Scratch

Agree. I really like what you did with BYOB and Catenary. It will be interesting to see how this "external sensor" functionality is handled in the next version of Scratch, which I suspect may be Flash or Javascript/HTML5 based.

HTML5 uses websockets, so if they go that route there may be way to use a serial proxy (maybe a version of serproxy tailored to the websocket protocol rather than TCP sockets). We'll have to see. I know that the Scratch folks are really interested in interfacing with the outside world (the room with the giant blue ceiling) so I'm confident they have something in mind 

I'm just speculating, though. Just thinking about that as one way to do it.

Hi Krackers.

My current vision on using a Scratch-like interface with the NXT is here.

The two extremes of possible approaches are as follows:

- create custom blocks with BYOB and create a more comprehensive, and easier-to-use interface program in leJOS that stands between Scratch and the NXT.

all the way up to:

- create a custom variant of Scratch that uses a Squeak VM plugin to interface with the NXT, and do so directly without the aid of a helper program, while also allowing one to export the program for uploading onto the robot so it can run it without the computer's help.

My preferences is to go more toward the second route.  Making sure you can use USB is important to me, as it is quicker and more reliable than Bluetooth.  (Unfortunately, just using Bluetooth would be easier, as you can tell the OS to make the bluetooth connection appear as a serial port, and Scratch is already capable of sending commands over a serial port.)

I have a fair bit of learning to do first.  I'm still reading the book "Squeak By Example."  While I am a good programmer, Squeak (the language Scratch is written in) is unfamiliar to me, which makes it really hard to guess how long it'll take to do things.  My goal is to have something usable by the end of August.

I do want whatever I make to work with all the NXT sets -- The educational set, the 1.0 set, or the 2.0 set.  Most likely people will have to put a custom or updated firmware onto their NXT.

I'll be quite happy to enlist your aid in testing.

What does your Python version do, and how far did you get with it?

Krackers,

That is really cool where you go to with your python version.  Python is one of my favourite languages.  I've tried one of the Python-to-NXT libraries in the past, but had trouble getting libusb to compile and pyusb to work on my Mac.  It seems that the Bluetooth worked OK, but it was slow getting a connection.

I glanced at that PyPySqueak page.  I'm not quite sure what it is -- are they using PyPy to build a Squeak image with python bindings?  It doesn't look like it is under active development.

I'd be happy to have your help, and, if you think you can persuade a Panther developer to help out, that'd be great!  I think building custom blocks really isn't all that difficult, and is the sort of thing I'll need to be able to do to have sufficient knowledge to meet my other objectives with Enchanting.

I'm not sure what you mean about Squeak having support for USB.  Lego ships a device driver for connecting with the NXT (from Mac or Windows) that is written in C++ and called fantom.  Other people have used LibUSB under Linux to talk to an NXT over USB.  Anyways, I believe that Squeak can be extended with plugins written in C, which, in turn, can access a wrapper to code in C++ ... ultimately making it possible to add support for connecting to an NXT from Squeak.

How would you like to e-mail me?  I'd love to discuss things further with you, and find out more about what skills and passion you can bring to bear on this project.