Request for Language options

Reader Amos asks: "I have investigated Robot C, which looks to be more of what I want. Do you know of any other tools/programs that would allow me to program my NXT?"

Feel free to offer up some options for Amos to consider... many of you probably know of languages in development of which I might not be aware. Thanks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
There is a java version being developed and a book pending release.

See NXT book on Amazon
Anonymous said…
i'd love to see one in a higher level language. ruby or python would be great.
Unknown said…
Amos,

feel free to have a look at the according list of programming tools on my web site.
It should reflect pretty completely the presently available options.

As for Java for the NXT: the book mentioned is announced for beginning of next year - as far as I know, there is no Java VM for the NXT available or under development presently (a port of the leJOS platform for the RCX to the NXT is planned, but development will not start before the publishing of the low-level NXT driver information by LEGO, most presumably in August).

Yet, any information beyond that is highly welcome (as well as reports on experiences with RobotC).

Regards,
Matthias Paul
Tony Buser said…
I'd kill for the ability to program the NXT using Ruby :)
Anonymous said…
you could do it with the rcx, tony, hopefully somebody will hook it up for the nxt.

http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/RubyConf2003.html
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the info! I am also trying to figure out if it is possible to program voice recognition capabilities for the NXT. It seems that the NXT may not have the hardware to execute such a program. Does anybody have any suggestions?

I have just started using RobotC this week, and it is going well so far. Using sensors is really easy, you can just create a sensor, and access its readings. There is also a nice debugging feature, where each line is executed, and you can see what the robot does. I'm more experienced with Java, so I am waiting for a Java environment.

I believe that there is a Java Speech API that allows for voice recognition, so maybe that can be used once lejos or someone else develops something a Java VM.
Brian Davis said…
I have my doubts for speech recognition with the standard NXT sound sensor. There are a number of problems with this: first, it has only two settings, dBC (a "flat", or close to it, frequency response) and dBa (a frequency weighted response similar to human hearing). The result is only a little bit of pitch sensitivity in a fairly narrow (and low frequency) range. Second, there's the question of how fast you can sample the sensor (about 3-4 ms response with the standard FW, perhaps higher with custom FW).

Does this mean voice recognition is out for the NXT? No... just that I feel it's unlikely to happen with the standard sensor/NXT combination. There are custom-designed stand-alone sensors that can be taught to recognize words (some were made for the RCX), so it's certainly possible. Just not on-board a standard out-of-the-box NXT. And I'd be estatic if somebody proves me hidiously, horribly wrong on this :-).

--
Brian Davis
Tony Buser said…
Thanks for the link ian, I was able to find code in ruby to send commands to an RCX here.

It would be interesting to see if I could adapt that code to work with the NXT once they release the NXT sdk. :)
Anonymous said…
Our NXT is on order, sadly...

We'll be porting the Transterpreter to the NXT once ours arrives. The runtime makes handling concurrency and parallelism a breeze---something that little robots have to deal with all the time.

http://www.transterpreter.org/

What's nice is that we'll have an identical development environment for both the NXT and the RCX when we're done.

Feel free to drop questions at me (Matt) if you'd like to know more, or be placed on our announcements mailing list (very low volume).

http://www.transterpreter.org/wiki/Team

Cheers,
Matt

PS. I enjoy the blog. Wootness.
Unknown said…
Matt,

> We'll be porting the Transterpreter to the NXT once ours arrives.

Tantalizing!

Sounds if you are not going to wait for LEGO releasing the low-level driver information (in August, maybe)?

Keep us updated!

/Matthias Paul
Anonymous said…
On speech recognition, you might be able to use a cell phone that does ties speech to menu commands and have a menu item that sends a message to the NXT. I haven't experimented with this, but it may be doable.

On speech synthesis, MindSensors.com says that they are working on something (http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=54&MMN_position=22:22)
Anonymous said…
what are some custom designed voice recognition sensors you know of? could you link me to any on the web?

Popular Posts