Society of Robots - Robot Forum
General Misc => Misc => Topic started by: George on July 24, 2011, 11:22:32 AM
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I have been searching the forum for a couple of days, trying to get up to speed. My 10 yr old is attending a Lego robot camp, (http://engineering.missouri.edu/lego/ (http://engineering.missouri.edu/lego/)) and would like a mindstorm, but the forum opinion is the Axon II would be a better option.
I would be interested in a “tutorial”, or shopping list that would mimic the hardware available in the mindstorm box set followed by a project, i.e. the $50 dollar robot, using the Axon II.
This would be really helpful for a dad that is an over the road trucker and whose research time is extremely limited. And mom, who is a technophobe but will suffer through anything needed to give the yardmonkey a leg up in learning.
Thanx in advance
George
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Ok, so lets break it down piece by piece...
The mindstorms set comes with:
1 RGB color sensor
2 touch sensors
1 ultrasonic sensor
3 servos
1 "NXT brick" (aka the microcontroller)
1 "NXT-G" programming software CD
500-600 various Lego pieces
Lego is selling it for $280 on their website.
Now, you said you wanted a "shopping list that would mimic the hardware available in the mindstorm box set followed by a project"
There is really no exact answer for this, but here is what I was thinking:
NXT Brick= Axon 2 ($118)
ultrasonic sensor= Devantech SRF005 Ultrasonic ($25-30)
3 servos= Hitec 311 servos ($10 each)
1 RGB color sensor = try making one yourself using a photoresistor and some LEDs.
2 touch sensors=?
500-600 lego pieces= buy some building material like HDPE and some wires and nuts,bolts,etc.
for a project, check out admins tutorials.
also you may want to look around Letsmakerobots.com for more help
Good luck ;)
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My two cents worth: The Mindstorms kit is awesome to learn from. it's easy to put stuff together, there are tons of tutorials and projects out there plus your 10 year old would already have some knowledge on how to work it. In time, there are plenty of "advanced" things that you can do with a mindstorms kit, including fancy sensors and more complex programming languages. It was after all meant to be a learning tool in the first place and developped with kids in mind. It is very user friendly in all aspects, whether that be programming, hardware and mechanical stuff (which the axon most certainly is not)
With respect to "the" forum's opinion, of course the AxonII is awesome, but remember what most people on here are using it for: themselves. I'm not sure how many of us Axon users target young kids. I think you may get more mileage out of a Mindstorms kit for what you are intended it to be. Shop around, there are great deals to be had on ebay for used stuff.
Finally, I learned my first robotics stuff on the original Mindstorms when I was near that age. It allowed me to quickly go from an idea to a working prototype, which kept me interested.