NXT mindstorm drawing robot

Question

I am a high school student and am thinking of making a robot that draws using different colored markers. I would like some guidance as to where I should start with this program.

What I want to do is to construct a program on the computer where you could draw the path you want the robot to draw and then using the bluetooth dongle and the bluetooth developer kit I would send the command to the robot to draw the path for real.

Answer 1

Well, that isn't exactly easy. But, I would presume the easiest way to do this is with the Mindstorm's kit. I have seen that you can code for the Mindstorm using C++, but I don't know the kit that well to say what or where to get the libraries. I only played with it a long time ago. Then, I assume what it would do is setup a virtual COM port on your computer through bluetooth that you could use to communicate with the kit.

At least, that is in theory.

Answer 2

I would recommend trying the NXTComm library for Processing, as it would give you both the ability to control the robot, and to write a program reasonably easily to allow the user to draw the paths.

Answer 3

Another option is to have a program on the PC (written in a language of your choice) that generates a text file containing details about each line segment. This could then be sent to the robot via a USB cable.

A program on the brick could then parse the text file, and move accordingly.

There's no real need to use bluetooth here.