Stephen Coast - University College London

LEGO Programming with Open Source Tools

LEGO Mindstorms is a LEGO-based construction kit. It includes an intelligent brick which contains a processor, display and I/O functions designed for use by children.

Windows based programming and program-transfer tools are provided, however many Open Source tools have been written for use with Linux.

The intelligent brick is interfaced via I/R and a proprietry transciever provided by LEGO connected via serial or USB. When autonomous, the brick controls LEGO motors and receives input from various sensors sensitive to temperature, light and touch.

The graphical tools provided are very limiting to a professional programmer, including no recursion or access to the hardware. Open Source tools allow programming in C, Java and many others using either the existing kernel or a replacement. Tools for transferring code have also been written.

Detailed descriptions of the hardware and programming tools are presented, with live examples.