Subject:
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Re: Blocking The Lego Remote?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.rcx.nqc
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Date:
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Fri, 27 Apr 2001 22:41:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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2509 times
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In lugnet.robotics.rcx.nqc, Stephen Fury writes:
>
> Let me clarify.
>
> although it still may not be possible, I just want to create 2 lego
> BattleBot like robots. A Scout based bot being controlled by one person
> with the Lego Remote and a Second bot being controlled via RCX to RCX like
> in the Lego RoboGladiators 1999 E3 event. I just don't want the Lego Remote
> that is to control the Scout BattleBot also be controlling the RCX
> BattleBot. If I can some how just program an RCX to ignore commands sent by
> the Lego Remote i'll be all set.
This is a very basic problem with the whole LEGO IR protocol -- you can't
address a specific RCX/Scout without also reaching every other brick in the
room. I believe this is the reason why the RCX has the short-range IR setting.
The approach I have taken when I have needed to do things like this in the
past is to use specific message numbers as commands to the different 'bots,
and then don't use the same message number in any two. For example: Bot1
sees msg#1 as "forward", #2 as "back", #3 as "Turn left", #4 as "Turn
Right", #5 as "Punch", and Bot2 uses message #s 6-10 for the same purposes.
But in the heat of battle, you are going to have a lot of messages flying
around, and the two IR sources are very likely to cause interference with
each other. In the best case, the bots won't do anything at all. In the
worst case, transmission errors will result in incorrect message numbers
being interpreted by one or both bots. For example, if player 1 sends
message #1 and then player 2 immediately sends message #8, both RCXes will
see the most recent message #8 unless the RCX happens to notice message #1
in the brief instant before #8 arrives.
This also doesn't allow you to use the direct motor control buttons on the
LEGO remote (or the start/stop task either, since these will definitely be
interpreted immediately by all RCXes and Scouts that are in the room,
regardless of whether they're running a program at the time.
You'd need to hack the firmware in order to get an RCX to ignore the remote.
I doubt that this would be trivial, especially since you would only want to
disable the immediate commands and not the IR messaging as well. Perhaps
somebody who has spent more time sniffing through a dis-assembled firmware
than I have could tell you how. And of course, you can't update the Scout
firmware, so you couldn't disable the remote from controlling the Scout in
any case.
> > The only way doing this may be using legOS and its LNP (lego network
> > protocol) with which you can use adressed devices. AFAIK legOS isn't
> > available for you're scout, so this won't work either. SORRY.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Rainer
> >
> > P.S.: Can't you seperate them optically ??
Interesting thing about this -- the LEGO IR goes through LEGO! For the
recent NELUG train display, I tried to build enclosures for my RCXes so that
I could control them one-at-a-time with the remote. I found that the IR
went right through the walls and controlled all of the RCXes anyway.
Glass apparently will shield infra-red (or is that ultra-violet? I always
forget...) so it might be possible to build an infra-red shield out of
non-LEGO materials. Or possibly a LEGO box with very thick walls and no
overlapping seams would do the trick.
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Blocking The Lego Remote?
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| Let me clarify. although it still may not be possible, I just want to create 2 lego BattleBot like robots. A Scout based bot being controlled by one person with the Lego Remote and a Second bot being controlled via RCX to RCX like in the Lego (...) (24 years ago, 27-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics.rcx.nqc)
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