LEGO Announces GNU/LInux-Powered Mindstorms EV3 Platform 164
First time accepted submitter Barryke writes "Today LEGO announces the new mohawk (NASA's turf) sporting MINDSTORMS EV3 platform (press release). And with details on its features and innards (in Dutch) which in short comes down to: 'Its intelligent brick sports an ARM9-soc running Linux on 64MB RAM and 16MB storage memory, and supports SD cards. There are also four ports, which allow four other 'Bricks' can be connected. The intelligent brick can be reached by WiFi, USB and Bluetooth, and supports control via Android and iOS devices. It comes with 3 servo's, two touch sensors and an IR sensor to track other robots at upto six meters. It also includes 17 build plans, shown in 3D using Adobe Inventor Publisher.'"
Autodesk, not Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Man, I bet Autodesk will be pissed to learn that Adobe released a product with the same name as their Inventor Publisher.
Re:Linux, not necessarily GNU/Linux (Score:5, Informative)
GNU and Linux can be separated.
GNU is all the core utilities and libraries typically associated with a Linux system.
Linux is the kernel.
Put them together you get GNU/Linux.
BusyBox is not GNU although can be built using GNU libc, so has some GNU.
Android is not dependent on GNU at all although uses the C library.
Many non-GNU projects use the GPL.
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:5, Informative)
Plastic may be inexpensive. LEGO isn't... for the amount of plastic that you actually get anyways, It's actually pretty pricey.
Of course, some would argue that it's worth it, because LEGO has considerably higher quality building bricks than any of its competitors.
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:5, Informative)
Plastic generally isn't, no. Plastic made to LEGO's tolerances? Yes. Their tolerance is as little as 0.002 millimeters!
Re:Two questions (Score:5, Informative)
There's a longer article on CNET [cnet.com] about this that says that the new system will be backwards compatible with existing NXT robots.
More info on the EV3 (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.quora.com/lego_tidbits/Lego-Mindstorms-EV3-More-Info
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:5, Informative)
You've got that right. Lego molds are extremely precise -- the jewelry of the machinists' art, and hand cleaned and polished periodically. And they use only top quality resins -- there is ABS, and then there is ABS -- better resins cost more. That is why Lego is expensive.
Re:Still a NXT brick at its core, it seems. (Score:5, Informative)
What would be nice is if you control more than just the 7 devices that you can plug into the brick without having to add another programmable brick to the system... say, by separating things like device power supply from device control, and using a separate battery box (or boxes) to supply power to as many devices as you want, and the cpu simply addresses them in a not entirely dissimilar way to how many USB devices are addressed on a single bus.
The functionality you want is already available on existing NXT bricks.
The sensor ports on NXT bricks use I2C for communication, allowing "sensors" to be daisy chained and referred to by address. Since the communication across the bus can be bi-directional (though half duplex), you can easily add I2C controlled motor controllers with external power supplies. There is also the RS485 port, for higher speed bi-directional communication.
Want more sensors? Simply daisy chain them on an I2C port. (I usually custom make cables for specific purposes, but there are also multiplexers available which could potentially allow for over 128 i2c addressed devices on a single port). An example of a commercially available daisy chain splitter - http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=79 [mindsensors.com]. Multiplexer? http://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NSX2020 [hitechnic.com].
Want to control more motors? Simply add a I2C controlled motor controller - a simple circuit to make yourself, or buy one of the commercially available options. In most cases you would use these with an external power supply (i.e. battery box).
Separating "things like device power supply from device control" is as simple as making your own cables... or use some of the commercially available motor controllers. For example this motor controller (a simple i2c based DC motor controller, with lego RCX plugs in the PCB) requires an external 9v power supply - http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=58 [mindsensors.com].
Using USB for these purposes rather than I2C would be far more complex. I2C is very simple to use, and is fast enough for most motor and sensor IO.
Re:Linux, not necessarily GNU/Linux (Score:4, Informative)
You can sue for copyright for something other than infringing. I've seen them sue for failing to distribute source in violation of the license, but that's not infringing.
Infringing: 1. Actively break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.): "infringe a copyright". [lmgtfy.com]
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:2, Informative)
Economics 102 - Consumers are willing to pay the expensive price because of high perceived quality, which tends to be due to high quality, which tends to cost more to produce.
"servos", NOT "servo's" (Score:3, Informative)
For goodness sake, I wish whoever wrote that would learn written English. Also, it's "videos", "photos", and so on.
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:awesome (Score:4, Informative)
Lego are the best adult toys.
Just wait until you discover marital aids.
Re:Would have loved this... (Score:5, Informative)
Two different tolerances:
- 0.002 millimeters for the molds and tooling
- 0.01 millimeters for the finished bricks
The variance on the product is always larger than that for the tooling, w/ each step of the process slightly magnifying any inaccuracy before it.