Subject:
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Re: Frustration with NXT-G 1.1
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 13 May 2008 21:39:08 GMT
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Original-From:
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Doug Wilcox <DOUG.WILCOX@spamcakeWORDSMITHDIGITAL.COM>
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Viewed:
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5697 times
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Very good points, Brian.
Because I'm accustomed to thinking in more "standard" programming structures, I have a tendency to try to make "the G" behave the same way it would as if I were working in Java, etc.
It would be much more efficient to calculate the motor turn degrees and have a single motor movement statement that does such. In Java (here I have a case of the opposite of my premise being true), I'd just write a function to do it ... I didn't see the analog between functions and a string of calculations in this editor.
Live and learn. Again, if it weren't for the inexplicable why-in-the-world-haven't-they-fixed-those-yet bugs, I'd be quite happy with NXT-G, and would highly recommend it. But after the trouble with automatically failing to resize both a loop and a switch statement, I am having trouble trying to envision how I would teach my kids the workarounds to these sorts of problems.
Onward ...
Doug Wilcox
-----Original message-----
From: "Brian Davis" brdavis@iusb.edu
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 16:38:33 -0700
To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
Subject: Re: Frustration with NXT-G 1.1
> In lugnet.robotics, "Doug Wilcox" wrote:
>
> > I was thrilled when my wife presented me with an NXT for
> > our anniversary...
>
> Please let your wife know that she has *really* cool tastes in anniversary gifts
> :).
>
> > At first glance, it appeared that the NXT-G was
> > wonderful...
>
> I still like it quite a bit, but it seems among adults I'm a minority (or an
> aberration... I've been called worse). I agree that the bugs in the IDE in
> particular can drive you crazy, and it takes me longer to do some things
> graphically than I could in a text editor. Like you, if I compare NXT-G to
> something like RIS I shudder at the second - NXT-G is a quantum step forward,
> but still behind in some ways for power users.
>
> > My primary interest was in determining whether it
> > would be easier to teach my kids NXT-G or NXC.
>
> That depends. Are you trying to teach your kids how to think in C or a C-like
> language, or are you trying to teach them how to acquire new skills? For the
> former, I'd suggest RobotC (for a number of reasons, the main downsides being
> cost and that it's not open platform). I'd probably be using RobotC myself if it
> was available on a Mac (closer to C, and more importantly for me more powerful
> and *much* faster than other options based on the stock firmware).
>
> > For example, see this image...
>
> What's happened there is that sequence beams within the multi-state Switch have
> become corrupted. The best way I know to fix that is to rip out the block
> sequences within each state of the Switch (saving them somewhere else on the
> worksheet for later), and then tearing out the corrupted Switch, replacing it
> with a new one, and then selecting and dragging the sequences back into the
> proper cases of the Switch. I agree, this isn't at all ideal. I'm not sure why
> that happens (or why it doesn't seem to happen to me), but it *is* very
> annoying.
>
> Note that here I suspect part of the problem is you are trying to use a Switch
> when there's little reason. For instance, for each case you need to move the "B"
> motor a different distance, correct? It might be far better to calculate (or
> even use a simple look-up table) to determine those distance, and then *wire*
> the result into the Motor B blocks. This sort of thing (working with the
> strengths of NXT-G, instead of forcing on its weaknesses) is one of the things I
> must admit I really like - it's a thinking puzzle for me (and for those of you
> who think that's not a part of the MINDSTORMS product, consider that we all keep
> trying to build industrial and innovative autonomous robots... with a childs toy
> :) ).
>
> --
> Brian "Wanted: RobotC for OSX" Davis
--Doug Wilcox
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