Lego Nxt
Lego Nxt sell date
by Gort
Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:50 am
It is for sale at my local toys-r-us. I thought August was when it was going to be for sell in the US.
The lego nxt features
by Gort
Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:55 am
The lego robot kit comes with: a touch sensor, sound sensor, a light senor, ultrasonic senor. You can connect to the robot through bluetooth or a usb port. I am still not sure if it is worth buying or not. The toys-r-us by my house now has 5 kits!
by hivemind
Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:12 pm
I already have a Lego NXT which i have used a bit for learning purposes (im trying to develop a basic AI for it using the various sensors to get around a room and avoid objects and such)
Like other Lego products the pieces snap together, except this new kit is moving away from the original Lego blocks and towards smooth edged pieces, and although this may be alright, i have noticed that there is a lot of give in these pieces (say for example you have a nice gear train and branches along an arm you built, if too much stress is put on a certain point the pieces may move a little and the gears will not touch) but if designed correctly im sure you could compensate for this, it is just frustrating, especially when the previous RIS kits did not have this issue.
As for the sensors, they are much larger than the previous RIS kits, but thankfully work better. The ultrasonic sensor is the only once of reasonable size, where the touch and light sensor have grown 4x from the previous RIS sets which is unfortunate. The sound sensor measures in a % decible level going off some arbitrary number it has inside of it and seems that it could work better.
The NXT brick itself is slightly larger than the previous RIS kits' and is once again smoothed off in many places, removing many places where it previously could be attached to the body of your robot. The biggest advantage this new brick has is the bluetooth capabilities (which are still being developed). The fact that you can send the program from the computer via bluetooth is a great feature. On the lego website it was mentioned that there will be phone capabilities and possibly using the mobile phone camera as an extra sensor, but for right now its hard to pair the device directly to a phone without extra software (java apps etc.)
I have used the new software just a little bit, but it seems like a nice improvement over the previous version, more functionality and without the hassle of fullscreen modes. Although the decrease on age requirement should give you some indication of the capabilities of the new kit (10 years +). But this could just be because there are less pieces in the kit and less ways for them to go together, who really knows.
If i were looking for a basic robot for a decent (ha..) price, than this would be a good option. The amount of sensors and the ability to have unlimited robots is great and knowing the software ought not to have bugs in it (seeing as its not a beta) is also reassuring. It is a good starter kit with a few unfortunate flaws, but if thats all your budget can get you than go for it.
If on the other hand you would rather buy a robot whose servos power to weight ratio is better (ie: can actually pick itself up) and is more program oriented, than i would go with any of the bipedal robots you can find here at robosavvy. The robonova is becoming bigger in America where the Kondo robots are big in Japan. My personal opinion would be to wait for the Manoi (August?) and but that one. search the forums for it, it runs at just over 10 v, very smooth and is one of the only robots that can push a basket with two full liter bottles in it. It is similar to the Kondo robots (it uses Kondo servos i believe) but its got a very clean look it to it.
there are.. well.. more than my two cents.. but thats what ive got for you
-goodluck
Like other Lego products the pieces snap together, except this new kit is moving away from the original Lego blocks and towards smooth edged pieces, and although this may be alright, i have noticed that there is a lot of give in these pieces (say for example you have a nice gear train and branches along an arm you built, if too much stress is put on a certain point the pieces may move a little and the gears will not touch) but if designed correctly im sure you could compensate for this, it is just frustrating, especially when the previous RIS kits did not have this issue.
As for the sensors, they are much larger than the previous RIS kits, but thankfully work better. The ultrasonic sensor is the only once of reasonable size, where the touch and light sensor have grown 4x from the previous RIS sets which is unfortunate. The sound sensor measures in a % decible level going off some arbitrary number it has inside of it and seems that it could work better.
The NXT brick itself is slightly larger than the previous RIS kits' and is once again smoothed off in many places, removing many places where it previously could be attached to the body of your robot. The biggest advantage this new brick has is the bluetooth capabilities (which are still being developed). The fact that you can send the program from the computer via bluetooth is a great feature. On the lego website it was mentioned that there will be phone capabilities and possibly using the mobile phone camera as an extra sensor, but for right now its hard to pair the device directly to a phone without extra software (java apps etc.)
I have used the new software just a little bit, but it seems like a nice improvement over the previous version, more functionality and without the hassle of fullscreen modes. Although the decrease on age requirement should give you some indication of the capabilities of the new kit (10 years +). But this could just be because there are less pieces in the kit and less ways for them to go together, who really knows.
If i were looking for a basic robot for a decent (ha..) price, than this would be a good option. The amount of sensors and the ability to have unlimited robots is great and knowing the software ought not to have bugs in it (seeing as its not a beta) is also reassuring. It is a good starter kit with a few unfortunate flaws, but if thats all your budget can get you than go for it.
If on the other hand you would rather buy a robot whose servos power to weight ratio is better (ie: can actually pick itself up) and is more program oriented, than i would go with any of the bipedal robots you can find here at robosavvy. The robonova is becoming bigger in America where the Kondo robots are big in Japan. My personal opinion would be to wait for the Manoi (August?) and but that one. search the forums for it, it runs at just over 10 v, very smooth and is one of the only robots that can push a basket with two full liter bottles in it. It is similar to the Kondo robots (it uses Kondo servos i believe) but its got a very clean look it to it.
there are.. well.. more than my two cents.. but thats what ive got for you
-goodluck
