Whenever I see an advertisement for Lego these days, it makes me wish I was born some twenty years later. When I was a kid, the most high tech kits available from Lego were the pneumatic sets. While those sets were cool, they are nothing compared to the stuff that’s available today, and the most impressive of them all is this one.
With the Lego Mindstorms NXT kit, you can build your own robots and program them from your computer. The brain of the kit is the NXT unit, a 32-bit microprocessor that connects to your computer through a USB port. The NXT unit has an LCD display, a speaker, three input ports and four output ports. Included are a sound sensor, a light sensor, a touch sensor, an ultrasonic motion sensor and three advanced servo motors.
The programming environment works on a PC and a Mac; no Linux support, although I wouldn’t be surprised is third party software is already available. Programming the NXT unit is done with intuitive drag-and-drop controls. And finally, if you have a Bluethooth enabled cellphone, you can use it to control your creations!
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