Robotics Resources

As my kids were growing up, I attempted to interest them and their friends in programming, with robotics as a tangible way of seeing their programming results. This page was built back then (~1999) as a helpful resource guide. Unfortunately, many of these links no longer work, so I'll need to spend some time updating this page.

Legos

Lego Mindstorms is perhaps the easiest robotics kit to build, and is very flexible, with its own programming language. Check out O'Reilly's excellent book; the web site also has links to several Mindstorms resources. I encourage students to learn "real" programming languages, like Smalltalk or Java, and find ways to hook these languages into Mindstorms. This is a test. Check out languages such as:

Bot-Kit - for Dolphin Smalltalk (does not work with MindStorms 2.0)
pbForth
NQC - Not Quite C
MacNQC
LegOS (defunct)

HISD Robotics

HISD's technology curriculum department is the coordinating group for robotics education activities in Houston. They host several robotics competitions throughout the school year, including the TCEA convention

Other

BEST Robotics
FIRST Robotics - a very advanced competition
First Lego League

Learning to program? Check out ToonTalk! Another excellent environment for beginners to work in (but is powerful enough for experts as well) is Squeak. You can download Squeak for free. And, for pure simplicity in a language, try Self.

Legos

HISD Robotics

Other

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