It sounds like what is desired is an update of a 10+ year-old thing I
helped design called MIPPET -- "Module for Input/Output Programming
Projects Enhancing Teaching" [1].
The interface we used was the parallel port, which made things easy at
the time since USB 1.0 was in its infancy. There was talk even then
though of possibly doing a USB update, and we had a USB 1.0 development
kit I played with a bit.
This was never mass sold to my knowledge, but I could try and research
if any progress has been made on the USB update. If not I could attempt
it or nudge other people to try and do so, although if this turns into
someone's college project I would not expect to see a result until the
fall semester.
(Extra credit goes to anyone who can figure out what MIPPET actually
stands for and not the backronym the professor came up with. It's not
too hard to find, so I'm not certain what it will get you.)
[1] Described a bit in the document at
http://www.rowan.edu/mars/compsci/CS1labs/Mippet.ppt with pictures.
Example coursework which probably could be ported to Python/Turtleart
(or more likely Etoys with its collision detection) at
http://www.rowan.edu/mars/compsci/cs1labs/SIGCSE03.htm .
On 3/17/2011 2:56 AM, Kevin Mark wrote:
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 11:45:15AM +1100, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:
Hi
An exciting new robotics idea from Guzman Trinidad.
Turtle Art is programmed to produce two different frequencies. The headphone
output of the XO is connected to a pair of LM567 integrated circuit tone
decoders, each of which lights a LED when its input signal frequency is
present. With this principle we could control any device.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVzVlAZsz1w*
To be widely adopted, robotics kits need to be low cost and be "low entry high
ceiling". Guzman's idea has the potential to lower the cost.
My estimates:
Lego NXT $500
Lego Wedo $170
Scratch sensor board $45
Arduino $40
PICAXE $15 (http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/picaxe14m-starter-pack)
LM567 decoder board $?
I am unaware if anybody has looked at the PICAXE and the XO, could be worth
looking at.
I am assuming that the cost of many of these kits is too high for the markets
into which the XO is shipping.
Tony
I have a Ti Launchpad (a $4.30 USD + shipping?) micro-controller board that
uses the msp430 line. I was able to compile msp430-gcc on the xo-1.5 and use it
with mspdebug to upload firmware to it. I would assume someone with more
knowledge than me could add a few more bits or a simple circut and add some
software to turtle art to make it do something like the picaxe. The launchpad
has 2 simple switches, 2 LEDS and an internal temp sensor (on 1 of the 2
included chips) and it includes a usb cable.
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