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LEGO Announces GNU/LInux-Powered Mindstorms EV3 Platform

Posted by Unknown on from the robotic-overlords dept.

First time accepted submitter Barryke writes "Today LEGO announces the new mohawk (NASA's turf) sporting MINDSTORMS EV3 platform (press release). And with details on its features and innards (in Dutch) which in short comes down to: 'Its intelligent brick sports an ARM9-soc running Linux on 64MB RAM and 16MB storage memory, and supports SD cards. There are also four ports, which allow four other 'Bricks' can be connected. The intelligent brick can be reached by WiFi, USB and Bluetooth, and supports control via Android and iOS devices. It comes with 3 servo's, two touch sensors and an IR sensor to track other robots at upto six meters. It also includes 17 build plans, shown in 3D using Adobe Inventor Publisher.'"

8 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Would have loved this... by docmordin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would have loved this when I was growing up, considering that programmable robots at that time were limited to industry and research labs at universities.

    In any event, the asking price seems a bit too high for what LEGO are offering and with what's now available today; touching on just one facet, after a cursory glance on Mouser/DigiKey, PCB manufacturing companies, and 3D printing shops, the so-called intelligent brick, along with its circuitry innards, could easily be fabricated on a one-off basis for under $75-100 USD. For $350 USD, they should have at least thrown in a decent CMOS camera and more servos.

    1. Re:Would have loved this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And all of the software that comes with it would take you a significant amount of money on a "one-off basis." Also, you're getting servos, sensors, instructions, and other parts. For $350, that's pretty fucking good.

      Why do people always say, "I could build it myself far cheaper?" This is fucking obvious - you can build it with cheaper parts all on your own, assuming the value of your time is (or approaches) zero for the effort of building and coding everything to work properly. together. It's PHB syndrome - I haven't really considered what I'm getting in the box, I'm just shouting about how expensive it is, because it's not as cheap as the 100-brick lego sets I used to have as a kid.

      If you can do it cheaper, then you should open a business and compete with Lego - these are popular kits, and they make good money off them. If, however, you can't... then maybe you should stop crying about the price.

    2. Re:Would have loved this... by countach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a top quality product, sure. But it is still just moulded plastic. They could sell it a LOT cheaper if they wanted.

    3. Re:Would have loved this... by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Economics 103 - From 101 and 102 some would conclude that apparently the entire manufacture / market / consumer cycle is a rational process

  2. Re:Linux, not necessarily GNU/Linux by tibit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not that there's much need for generic userspace. It'd probably be something custom anyway, on such a small system. It's not a general purpose setup.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  3. Re:Linux, not necessarily GNU/Linux by __aablib8664 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    was that link to reinforce the comment, or counter it? looks like it was an attempt at countering....if so re-read the wiki article

    SPOILER: link gives no mention of end-users being sued, only companies that failed to adhere to the terms. clarification that companies are not end-users.

  4. Re:Two questions by clonmult · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not true; bought my son the NXT2.0 kit for christmas - the software works fine on Windows 7 (but not Win7 SE). As far as I understood it, the sensors are completely compatible between versions.

  5. New paranoia technique? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's hard to link a product announcement from Lego with an unrelated article from NY Times two weeks earlier. The idea that Lego stores up product announcements and then releases them two weeks after some guy somewhere writes an article about them is pretty much ridiculous.