Help me light a fire...
I received an email from LEGO about the WISH LIST that was put together with the help of our blog readers back in March/April 2007. Well, LEGO has informed me of two pieces of information and I need your help with one of them:
1. LEGO is using the WISH LIST as a source for a potential future product... HINT HINT
and
2. LEGO told me it would be sending me notes/comments on the WISH LIST items shortly.
So, I need your help. Post some comments and let LEGO know that you're as anxious as I am to see their comments on the items we submitted. Some friendly pressure from our readers might help light a little fire...
(Keep it clean, polite, and short... this is just a friendly little 'poke' to see if we can get a response from them...)
1. LEGO is using the WISH LIST as a source for a potential future product... HINT HINT
and
2. LEGO told me it would be sending me notes/comments on the WISH LIST items shortly.
So, I need your help. Post some comments and let LEGO know that you're as anxious as I am to see their comments on the items we submitted. Some friendly pressure from our readers might help light a little fire...
(Keep it clean, polite, and short... this is just a friendly little 'poke' to see if we can get a response from them...)
Comments
So it would be a great idea for LEGO to share feedback on our suggestions.
Chris (Littlehorn)
Ethan
mindstormmaster1
mindstormmaster1.googlepages.com
Also, thank you LEGO for considering our suggestions. We are looking forward to great things to come from you!
Kirk
Whilst there is some merit to the moans about the compatibility issues I think LEGO made the correct move on NXT-G except for a few things:
Why the baby like interface and all the restrictions - two programs please:
1 - basic baby (as it is now - but fixed)
2 - Cut down Labview with only the NXT toolkit(large programs are so much easier)
Improve bluetooth speed issues and provide automatic connection with bonded NXTs - it is a pain to remember to connect all the time when working with master/slave apps.
More motors: smaller ones
Move the port sockets back to the top of the NXT, things have to be so large (unlikely I know).
The cables suck - they are far too heavy and stiff - make nice cheap ribbons and provide some spares for when a gear chews up the smaller lighter ones.
I love the studless look of NXT (the best thing LEGO did IMO), and would love to see what LEGO think
And I like the idea that they are building / developing something based off our wishlist.
So, LEGO - can you give us some more teasers?
The motors are designed. We only saw one light revision of the RCX motors and that was 4 years in. No size change (of course, unneeded), just making it even cheaper to build.
The wires are built so that kids can tug, pull, rip, and yank by them without damage. This much abuse to the old wires would damage them. I've seen people in high positions pick robots up by the wires - it makes me cringe.
So, LEGO, if you can make these improvements that'd be great. I like the torque on the motors, but they could be smaller and backlash could be minimized by making the spaces inbetween gear teeth in the final stage(s) smaller.
What would I like? Cheaper motors (buying individually). It's not worth it to purchase them separately. How about $5-$10 a piece.
Oh, and of course, we need all of the electronics, but in BLACK and/or GREEN :)
Josh
I think we will get new motors, but they probably won't have built in encoders. The motors for the new power functions sets are certainly NXT compatible except for the connector. Would be nice to see an IR transmitter/receiver so we could use the NXT to talk to the power function receiver or listen to the remote.
A problem with LEGO teasing us this way is that we will come up with better ideas than the products that they deliver. It's dangerous to compete against an imagination unfettered by cost and manufacturing considerations.
Josh
non-toxic cables - very nice I am so pleased cos I just chew on those babies all the time :)
One more very important item I want addressed is bluetooth coms speed - this has to be be the no 1 for me. Without a decent communications speed nothing very complex will ever be created with NXT - trying to get two brains acting as one is impossible with the slave write to server read time at almost 1/4 of a second. With the processor improvement you would expect decent coms, RCX coms were/are so much faster and with older technology. This has to be addressed to create a robot that will make NXT famous.
I sure don't know what kind of language you are using, but sending data within an NXC program for me is a good deal faster than that!
Oh and I can't wait to see what Lego comes out with next, I hear its good from the occasional snippet. How about daisy-chainable pneumatic actuators? xD :-) :-D !!
- flash memory is getting cheap! Time for NXT 2.0 with bigger memory.
- color screen - even $30 pic-n-roll mp3 players have it
- remember last operation, so that after resuming from auto power-off, you don't have to hit 5 buttons to get to your program.
- motor multiplexor, for more motors.
- better bluetooth compatibility
- do not charge for a "dot" software version upgrade. Make it a free download.
If you want a port expander go buy one from Mindsensors right now. No need to wait. Same goes for new sensors. Better ultrasonics, color light sensors, compass sensors. They are all out there.
Programming language development is slower than I expected. But I'm in no position to complain as I have done nothing to improve the situation. If you don't like NXT-G get ROBOLAB or RobotC, which are reasonably priced, or LabView, Java, NBC, Lua or others for free.
As for color, have you ever tried paint? I've been thinking the NXT would look good in Fire Engine Red. Maybe some flames or a racing stripe.
And non-toxic cables are a very nice feature from a product liability and child safety standpoint.