Engineering 1200

Legos Mindstorms


Lego Mindstorms is a line of Lego Group robot kits combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears, axles, beams, and pneumatic parts) to build robots and other automated or interactive systems. Lego Mindstorms is marketed commercially as the Robotics Invention System (RIS). It is also sold and used as an educational tool, originally through a partnership between Lego and the MIT Media Laboratory. The educational version of the products is called Lego Mindstorms for Schools, and comes with the ROBOLAB GUI-based programming software, developed at Tufts University using the National Instruments LabVIEW as an engine. Lego Mindstorms may be used to build a model of an embedded system with computer-controlled electromechanical parts. Almost all kinds of real-life embedded systems, from elevator controllers to industrial robots, may be modelled using Mindstorms. There is a strong community of professionals and hobbyists of all ages involved in the sharing of designs, programming techniques, and other ideas associated with Lego Mindstorms. The original Mindstorms RIS was released in 1998; it contained two servo motors, two touch sensors, and one light sensor. In 2006, Lego released a next-generation Mindstorms system called NXT, centered around a new programmable brick.
~Wikipedia

The RCX The first generation of LEGO Mindstorms was built around a brick known as the RCX. It contains a Renesas H8/300 microcontroller as its internal CPU. The brick is programmed by downloading a program (written in one of several available programming languages) from a PC or Mac to the brick's RAM via a special infrared (IR) interface. After the user starts a program, an RCX-enabled Mindstorms creation may function totally on its own, acting on internal and external stimuli according to the programmed instructions. Also, two or more RCX bricks can communicate with each other through the IR interface, enabling inter-brick cooperation or competition. In addition to the IR port, there are three sensor input ports and three motor output ports (also usable for lamps, etc). There is also an LCD that can display the battery level, the status of the input/output ports, which program is selected or running, and other information. Version 1.0 RCX bricks feature a power adapter jack to allow continuous operation instead of the limited operation time when using batteries. In version 2.0, the power adapter jack was removed. Power adapter-equipped RCX bricks are popular for stationary robotics projects (such as robot arms) or for controlling Lego model trains. In the latter context, the RCX needs to be programmed with Digital Command Control (DCC) software required for automated model train operation.
~wikipedia

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