It's more of a challenge than "see how many legos and custom sensors you can buy/make."
My point is, however, that if everyone who has worked with Mindstorms submitted their stories and pictures to Slashdot, we'd need a dedicated section called http://diaries-of-college-students-who-worked-wit
A TCP/IP enabled RCX? Now that's cool!
Ever since I had a chance to play with a set of LEGO Mindstorm around 1 year ago, I was convinced that this is a great tool for CS education. Since then, I have taken up a teaching position at a college in Computer Science and I've been trying to get the department to use Mindstorm to teach first year CS. I believe that this can be done and will be good for the students. Knowing that another university is doing the same thing is very reassuring.
Apparently, this course is either their second/thrid course in CS. What do you guys think of using Mindstorm as a first course in CS?
Can anyone suggest what should I do with my lego that can be controlled over the net?
I already made a controllable webcam and hamster powered an asynchronous processor during my pathetic efforts to avoid writing my thesis.
I was thinking of motorizing the limbs of a stuffed toy we have in the group.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
"Extremely cool" would be a lego robot that can build other logo robots. Or at least other lego stuff.
My school is about to offer a similar course using legos, but I am a little dissapointed we aren't soldering microcontrollers onto boards ourselves and interfacing with off the shelf motors and sensors. I haven't used the lego system - is there necessarily more to learn from buying a few PIC micros, steppers and sensors, and assembling the system from something closer to scratch? Is there anywhere close to the same flexibility with legos?
I honestly read the moderation as "(Score:5, Funky)"
"shitty quality control in the Lego components whose tolerances are so absurdly wide that it's just ridiculous."
Sir, these are TOYS, not industrial components. For toys designed to ease children into programming and systems designed, they're very good. Absurdly wide tolerances allow you to get results quickly even with crappy code, which is pretty much all the default programming environment allows. And the poor quality itself allows the components to be affordable. It's fine you don't like them, but please don't slam Mindstorms because they aren't suited for serious work. They aren't, but nor are they meant to be.
I'm the stranger...posting to