2006 CES Report: First look at the Mindstorms NXT (Part 1)
Posted by Administrator in Mindstorms NXT
The recently announced Mindstorms NXT was on display in the Robotics TechZone at CES, surrounded by other robotics exhibits. A number of NXT sample robots were being demonstrated, but in this installment we’ll focus on some of the key features of the new NXT intelligent brick, which replaces the yellow RCX brick used in earlier versions of Mindstorms.
The NXT unit itself is roughly the same size as the old RCX, but most similarities end there. A pearlescent off-white finish and four control buttons (providing left, right, select and escape menu functions) give the NXT a vaguely iPod-ish appearance. Seven ports – 3 output and 4 input — are used to communicate with sensors and other devices. On the old RCX these ports were covered with brick studs and surrounded the central LCD display; on the new NXT these ports are on the top and bottom edges of the unit and take the form of proprietary 6-wire connectors that resemble (but are incompatible with) RJ11 phone connectors. Next to the output ports is a USB 2.0 connector, and the unit also offers integrated Bluetooth compatibility.
Using the control buttons you can navigate through the NXT menu system, which appears to be more flexible and provides more control options that the old RCX LCD display functionality, which only allowed the user to toggle through and select currently loaded programs. Based on our limited time with the device we think the new menu system should be relatively easy for users familiar with iPods and mobile phones to choose and select program functions and adjust NXT brick options.
In our next installment we’ll take a closer look at the new NXT programming software, which is based on National Instruments LabVIEW software and is both Macintosh (Huzzah!) and Windows compatible. We’ll also check out some of the sample models we saw on display at the show, in addition to an early comp of the NXT product packaging. Check out the official Mindstorms site (http://mindstorms.lego.com) for more information as well.
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The RJ11/14 connectors also have keyed versions in general availability. I’m presuming that Lego did NOT design their own connector for the NXT and that they are using a Keyed RJxx plug and socket to insure that sensors are not plugged into outputs and motors are not plugged into inputs. It looks like the motors have sockets but I can’t tell if there are sockets or integrated leads on the sensors.
For the record, I don’t have any catalogs with a modular adapters (any size) offset to the left. There are quite a few available offset to the right though….
Thanks for this siteand the opportunity to comment – I’m really interested in this, as are my 2 sons who pointed the Mindstorms NXT out to me today.
I’ve just coached a UK FLL team for the first time which was a huge and wonderful learning experience for all of us – I’m wondering what impact this new version will have on FLL.
Great News! Questions I have as an educator/FLL team coach is, will this new system be replacing FLL RCX based Mindstorm kits that 1000’s of schools already have in use for competitions? Will we as educators/FLL teams need to replace our existing investments – kits- to stay current? Does any one know yet?
I’d like to second the request for more information on alternative O/S support, especially for Lejos. Otherwise Brian Bagnall will have to rewrite all of his Mindstorm books for the NXT!
To the FLL folks out there: on the Mindsotrms site is a FAQ (although how frequently a question can be asked before anybody knows enough to ask it is beyond me
). I think it mentions that FLL will allow *both* kits (RCX & NXT) in the 2006 season. should be interesting…
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Brian Davis
Can you post links to the pictures in the article on high quality?
I propose that the robot detects its energy. When the robot has 10% of energy, the robot recharges itself. The robot goes to a device, it connects him and it is recharged. Thus always it has energy and it is not necessary to change the batteries to its.
In reading the new motor and sensor are digital interface. RCX were analog. Now with that said I believe if the coming up with a mux on sensor and on the motor. Even coming up with new sersor should be do able. The question is does the software have the power to let us. LabView would as it comes from National Instuments.. The software plan as I read it is base on labview. I dont see us get all the func of labview. I hoping Lego keep the system open to let up really explore what we can do with it.
In regard to Bas’s concern:
> For real processing power: it would be cool if the
> NXT could be configured as a slave with the main
> program running on the PC.
> Communication can be over bluetooth…
I would not be surprised to see “slave” programs waiting for instructions coming from a “master” program on the PC with Bluetooth communication. I bet it wouldn’t even be hard to do, so even if there’s no “slave” configuration for the NXT, this will probably see the light someway.
The ability to have two or more robots working together with bluetooth communication is also rather exciting… My problem is that I spent so much on my two RCXs 6 months ago that I don’t know if I can justify the purchase of a new kit twice the price…
I really thought mindstorms were dead so I acquired two sets before they’d be gone for good….
Well,
Several times in my projects I need to drive 4 motors but the RCX is limitated to 3 output.
In this great improvement, at least, Lego could add one more output in the NXT to have 4 (like the inputs are). I was expecting for this. No improvement on this way, same RCX output limitation NXT has.
wow!!..the new generation of lego.The NXT,seems so futuristic..very cool.Im from Brunei in Borneo island..I’m a lego freak since small,but now i got the chance teach lego mindstorm in the lego workshop..well, i cant wait for the NXT to reach here in brunei.
HiTech mentioned in of of the online articles that it would be working on custom sensors/motors for the NXT system.
And given enough time, you’ll find folks hacking the NXT to allow old RCX stuff to be attached, or to allow multiple motors and such.
And I am willing to bet you’ll find replacement operating systems and programming languages soon enough.
What you could just do is hack a cat5 cable for the connector. Or maybe just use the USB port for expansion (?RCX sensor/motor interface?)
Hi folks
I am delighted that this is coming out and can’t wait for the release!As the motors have built in rotation sensors, I’m glad there’ll (hopefully) be an end to episodes where the vehicle turns slightly even though the command is forward. Also re-uploading the firmware after the battery replacement is a nightmare! Plus uploading the firmware actually takes up a signifiant amount of battery power itself! Hopefully this should end! I guess the Bluetooth is a way for the NXT to “talk” with other NXTs nearby or in the same ‘bot. This will be so cool (instead of having it send ‘an IR message’ to something)!
Laterz
One of my criticisms of the RIS was that building a robot was more a matter of figuring out how to make LEGO bricks do things they were not intended to do — and stay attached while doing them — than it was about programming robotic behavior.
In switching to Technics parts, it appears that designing and building the mechanical part of the robot will be significantly less difficult.
Hi, i hope that the nxt will include rechargeable battries so that we , fans will not have to buy lots and lots of battries
Hi,
It sounds great, but there are some points I don’t agree:
- There is no possibility of stack connectors, as we can do with RCX
- There is no possibility of connecting a NXT robot with RCX one through an infrared link
- There are no possibility of reuse old sensors
I think Lego made the right choice: a brand new enhanced product, but they have to remember the large amount of RCX users.
I’ll buy NXT, but I would be happier if I could build NXT robots interacting with RCX robots. Think what amazing things we could do with two colaborative robots.
Please, Lego: Do something about that before August.
Juan
Need more info. Sounds Cool. Getting for xmas. More info on the models
The biggest thing here is the rotational sensors. No more muxing of switches thru a resistor network to sense where a motor has rotated to. If the sensor information for the position is going back thru the same wire as the power then muxing motors is also out. Hmmm, interesting thought. Also I’m sure that a BT device could be cobbled together to pulse an infrared diode and receive IR information back from an RCX. I agree that it would be nice if the software would allow richer access to the core LabView technology. If that happened then I could also see a whole 3rd party market for sensor expansion as well as external MCU integration.
Nice job Lego, just help the techno geeks with more detailed hardware architecture support. I don’t think anyone will try to breakinto your market and there will be a lot of reverse engineering anyway if you don’t as seen with the RCX MCU.
Joe B
This is a great step for LEGO. The two things that really frustrated our Lego League team were the bricks falling apart and the bot drifiting due to unbalanced motors run open-loop. Using the Technic pieces should fix the first problem and hopefully the new motors will fix the second.
It would be interesting to know more about the motor assemblys themselves.
1) The connection to/from the motors is said to be digital, does that mean that there are uPs in the motors?
2) If there are uPs in the motors, do they do the control loop or does the brick?
3) Is there a way to change the control loop?
4) The FAQ says the servo output is proportional to the velocity of the motor. Is there any way to get the position (or does it just feed off a single pulse for each revolution?)
5) Someone also mentioned that there are no gears in the kit, but some of the examples look like they would need a good amount of torque — does this mean that the motor is geared down in the assembly? The pictures seem to show that there may be room.
Hopefully, when LEGO starts the Developer Program, they will start to make more details known…
Cheers,
Keith
Everyone is going all GAGA over this. Let’s take a more realistic view of it. This is a very down to earth report…
1) NO backwards compatiblity. You will need ALL NEW MOTORS & SENSORS. For people with an investment in the current mindstorms it leaves them out in the cold. NICE GOING LEGO. But, I can forgive this.
2) NXT
a) – too little ram, too little flash. There is just NO REASON in this day and age to have the device be SO limiting. You won’t be able to do any meaningful sampling unless connected to another device to dump data so no “long autonomous” missions :^( WHY?
b) It looks like they copied the iPod design. While SOME people love the studless design, there’s NO QUESTION that mounting the old RCX was much easier than mounting this thing will be. I could forgive this, but it WILL be harder for kids to work with.
c) Buttons – when trying to mount this inside robots, the buttons are all clustered around the CENTER of the thing. At least with the RCX, the buttons were near the edge so you didn’t have to have access to the center of the unit as much. AGAIN – that “iPod look”. Some designs won’t be bothered by this, others will!
What they SHOULD have done was to provide remotes (even as an option) that could be KEYED to a specific NXT module (how about setting an 8 or 16 bit code so the RC won’t accidentally control a different one – then these codes could be apportioned out PRIOR to tournaments and teams could set them up ahead of time). Or, it could be keyed to the serial number of the unit!!!
d) Keeping the limit to 3 outputs – WHY… No good reason.
e) Keeping the input to only 4 – NOT BAD, considering the motors now
have rotation sensors.
e) No way to run multiple sensors on a single port… This was one of the unique and innovative soloutions that kids USED TO have in FLL to create robots that would do things that worked well all the time.
f) Looking at closeups of the programming environment, it looks like RIS but instead of vertical programming, horizontal. Robolab is an EXCELLENT environment. Using big pictures on the icons “looks pretty”, but doesn’t allow a sufficiently complicated program to fit on a single page easily. Hopefully this was just a prototype and the real environment will be more Robolab like.
3) Studless Design. The previous poster thinks that using liftarms will fix his problem? WHY? Liftarms have ALWAYS BEEN AROUND. They could have been using them all along! I fail to see how having a new system will help that.
The FACT that his team did not learn how to PROPERLY brace beam that were stuck together does NOT mean that their new robots will be any better. I can say with 100% certainty, that beams with studs stuck together and BRACED are MUCH stronger than liftarms pinned together and, it’s easier conceptually for children to understand studded designs.
Our team has built MANY structures of both styles and if teams had a hard time with the beams, building a strong structure with liftarms will be a LOT LOT harder (try it!).
The question is: how well will THESE motors be balanced as far as torque output be? Do they have TRUE speed control, or is it once again, PWM. As everyone should know, PWM is NOT speed control at all – an unloaded motor will spin as fast at speed 1 as at speed 7, it all changes when the motors are put under load and the battery voltage changes! True speed control using a closed loop system would allow robots to go TRULY straight and, it would make it much easier for EVERYONE. Is this what we want? If the goal is to make things easy, why not just market a new ROBOT kit every year with building instructions that teams can purchase. Gone will be the TRUE engineering that comes with understanding the problem and overcoming it, not by having the answers handed to you! Will there be some issues to deal with – time will tell when we REALLY see what these kits are made of!
4) Motors – HUGE motors. I would rather have had SEPARATE rotation sensors and SMALLER motors so that some design tradeoffs and intelligence still had to go into building a robot. Having motors that are this huge, well, it violates the KISS principle, and it forces decisions onto builders that would be best left to the builder.
5) Sensors – they too look BIG. And again, the studless design – why??? To “look cool” – sigh.
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We have consistently been able to build FLL robots that score 400 points on the table using the existing parts. Our robots go straight (less than about 1/2″ left to right over a minimum of 4′ travel and a return to within 1″ of the starting position – I don’t think the NXT will help that!). Thinking that these new parts will help anyone make a better robot is, well, wishful thinking.
Watching lego leave their legendary “building block” studded design is sad. They are abandoning what made them great and, with the incompatibility, will surely be alienating those who have invested heavily in the current technology.
But, sheik is in, the iPod sells, and it appears that’s what they’re going after. Maybe I will be proved wrong, but there is no denying some of the facts I have listed above. I know that in the fall, both RCX and NXT’s will be allowed in FLL, but what about the next year?
What they SHOULD do is to have 2 separate categories to allow teams to compete against similar robots and NOT force teams to spend HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of additional dollars to replace their current and still working mindstorms pieces.
Steve
Derek Anderson Says:
January 6th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Any idea why a proprietary 6 conductor modular jack with an offset lock was chosen? One of the reasons that the Mindstorms was so succesful was it’s hackability. Hopefully the connectors/cables will be inexpensively available so that we do not have to chop up existing sensors.
•••
The sensors don’t have their own cables. You plug a cable into the back of the sensor. So, you just have to chop up cables.
How much will NXT cost in Europe
wow sounds great but i have an rcx, it would be cool if they could interact with each other.
With all the speculation about the connectors, is it just possible that the picture has been flipped, and that the connectors really are Dec 6c or what ever?
Sounds awsome but I don’t like the connection wires (silly telophone things) and the back compatibility issue.
Q: wiil it be possible to have two NXT’s talk to each other?
if not I will stick with an RCX
I’ve been using NQC to program RCXs (still old school). I’m wondering if anybody knows if NQC still can be used to program the NXT. I’ve been looking around and everything that I’ve read is a software called Robolab, that is claimed to bridge RCX users to NXT. Is there anything that can bridge NQC to NXT?
Thanks.
check out http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/ They have test release out for NXT. They have a text based language called NBC running on it. Hopefully something like NQC will be next…
Michael
LEGO you are awesome! I cannot wait as my family are going to the worldwide opening!I have not tried earlier versions so don`t let me down!