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Subject: 
Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:03:58 GMT
Viewed: 
4623 times
  
In lugnet.robotics, Brian Davis wrote:
   I know that some folks already have gotten the NXT and have started playing
with it, but I've yet to see anybody announcing such here, so I was curious.
Also: should I direct new NXT users into the LUGNET forums? I'm already starting
to get more questions than I can answer...

If you've got it, first impressions?

I got mine on Tuesday.  I haven't done much
with it yet (that pesky job thing), but
here's what I've thought so far...

<ramble>

The small "quick start" box is great, a lot
of newbies will be up and running easily.

Only one kind of wheels?  I liked the caster
on the quickstart bot, though.

The motors are *huge*, but probably smaller than
an equivalent motor+rotation sensor combo.
If you turn the output "shaft" by hand, there's
a bit of play in the gearing; I'm not sure how
well they'll work as pure rotation sensors.

The sensors are huge, too.  A pity we can't
stack them as in the RCX.  For nontrivial
bots, I'd probably sense with an RCX and do
precision navigation with a NXT.

The little onboard test programs for the
sensors and motors were fun to play with.
The sound sensor picks up even if you just
move an open hand quickly toward it.

Mac support!  Woo-hoo!  And it doesn't suck!

On my Mac, the software installed its items
into the directory I specified ("Applications"),
which meant I ended up with the NXT app, the
"engine" dir, and other items in my Applications
folder.  I moved them into a subfolder afterward,
and the NXT app ran fine.

I'm a lifelong text programmer, so this block
programming is going to take some getting used
to.

I loved the first test program: "Good job!"
The voice messages are neat; kids will love
them.

But where the voice that says "Wensleydale"?

Sounds take up too big a proportion of the NXT
memory.  NXT needs more memory.

The Bluetooth connection rocks.  Goodbye IR tower!

The gradual build and programming tasks seem
very well thought-out; I think I'll just
walk through them all.  I was wondering where
instructions for the Rex bot and others were,
until I ran the NXT app and poked around some.

I submitted a few corrections to Philo's peeron
inventory.

All in all, I think I'm going to enjoy this.

</ramble>



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
 
(...) Great! could you send me the modifications list? I think that one concerns the wheels, I believe that the ones I got in MDP kit where not the final version... Philo (18 years ago, 30-Jun-06, to lugnet.robotics)
  Re: Have you got your NXT yet?
 
(...) One very big caveat about this - at the end of the installer process on a Mac it runs chmod -R 777 on the contents of the folder installed into. Thus, every single thing in your Applications directory (and all subdirectories, including (...) (18 years ago, 4-Jul-06, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Have you got your NXT yet?
 
I know that some folks already have gotten the NXT and have started playing with it, but I've yet to see anybody announcing such here, so I was curious. Also: should I direct new NXT users into the LUGNET forums? I'm already starting to get more (...) (18 years ago, 28-Jun-06, to lugnet.robotics)

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