[Sugar-devel] Interesting USB-pluggable robots, controller boards, and sensors

[Samuel Greenfeld]

It sounds like what is desired is an update of a 10+ year-old thing I 
helped design called MIPPET -- "Module for Input/Output Programming 
Projects Enhancing Teaching" [1].

The interface we used was the parallel port, which made things easy at 
the time since USB 1.0 was in its infancy.  There was talk even then 
though of possibly doing a USB update, and we had a USB 1.0 development 
kit I played with a bit.

This was never mass sold to my knowledge, but I could try and research 
if any progress has been made on the USB update.  If not I could attempt 
it or nudge other people to try and do so, although if this turns into 
someone's college project I would not expect to see a result until the 
fall semester.


(Extra credit goes to anyone who can figure out what MIPPET actually 
stands for and not the backronym the professor came up with.  It's not 
too hard to find, so I'm not certain what it will get you.)

[1] Described a bit in the document at 
http://www.rowan.edu/mars/compsci/CS1labs/Mippet.ppt with pictures.   
Example coursework which probably could be ported to Python/Turtleart 
(or more likely Etoys with its collision detection) at 
http://www.rowan.edu/mars/compsci/cs1labs/SIGCSE03.htm .


On 3/17/2011 2:56 AM, Kevin Mark wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 11:45:15AM +1100, forster at ozonline.com.au wrote:
>> Hi
>> An exciting new robotics idea from Guzman Trinidad.
>>
>> Turtle Art is programmed to produce two different frequencies. The headphone output of the XO is connected to a pair of LM567 integrated circuit tone decoders, each of which lights a LED when its input signal frequency is present. With this principle we could control any device.
>>
>>   *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVzVlAZsz1w*
>>
>> To be widely adopted, robotics kits need to be low cost and be "low entry high ceiling". Guzman's idea has the potential to lower the cost.
>>
>> My estimates:
>>
>> Lego NXT $500
>> Lego Wedo $170
>> Scratch sensor board $45
>> Arduino $40
>> PICAXE $15 (http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/picaxe14m-starter-pack)
>> LM567 decoder board $?
>>
>> I am unaware if anybody has looked at the PICAXE and the XO, could be worth looking at.
>>
>> I am assuming that the cost of many of these kits is too high for the markets into which the XO is shipping.
>>
>> Tony
> I have a Ti Launchpad (a $4.30 USD + shipping?) micro-controller board that
> uses the msp430 line. I was able to compile msp430-gcc on the xo-1.5 and use it
> with mspdebug to upload firmware to it. I would assume someone with more
> knowledge than me could add a few more bits or a simple circut and add some
> software to turtle art to make it do something like the picaxe. The launchpad
> has 2 simple switches, 2 LEDS and an internal temp sensor (on 1 of the 2
> included chips) and it includes a usb cable.
>