Michael Collins' LEGO NXT With Perl

Tuesday, January 2. 2007

How to use LEGO::NXT on the Mac Posted by Michael Collins at 16:43

How to use LEGO::NXT on the Mac

First follow the instructions here:
http://juju.org/articles/2006/08/01/mindstorms-nxt-bluetooth-on-osx

Once that works, you can plug the MacBlueComm module in to the LEGO::NXT constructor.

my $dev = new LEGO::NXT::MacBlueComm('/dev/tty.NXT-DevB-1');
my $bt = new LEGO::NXT( $dev );

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Monday, December 11. 2006

Hooorray!!!! LEGO-NXT-2.00 RELEASED!!!! Posted by Michael Collins at 03:07

Hooorray!!!! LEGO-NXT-2.00 RELEASED!!!!

Yes, it's true! Version 2.00 is now released. Included in this version is a new modular comm architecture AND Mac OSX Support!!! Also, I've added the entire host of system level calls in addition to the simple direct commands!
Have Fun!!! As always, email me with bugs/problems!

Best,

Michael Collins

Tuesday, November 7. 2006

USB Support update Posted by Michael Collins in Linux USB at 15:34

USB Support update

Users having trouble accessing the LEGO NXT USB device under Linux 
(using udev) as a non-root user should...

Create a udev rules file:
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-lego.rules 

And populate this file with the following contents:

# Lego NXT
BUS="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}="0694", MODE="0666"

This will cause the usb device node for the NXT to be created with the 
correct mode when connected.

Tuesday, October 17. 2006

How to check out bleeding edge SVN... Posted by Michael Collins in LEGO::NXT at 01:09

Comments (16)

How to check out bleeding edge SVN...

Here's how to check out bleeding edge development on the LEGO::NXT module:

svn co svn://ivorycity.com/nxt

If you have ideas/contributions in mind, please email me your ideas and I will give you commit access

Have fun!!!

Saturday, October 7. 2006

NEW!!! USB Support! Posted by Michael Collins in LEGO::NXT at 05:02

Comments (3)

NEW!!! USB Support!

Cool news! 

In the svn checkout, I implemented USB communication layer support! 

It's quite a bit faster than bluetooth, if you don't mind being wired. 
This will be released in 2.0  along with support for system commands 
and some higher-level interfaces. As always, progress is available in 
svn.

Have fun!!

--Michael

Wednesday, October 4. 2006

Version 1.42 Released Posted by Michael Collins in LEGO::NXT at 16:33

Version 1.42 Released

Version 1.42 of LEGO::NXT has been released!

Wednesday, October 4. 2006

How to get a reading with the ... Posted by Michael Collins in LEGO::NXT at 16:19

How to get a reading with the ultrasound sensor

use LEGO::NXT;
use LEGO::NXT::Constants qw(:DEFAULT);

my $addr = '';
my $port = 1;

my $bt = new LEGO::NXT($addr,$port);

$bt->initialize_ultrasound_port($NXT_SENSOR_4);

for(;;)
{
  my $res = $bt->get_ultrasound_measurement_byte($NXT_SENSOR_4,0);
  print "There is something ".$res->{data}." units away from me \n";
}

Wednesday, October 4. 2006

How to get your motors running! Posted by Michael Collins in LEGO::NXT at 16:11

How to get your motors running!

use LEGO::NXT;
use LEGO::NXT::Constants qw(:DEFAULT);

my $addr = '';
my $port  = 1;

my $bt = new LEGO::NXT($addr,$port);

my $speed = 100;
my $tachoticks = 360;

$bt->set_output_state(
  $NXT_NORET, 
  $NXT_MOTOR_A, 
  $speed, 
  $NXT_MOTOR_ON|$NXT_REGULATED, 
  $NXT_REGULATION_MODE_MOTOR_SPEED,
  0, 
  $NXT_MOTOR_RUN_STATE_RUNNING, 
  $tachoticks
);

Monday, October 2. 2006

How to get started with Linux ... Posted by Michael Collins in Linux Bluetooth at 04:57

Comments (2)
Trackbacks (15)

How to get started with Linux Bluetooth and the NXT:

Assumptions:
1) You have a bluetooth adapter.
2) You already have a kernel with the bluez modules loaded. (I use debian 2.4.27)
3) You've installed bluez-utils

* There are already many documents available on how to do these tasks.

Okay, there are some tools you need to familiarize yourself with:
hciconfig - displays status information on your bluetooth interface (similar to ifconfig)
hcitool - used to query all kinds of information about bluetooth devices in your piconet
sdptool - used to create and query "service description protocol" bluetooth services, like SP=serial port
rfcomm - establishes connections to remote bluetooth services or listens for incomming service connections

Testing out Your Bluetooth Connection:

You will first need to get your bluez daemons running.
On debian, this looks like:

/etc/init.d/bluez-utils start

On Gentoo, I think it's

/etc/init.d/bluetooth start

Check that your connection is working:

hciconfig hci0

You should see something like:

hci0: Type: USB
BD Address: 00:0E:A1:31:57:48 ACL MTU: 377:10 SCO MTU: 16:0
UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
RX bytes:15156 acl:468 sco:0 events:799 errors:0
TX bytes:11447 acl:450 sco:0 commands:198 errors:0

Hint: I have an AmbiCom USB bluetooth adapter. For whatever reason I need to issue the following command to get it started:

hciconfig hci0 reset

So, now, make sure your NXT is on,
make sure bluetooth on the NXT is on,
cross your fingers,
and then type:

hcitool scan

If everything went to plan, you should see:

Scanning ...
00:16:53:00:23:E4 NXT

Good. Now you can use the Nxt.pm module!

Download the Nxt Perl API: Download

Try to run the included test program:

tar xvzf LEGO-NXT-1.41.tar.gz
cd LEGO-NXT-1.41
perl test.pl <xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx>

You should hear your NXT make a chirping sound. :)

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