MindStorms Madness 113
plluke writes "I'm a Teaching Assistant for a course named CS148: Building Intelligent Robots offered by the CS Department at Brown University. Our robots were made/programmed/run on Lego MindStorms (with LegOS). Tres funky results include probabilistic sonar mappers, a bipedal walker, and a bartender. The final exhibition page is here and contains the aforementioned funky results."
Mindstorms + CS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mindstorms + CS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mindstorms + CS (Score:3, Insightful)
If this were a robotics class in an EE department, I'd be troubled. CS? What's the problem?
Re:Mindstorms + CS (Score:1)
Re:Mindstorms + CS (Score:1)
Boooring (Score:3, Insightful)
The big headache was that you had to compensate for the shitty quality control in the Lego components whose tolerances are so absurdly wide that it's just ridiculous. Also, you have to work within the restrictions of a certain number Lego parts, with little to no modification. It's more of a challenge than "see how many legos and custom sensors you can buy/make."
My point is, however, that if everyone who has worked with Mindstorms submitted their stories and pictures to Slashdot, we'd need a dedicated section called http://diaries-of-college-students-who-worked-wit
A TCP/IP enabled RCX? [fh-hamburg.de] Now that's cool!
kids (Score:1)
They ARE toys after all (Score:2)
Sir, these are TOYS, not industrial components. For toys designed to ease children into programming and systems designed, they're very good. Absurdly wide tolerances allow you to get results quickly even with crappy code, which is pretty much all the default programming environment allows. And the poor quality itself allows the components to be affordable. It's fine you don't like them, but please don't slam Mindstorms because they aren't suited for serious work. They aren't, but nor are they meant to be.
Re:They ARE toys after all (Score:2)
Bird Course! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]
Re:Bird Course! (Score:2, Insightful)
Bartender! (Score:1)
One of my buddies in high school 'borrowed' a robotic arm and tried to do this, if only we'd had Lego Mindstorm...
Sign Of Alcholism (Score:4, Funny)
When you spend an entire semester designing legos to pour drinks for you. It's time to get help. Run, don't walk, to your nearest AA meeting.
Re:Sign Of Alcholism (Score:1)
Damn. (Score:1)
Garrett '90
Academic Utopia (Score:5, Funny)
From the course intro page:
The only requirement for the project is that it be "extremely cool"
This is the sort of academic requirement I can live with!
Lego-robotics mailing list (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lego-robotics mailing list (Score:2, Funny)
-russ
Now we only need a robot to... (Score:1)
I can also envision a robot hitting ALT-F4 when I get those annoying pop-ups.
If only I had the money for these robots [thinkgeek.com] then I would have something to do at work other than post!
Hey coward.. (Score:1)
Help for you is here. [techhelpcenter.com] You'll find the explination for the binary.
Now we just need a robot to stop certain posts...
Re:Hey coward.. (Score:1)
Big Pictures (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Big Pictures (Score:2)
Anyhow, I don't think you guys are capable of it
Re:Big Pictures (Score:1)
Funky. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure, but I think the use of the word "funky" was banned internationally in 1984. Unless you're into crafts with beads and rope, I'd suggest avoiding the word.
Also, prefixing it with "Tres" is seriously fucked.
I was about to suggest "sweet" or a variation. (Score:1, Offtopic)
With apologies to Wild Cherry... (Score:2, Funny)
a four-hundred level course in C.S.,
but I didn't have the knowledge,
to build a robot that could play chess.
I asked my lab assistant,
how could I get a passing graaaade?
And he gave me the answer, (yes he did)
he told me that I had the curve made.
So I started stackin', and hackin',
and 'loadin through my modem,
and just when, it hit me,
my classmates turned around and shouted,
"Build that funky robot, white boy!
Build that funky robot riiiiight!
Build that funky robot, white boy!
Lay down some legOS and build that funky robot til you die!"
Re:Funky. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funky. (Score:1)
Re:Funky. (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as George Clinton walks the earth, the word funky is SOLID!
Prepare to get funkified!
Re:Funky. (Score:2)
Re:Funky. (Score:1)
moderation (Score:2)
CS148?? (Score:1)
Re:CS148?? (Score:1, Informative)
under 100 = intro
over 100 = concentration
over 200 = grad
The Final Exhibition Page Sucks! (Score:2)
Striking a Theme?
I'm wondering about the quality of this program, folks.
Courseware at Brown (Score:1, Interesting)
wow... (Score:1)
My favorites (Score:4, Funny)
For non-technical reasons, the RoboTender (bartender robot) is by far the coolest. They even make a point of mentioning that this bartender will never cut you off. Pretty cool for a bunch of geeky CS students.
On the technical side, by far the one that impresses me the most is the Bipedal Robot. It starts only understanding 3 basic commands and being fed a random sequence of those commands. Then it uses trial and error in the form of "genetic algorithms" to "learn" how to walk. As an enthusiastic but very amateur programmer, that amazes me.
Anyway, I have to go now. Speaking of bartenders, the wife has been drinking tonight and every time that happens she gets all worked up and "needs" me for something.
(Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on Slashdot is sex starved. That woman's hitting her "prime" and wearing me out!)
Re:My favorites (Score:2, Funny)
If anything deserves to be called karma "whoring" this is it.
Re:My favorites (Score:3, Funny)
We need a new mod category:
"-1: Too much information"
No useful comment here (Score:2)
Re:No useful comment here (Score:2, Funny)
Bender the robot coming to life! (Score:1)
Thank god for University research, or we wouldn't have the advances in drunkology that we do today. hic-up. hic-up
Wait a second.... (Score:1)
____________________________
This is wonderful! (Score:2, Interesting)
Apparently, this course is either their second/thrid course in CS. What do you guys think of using Mindstorm as a first course in CS?
Re:This is wonderful! (Score:2)
Avoiding work (Score:2)
I already made a controllable webcam [man.ac.uk] and hamster powered [man.ac.uk] an asynchronous processor during my pathetic efforts to avoid writing my thesis.
I was thinking of motorizing the limbs of a stuffed toy we have in the group.
bah (Score:2)
Re:bah (Score:1)
Robot to Photocopy Book that also Turns Pages (Score:1)
This would help me in my book digitization project since the books are too valuable to destroy by cutting off their spines.
Why not use real microcontrollers and motors? (Score:2)
Can program, Can't write (Score:1)
Do people know that there are two words, "then", and "than"? (See WineX headline for this common mistake.) Have people heard the expression "i before e, except after c"? Certainly our programmers [brown.edu] of tomorrow don't know it.
It's just embarassing that so many people even make it out of high school with abysmal written communication skills.
# rant +