Page 18 - The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots

7

• Two touch sensors and one light sensor are included in the RIS set. Wiring the sensors to the RCX is as simple as snapping
LEGO bricks together.

• The set also includes two motors. Like the sensors, they can be connected to the RCX by just snapping LEGO bricks
together.

• The RCX uses six standard AA batteries for power. It also includes a power jack. You can supply power in either polarity,
even AC, from 9V to 12V.

• The set includes more than 700 LEGO pieces that you can use to build the body of the robot.

• You can write programs for the brain using an intuitivé, highly visual programming environment on your PC. Programs are
sent to the RCX over an infrared (IR) data link. The set includes an IR tower that attaches to one of the serial ports on your PC.
Just point the tower at the RCX, and you're ready to download programs.

You don't need an electrical engineer anymore because the brain, sensors, and actuators that come with the RIS set are easy to
hook up. You don't need a computer programmer anymore because the programming environment is easy to use. And you
don't need a mechanical engineer because building a body is as simple as building a LEGO model.

Figure 1-1 illustrates the basic setup. Building a robot using MINDSTORMS consists of four steps:

1. Build the robot's body.

2. Write a program for the robot using software tools on your PC.

3. Download the program to the robot.

4. Run the program.

This is only a sketch of the process, of course; it's likely you'll repeat the steps many times as you gradually improve the
mechanical design and software of your robot.

You can create a program on your PC using the MINDSTORMS software. Then you need to download it to the RCX using the
IR link. Once the program is downloaded, your robot is ready to go.

Is it a good deal? Yes. You could build a comparable setup by buying the pieces separately, but it would cost more and would
not be nearly as easy to use.