Using Python to Program LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots: The PyNXC Project

LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT (Lego Group, 2006) is a perfect platform for introducing programming concepts, and is generally targeted toward children from age 8-14. The language which ships with the MINDSTORMS®, called NXTg, is a graphical language based on LabVIEW (Jeff Kodosky, 2010). Although there is much value in graphical languages, such as LabVIEW, a text-based alternative can be targeted at an older audiences and serve as part of a more general introduction to modern computing. Other languages, such as NXC (Not Exactly C) (Hansen, 2010) and PbLua (Hempel, 2010), fit this description. Here we introduce PyNXC, a subset of the Python language which can be used to program the NXT MINDSTORMS®. We present results using PyNXC, comparisons with other languages, and some challenges and future possible extensions

Model-driven engineering approach to design and implementation of robot control system

In this paper we apply a model-driven engineering approach to designing domain-specific solutions for robot control system development. We present a case study of the complete process, including identification of the domain meta-model, graphical notation definition and source code generation for subsumption architecture -- a well-known example of robot control architecture. Our goal is to show that both the definition of the robot-control architecture and its supporting tools fits well into the typical workflow of model-driven engineering development.Comment: Presented at DSLRob 2011 (arXiv:cs/1212.3308