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LEGO Announces GNU/LInux-Powered Mindstorms EV3 Platform
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.'"
From the two English articles, I see a Linux kernel. I don't see any evidence that the user space on top of it is GNU. More likely is BusyBox/Linux.
Man, I bet Autodesk will be pissed to learn that Adobe released a product with the same name as their Inventor Publisher.
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.
Now, not only can you brick your phone, but you can phone your brick.
Have gnu, will travel.
There's a longer article on CNET about this that says that the new system will be backwards compatible with existing NXT robots.
It would actually make quite a lot of sense for a custom system where the control software (essentially the OS) is provided in the srtorage component (16MB), and things like actual programs are loaded into RAM. Since typically (as far as I recall) mindstorm programs are loaded into the brick at runtime, it makes perfect sense that no storage is used for this, other than perhaps a ramdisk.
https://www.quora.com/lego_tidbits/Lego-Mindstorms-EV3-More-Info
-PBR
What would be nice is if you control more than just the 7 devices that you can plug into the brick without having to add another programmable brick to the system... say, by separating things like device power supply from device control, and using a separate battery box (or boxes) to supply power to as many devices as you want, and the cpu simply addresses them in a not entirely dissimilar way to how many USB devices are addressed on a single bus.
The functionality you want is already available on existing NXT bricks.
The sensor ports on NXT bricks use I2C for communication, allowing "sensors" to be daisy chained and referred to by address. Since the communication across the bus can be bi-directional (though half duplex), you can easily add I2C controlled motor controllers with external power supplies. There is also the RS485 port, for higher speed bi-directional communication.
Want more sensors? Simply daisy chain them on an I2C port. (I usually custom make cables for specific purposes, but there are also multiplexers available which could potentially allow for over 128 i2c addressed devices on a single port). An example of a commercially available daisy chain splitter - http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=79. Multiplexer? http://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NSX2020.
Want to control more motors? Simply add a I2C controlled motor controller - a simple circuit to make yourself, or buy one of the commercially available options. In most cases you would use these with an external power supply (i.e. battery box).
Separating "things like device power supply from device control" is as simple as making your own cables... or use some of the commercially available motor controllers. For example this motor controller (a simple i2c based DC motor controller, with lego RCX plugs in the PCB) requires an external 9v power supply - http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=58.
Using USB for these purposes rather than I2C would be far more complex. I2C is very simple to use, and is fast enough for most motor and sensor IO.
We know Apple could sell the iPhone cheaper because Apple makes massive profits. Does Lego make massive profits? No, in fact before it re-invented itself, it was like Apple in serious trouble of going the way of Meccano. Which still exists but only as a perversion of its former self.
People often seem to think all there is to a product is its physical production. THAT is easy, although Lego is a bit more accurate in its production then most plastic factories, it can be easily replicated to produce a machine to produce simple bricks. BUT that is NOT Lego. Lego is ALL the models, which in box form have often to be in stores for a year or more before hopefully being sold, constantly having to keep up with trends like hot movies because the OLD business model of outdated non-current models wasn't working. And developing Mindstorms wouldn't have been cheap either.
Lego suffers from the high cost of mass production of an INSANE number of parts that all have to be combined, they can't just let one machine run indefinite pushing out one type of brick, it is lots of different pieces in lots of colors that all have to come together in production runs from which only tiny amounts are sent out and the rest has to be stored.
It is a logistacal nightmare and quite different from how other plastic producers like say plastic bottles work, most plastic bottles arrive at the bottling plant in granular form, one machine makes a test tube and another blows it up JUST before it is filled in an constant single item production run. THAT is cheap. Lego's method is not. In fact, lego's method of selling LOTS and LOTS of different models is EXACTLY what Apple is NOT doing. Even Samsung isn't. If Lego was a phone maker, there would be 2000 current models, ALL of them with instructions how alter them completely, combine them and turn them into complex robots.
That is why Lego is expensive. Look at their profits, there is no excessive fat there. You can make cheap clones of a few boxes of lego easily but the entire product range? No. Proof? NOBODY ELSE IS DOING IT! Oh you can buy 1 or 2 lego like models from China but NOT the constantly updated catalog lego catalog. You PAY for that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
For goodness sake, I wish whoever wrote that would learn written English. Also, it's "videos", "photos", and so on.
"Absorbing your worst..."
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.
Lego are the best adult toys.
Just wait until you discover marital aids.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"