Subject:
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Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:37:20 GMT
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Reply-To:
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rhempel@bmts.com/avoidspam/
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Viewed:
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3679 times
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All,
I've been folllowing this thread with a lot of interest, and
as the author of pbForth - yet another Mindstorms programming
language I'd like to weigh in on this subject.
You have to remember that FLL is all about engineering and
tinkering. I was at the MIT Mindfest the year after Mindstorms
was released. There were FLL teams competing, and they were
having a blast.
I gave this little talk:
<http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/mindfest/panel.html>
I'll spare you the details, the punchline is this:
Which brings me back to the moon shot and popular culture.
For me, the defining image of engineers in pop culture is
in the film Apollo 13. The carbon monoxide scrubber filters
for the command module don't fit into the canister in the
LEM, and the astronauts are in danger of dying. We cut back
to a room at Mission Control with all kinds of junk on a
table, and an engineer picks up a round filter and a square
canister and says:
OK. We have to make this, fit into this, using this.....
And he points to the collection of stuff the astronauts have
in the LEM cabin. When complete, the adapter is rushed through
the halls like an accident victim - but works in spite of itself.
These...were master tinkerers - and I'll bet if Mindstorms was
available then, they would all have bought one. For the kids
of course.
As I understand it, FLL follows this theme. You do the task with the
things you're given. Period.
Another of my co-panelists, Markus Noga (original developer of LegOS)
had this little gem:
Form is liberating.
In other words, not being able to debate about the choice of
programming language or environment leaves a lot more time for
doing the actual task at hand. :-)
Programmers have another word for this - bikeshedding.
<http://xarg.net/blog/one-entry?entry_id=20005>
As much as I personally dislike graphical programming environments,
there is some merit to getting kids interested in robotics using
this line of education.
Think about it. Would they rather play our old-school UNIX style
text adventure games, or a graphical game? OK, 'nuff said on
that.
If you spend any time with kids at all, you'll see some pretty
bright lights shining in different colours. Some are good programmers,
some mechanical geniuses, some are fund-raisers, some are just
good managers. And some are slugs. Get over it, you need to work
with everyone with the tools at hand.
Cheers,
Ralph Hempel - P.Eng.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| In lugnet.robotics, Ralph Hempel wrote: <snip> (...) This has been my experience. Being in a room full of kids who are all jazzed up on technology, math and science is wonderous. Listening to a kid describe how she discovered subroutines is (...) (20 years ago, 11-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| (...) The guys at NASA *are* undoubtedly very smart at working around problems - but that's a REALLY poor example (and I know everyone uses it). If you look at what they actually came up with, it boils down to using some available plastic and (...) (20 years ago, 11-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| Hi friends, this really has been a most interesting thread about a theme that periodically reappears. I think there are a few things to underline. First of all, there is the idea of a contest that only makes sense, if restricting rules are set up to (...) (20 years ago, 12-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| (...) 1) As several people have pointed out, Lego *do* (somewhat indirectly) 'sell' NQC by providing it on CD-ROM in one of their books and as a CD sold via Pittsco-Dacta. 2) We can use Dell computers because Lego don't make computers. Why can't we (...) (20 years ago, 11-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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