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Lego Mindstorms

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LEGO Mindstorms is the name given to the consumer version of the LEGO Company's product line that includes programmable bricks along with motors, sensors, LEGO bricks, and LEGO Technic pieces (gears, axles, beams, pneumatic components etc.) to build robots and other automated or interactive systems. Although technically a toy, LEGO Mindstorms can also be used (as originally planned by LEGO and MIT) as an educational tool; it is a good example of an embedded system with computer-controlled electromechanical parts.

The RCX programmable brick contains a Renesas H8/300 microcontroller as its internal computer. The brick is programmed by downloading a program written in one of several available programming languages* from a PC to the brick via a special IR interface. After program downloading and starting, an RCX-enabled Mindstorms creation may function totally on its own, acting on internal and external stimuli according to the programmed instructions.

(* RCX Code, NQC, ROBOLAB, pbForth, Visual BASIC, C )

References

  • Benjamin Erwin; Creative Projects with LEGO Mindstorms; ISBN 0201708957; Addison-Wesley 2001 (Book and CD-ROM ed.)
  • Dave Baum; Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS, 2nd Ed.; ISBN 1590590635; APress 2002
  • Ferrari et.al.; Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms : The Ultimate Tool for Mindstorms Maniacs; ISBN 1928994679; Syngress 2001
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