🇨🇦 CleoQc 🍁🦜🧶🚐🌈BrickPi just got a software update !
It now supports the Pi5 (with caveats) and Raspberry Pi OS Trixie. So if you have an old Mindstorms NXT, or EV3, take a look at BrickPi to give it a new life.
Bonus: brickPis can be stacked so you can have as many motors as you wish! Each brickPi brings 4 motors.
Mäh W.Today, I've been working on #WebPBrick again. One thing is input validation - which is where I've made progress. The second thing was working on support for the #LEGO USB IR tower... this thing is giving me headaches, though. It seems that using the USB TX endpoint works... the IR tower also receives data which can be seen in the statistics - but the USB RX endpoint stays silent. Will have to do some logic analyzer measurements in the future, I guess. Are there any spare #Mindstorms #RCX around?
DG1JAN 🇪🇺@heiseonline Was für ein unnötiger Scheiß! Bringt doch einfach #MINDSTORMS wieder zurück ihr 🤬🤬🤬
beta3@IrrationalMethod I've also been trying my old #Mindstorms set with my daughter a few weeks ago. The built in programs still worked. My IR sender seems to be broken, but maybe fixable. The connectors still work, but are in bad shape. Let me know if you have found a good method of protecting them. (Maybe taping is good enough?)
I guess you're aware of this project? http://webpbrick.com/
The author, @maehw, also has some valuable slides in German: https://www.luga.de/static/LIT-2024/assets/talks/20240420_LEGO_Mindstorms_RCX_reaktivieren__Entwick.pdf
irrational methodWell I had planned to introduce my kid to my old Lego motors, and eventually #Mindstorms kit, but discovered my #LEGO wires (1990s era) were all losing their insulation.
So, having looked a bit online, I found a few pages detailing how to repair these and just gave it a try. I'll have to write up a bit more on a blog post with thoughts, but I'm so glad I got a couple of these functioning again.
Josh RenaudLooking for a fun indoor project to try during your Christmas break? Have a LEGO Mindstorms kit? Then you might want to try building my Viper Printer v3.0!
It's a EV3-based dot-matrix printer.
https://www.joshrenaud.com/family/archives/2021/06/revisiting-my-dot-matrix-ev3-lego-printer.html
Models and Python code here:
https://github.com/Viper-Bots/viper-printer
Chris 
DL9CEJunior hat meinen alten Lego #Mindstorms #NXT ausgebuddelt und würde den gerne benutzen, leider hat die Software ebenso schon etliche Jahre auf dem Buckel und ist Windows-only.
Mein erster Gedanke war Open Roberta, aber das bekomme ich irgendwie nicht zum Laufen. Der NXT wird zwar erkannt, beim Download eines Programms auf den Baustein bricht die Verbindung ab, leider ohne aussagekräftige Fehlermeldung. OS ist Debian Trixie.
Weiß jemand zufällig einen guten Trick?
PsychoticSheepFOSS Advent Calendar - Door 8: Programming LEGO Robots with NQC
Today we explore NQC (Not Quite C), a wonderfully nerdy and lightweight programming language for the classic LEGO Mindstorms RCX robot brick.
Inside the RCX lives a tiny 8-bit Hitachi H8/300 CPU running at about 16 MHz together with 32 KB of RAM. Even with this extremely small hardware budget, the RCX can handle multitasking, read sensors, control motors and communicate via infrared. It feels like pure retro embedded magic.
NQC lets you write C-like programs on your computer and upload them directly to the RCX. It is minimalistic, fast, easy to learn and perfect for anyone who loves old-school robotics or wants to revisit the early days of DIY programming before Raspberry Pi and Arduino existed.
Working with NQC is a wonderful reminder of how much creativity is possible with almost no resources. Watching a tiny 32 KB robot happily execute parallel tasks still feels incredibly charming today.
Pro tip: If you still have an RCX somewhere, power it up. These yellow bricks are more alive than you remember once you start programming them again.
Link: https://github.com/BrickBot/nqc
Which small robot would you build or revive with the RCX?
#FOSS #OpenSource #Linux #CLI #Terminal #NQC #Mindstorms #LEGO #RCX #Robotics #Embedded #RetroComputing #NerdContent #AdventCalendar #Adventkalender #Adventskalender #TechNerds #STEM #Programming #Fediverse #FOSSAdvent #OpenTools #Robotik #OldSchoolTech
Today we explore NQC (Not Quite C), a wonderfully nerdy and lightweight programming language for the classic LEGO Mindstorms RCX robot brick.
Inside the RCX lives a tiny 8-bit Hitachi H8/300 CPU running at about 16 MHz together with 32 KB of RAM. Even with this extremely small hardware budget, the RCX can handle multitasking, read sensors, control motors and communicate via infrared. It feels like pure retro embedded magic.
NQC lets you write C-like programs on your computer and upload them directly to the RCX. It is minimalistic, fast, easy to learn and perfect for anyone who loves old-school robotics or wants to revisit the early days of DIY programming before Raspberry Pi and Arduino existed.
Working with NQC is a wonderful reminder of how much creativity is possible with almost no resources. Watching a tiny 32 KB robot happily execute parallel tasks still feels incredibly charming today.
Pro tip: If you still have an RCX somewhere, power it up. These yellow bricks are more alive than you remember once you start programming them again.
Link: https://github.com/BrickBot/nqc
Which small robot would you build or revive with the RCX?
#FOSS #OpenSource #Linux #CLI #Terminal #NQC #Mindstorms #LEGO #RCX #Robotics #Embedded #RetroComputing #NerdContent #AdventCalendar #Adventkalender #Adventskalender #TechNerds #STEM #Programming #Fediverse #FOSSAdvent #OpenTools #Robotik #OldSchoolTech
foldworks@leon_p_smith
‘Mindstorms’ is full of quotable text, here’s just one:
“Imagine that children were forced to spend an hour a day drawing dance steps on squared paper and had to pass tests in these ‘dance facts’ before they were allowed to dance physically. Would we not expect the world to be full of ‘dancophobes’?Would we say that those who made it to the dance floor and music had the greatest ‘aptitude for dance’? In my view, it is no more appropriate to draw conclusions about mathematical aptitude from children’s unwillingness to spend many hundreds of hours doing sums.” — Seymour Papert (p. 43)
#mathematics #ITeachMath #MathematicsEducation #MathEd #MathsEd #SeymourPapert #Mindstorms
@leon_p_smith
Yes, I think programming can be a good way to learn mathematics (and more).
Seymour Papert wrote about this in Mindstorms (1980).
I was fortunate to learn Logo and turtle programming on a modest home computer in my early teens. I don't know which was cause and which was effect, but I still like geometry and programming today.
For those not familiar with Mindstorms, a good summary is at
https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/mindstorms-what-did-papert-argue-and-what-does-it-mean-for-learning-and-education-c8324b58aca4
#mathematics #programming #Logo #TurtleGraphics #ITeachMath #MathematicsEducation #MathEd #MathsEd #SeymourPapert #Mindstorms
