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Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

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Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#21

Post by cbhl »

yon1237 wrote: post #5
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, block-based "programming" does allow children/newbies to construct something that works. On the other hand, almost nothing usable is being programmed this way. So I'd say it's more or less fine as a kind of introduction to general rules of programming, but the sooner you get to the actual code, the better. That said, microcontroller programming is something…

I think it's more about teaching kids/newbies to think in a programming way. That can be language agnostic. You're essentially trying to achieve something "complex" using simple instructions. At a basic level that's a great way to learn programming. As the problems get more complex it becomes obvious why paradigms & architectures exist, and your programming skills can improve.

I think that's the thing? Block programming languages come from folks who write "CS education" literature as opposed to the "new programming languages" literature. They're turing complete, because curriculums require teaching the use of if statements and for loops, but that's about it.

If I actually wanted to use a block language at my day job I'd want affordances for larger, more complex programs. Compiler or JIT, copy/paste, zooming in and out of parts of programs (ala Prezi or something), integration with source control diff tools, C extensions / integration with existing code, console output, file I/O, etc.

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#24

Post by thanatos519 »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
_trampeltier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be long, until Lego start to change the brick size.

That's already happened, twice even. There is 'duplo' and there is 'Modulex': https://www.newelementary.com/2017/11/old-bricks-what-are-mo...

Duplo is Lego-compatible. A 2x4 Lego brick fits exactly onto 1x2 Duplo studs. A Duplo brick is 2x the height of a Lego brick, and a Duplo plate is 1x the height of a Lego brick.

It's fun to build large structures quickly with Duplo then detail them with Lego!

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#25

Post by jacquesm »

thanatos519 wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already happened, twice even. There is 'duplo' and there is 'Modulex': https://www.newelementary.com/2017/11/old-bricks-what-are-mo...

Duplo is Lego-compatible. A 2x4 Lego brick fits exactly onto 1x2 Duplo studs. A Duplo brick is 2x the height of a Lego brick, and a Duplo plate is 1x the height of a Lego brick. It's fun to build large structures quickly with Duplo then detail them with Lego!

There are even ways to connect Modulex bricks to regular Lego, some people have figured out some interesting tricks.

Which allows you to take that strategy to the next level.

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#26

Post by jacquesm »

lnsru wrote: post #17
rsre wrote: post #2

When I was young I always enjoyed playing with Mindstorms. It was my first experience programming. For me it was amusing that I could build some robot with Lego and make it retrieve a ball from our living room. Sadly jumping from the block oriented programming to "real" programming of the Hitachi H8 microcontroller was not very straight forward, so I kind of hit a wall in that regard. Maybe this collaboration will ac…

Luckily now we have Arduino that hides all the nasty stuff from users. There are 2 basic blocks: unit and loop. Adding repeating code blocks into loop block isn’t that hard. Jumping from Mindstorms to Arduino shouldn’t be a big difference.

My 9 year old son gets this so for any adult it shouldn't be a huge hurdle. Arduino is a very nice little platform.

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#27

Post by jacquesm »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #4
rsre wrote: post #2

When I was young I always enjoyed playing with Mindstorms. It was my first experience programming. For me it was amusing that I could build some robot with Lego and make it retrieve a ball from our living room. Sadly jumping from the block oriented programming to "real" programming of the Hitachi H8 microcontroller was not very straight forward, so I kind of hit a wall in that regard. Maybe this collaboration will ac…

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, block-based "programming" does allow children/newbies to construct something that works. On the other hand, almost nothing usable is being programmed this way. So I'd say it's more or less fine as a kind of introduction to general rules of programming, but the sooner you get to the actual code, the better. That said, microcontroller programming is something…

Block based programming allows people to make working applications these days. See: Mendix, Labview, Betty Blocks and many many others besides.

PLCs have historically used ladder diagrams, which are also not 'code'. I've seen Excel spreadsheets that you would have been hard pressed to replicate using code.

Programming in its very essence is telling a machine what to do, what form that comes in isn't all that relevant, and code is just one of those forms.

'actual code' is not a requirement for programming.

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#28

Post by mschuster91 »

rsre wrote: post #2

When I was young I always enjoyed playing with Mindstorms. It was my first experience programming. For me it was amusing that I could build some robot with Lego and make it retrieve a ball from our living room. Sadly jumping from the block oriented programming to "real" programming of the Hitachi H8 microcontroller was not very straight forward, so I kind of hit a wall in that regard. Maybe this collaboration will ac…

> Sadly jumping from the block oriented programming

Jesus, that is what I call a trip down memory lane! I wonder what happened to my RCX.

Re: Raspberry Pi Build HAT – Controls Lego Technic motors and sensors

#30

Post by stavros »

moritonal wrote: post #16

First time I've seen the STEAM acronym (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math). Described as: "While these initiatives are a wonderful start into the exploration of these four areas of study, the critical process of creativity and innovation is missing. Students in STEM programs may have more experiential learning opportunities, but they are limited to only science, technology, engineering and math. Our eco…

I agree that adding arts in there is kind of assuming that otherwise all these boring STEM people wouldn't have any way to create things. Which seems backwards. There's a huge creation component in STEM, especially in engineering, as if you aren't creating something, you aren't doing engineering.

I don't know if I agree with the second point about excluding arts people, it sounds like you want them to be forced to learn STEM, which I don't agree with. Let people let what they want to learn, but STEM by definition could not exist without creativity.

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