Christmas gift infos please

One of my kids is a smart 9 years old boy and he finds Robocode java applets a little hard to learn to program (remember he's french like me).

I was thincking about the Lego Mindstorm Robotics Invention System 2.0

Any feedbacl on this robotics kit. Is it easy to program?

I have looked at there Lab-Kit and it seems a little to easy... with blocks for directions and time and stuff. Is the RCX programming language hard to learn...

If any of you have a pdf printout of a sample program could you post it.

Could you suggest alternative kit to make a nice fun/educational use of his PC?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Not exactly what you asked for, but if he likes programming, you can download Microsoft Visual Studio Express for free, I think it will work for 12 months after installing, have not tried it myself.
Here's the link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

This may be a little too complicated for a nine year old, but you never know, and your investment will be low.

I've never really delved into it myself, but my girlfriend's twin boys love their set. From the 5-10 total minutes I've spent with it I didn't get a feel for how easy/difficult it is.

That is a great system to get a child started on, you may see if this is in your area, if not maybe you could start one.
http://www.usfirst.org/4vol/FLLresourcectr/index.html

Pierre,


The Lego mindstorms kit was used on a short course as part of my degree.

It was very easy to program, and a lot of fun.

(My son has just turned 4 though, and I would find it a little hard to justify buying one for 'him' to use at the moment ! )

When I go home this evening, I will dig out a program and post it. (we had to make a 'rescue robot' to find a 'person' in a maze)

lc03 said:

Pierre,
When I go home this evening, I will dig out a program and post it. (we had to make a 'rescue robot' to find a 'person' in a maze)

Click to expand...

Cool!

Is it like native code or more like Function blocks.

I saw on there "Educational Kit" for school some FB type of program. You would see a line then a box for Timer delay then an output box to drive a motor (wheel).

It looked to simple and never mention the Mindstorn=m hardware so I did not know if it was really this stuff or a lesser version of it.

If you could be kind enough to post a pix of some code I will appreciate it.

Yes the Mindstorm standard programming software that comes in the box is fairly simple, but it is usefull for learing and getting started. When he is ready for a script based lanquage there is something called NQC (not quite C) that is much more flexible. It works with the SDKs that you can get off the Mindstorms website, so you have access to some fairly substantial functions.

Neat stuff. I too am impatient for Christmas, since my daughter is getting a Mindstorms system. We built a couple of projects together using a Atmel AVR Butterfly kit (neat microprocessor kit for $20) and BASCOM-AVR basic compiler. It was hard to keep her interest since there was too much actual engineering to the projects. I think she will enjoy something that she can be more independent with.

Darren


By the way if you are interested in the NQC start with the following link which is an IDE for NQC:

http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/

The latest NQC is found at

http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nqc/

Pierre,

Did you get the Mindsorms for you son? Last week somebody gave my son their old Robotics Invention 1.0. It wasnt working so I took the RCX apart and found a bad contact between the batter and the board. Now we have it working (havent created a program yet), but nothing happens when we press the view button.

I'm having some diffuculty with the software (may be a Win XP compatability issue), but were just starting with it now, so we'll see.

I searched and researched high and low before buying my son a building block set that would be upgradeable, programmable, and ultimately functional. I eventually settled on the fischertechnik series. They are made in germany to exacting tolerances. Once you build a model, it really works and stays together till you take it apart. You can add motors and controllers and program them also. Over the last couple of years i've bought 4 sets altogether and eventually plan on getting more. Best of all, they are just as much fun for us big kids.



http://www.fischertechnik.com/html/computing.html


http://www.fischertechnik.com/html/products-Profi.html



http://www.fischertechnik.com/html/computing-CIM.html

Walt Boyes publishes controlglobal.com (the internet version of the Control Engineering trade pub)


Mr Boyes announced that National Instruments (NI) just donated a Lego Mindstorm to Austin Children's Museum. His blurb praising NI is on his blog at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/waltboyes/92570.html

If NI sees it as valuable, maybe you will, too.

Dan

Just found a book for this toy(?)

Lego Mindstorms Interfacing (Tab Electronics Robotics) by Don Wilcher

while searching for books on OPC interfacing.

ABEbooks (used books) has it for $2.17 plus shipping
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=606896747&searchurl=bx%3Don%26sts%3Dt%26ds%3D30%26bi%3D0%26tn%3Dinterfacing%2BNOT%2Bmicrocomputer%2BNOT%2B68000%2BNOT%2BIBM%2BNOT%2Bmicroprocessor%26sortby%3D2