Mindstorms NXT 1.0 > 2.0

[astra]

As an owner of Mindstorms NXT 1.0 and also owner of Mindstorms RCX, I started wondering. Back in the days that Lego introduced Mindstorms, they came with version 1.0. I was so amazed by this set that I ordered one in the United States to get it shipped to my house, I was probably one of the first people in the Netherlands to have one

After a while 1.5 came out and for the owners of 1.0 an upgrade kit was made available, containing some extra parts, a new CD-ROM and a new instruction manual. Samething happened when the RCX got upgraded to 2.0, and both times I bought the upgrade and stayed up to date while having a lot of fun with the Mindstorms kit.

Now that Mindstorms NXT 2.0 has been released, does anyone know if Lego is releasing, or thinking about releasing, an upgrade kit from 1.0 to 2.0 like they did with the RCX? I mean, the main item, the control unit, hasn't changed...

I would certainly want to have one, but am not willing to buy the whole set again...

[astra]

Am I really the only one wanted some kind of an upgrade set for 1.0?

Or is it simply so that no one knows if it's coming or not...

[CP5670]

It's probably the latter. The main new thing is the color sensor, which you can buy separately anyway. If they have made changes to the NXT firmware, I'm guessing the new one will be available on the Lego site at some point.

[Burf2000]

I just been looking at nxt 2, wish i got it off ebay when it was selling for £129. I thought the color sensor would be the hitechnic one but its not, has anyone seen them sell this new sensor anywhere?

Also will the models instruction book be put online?

[astra]

I don't know...

I did contact Lego to ask if they are planning to release some sort of upgrade kit, the customer representative told me that at this moment this is not available (duh..) but that she will give my question to the appropriate department and that they will take a look into this.

I do think that the sensor will become available eventually, all the other sensors are also for sale separately.

[Legoman]

I thought the color sensor would be the hitechnic one but its not, has anyone seen them sell this new sensor anywhere?

Wait.... there's 2 different colour sensors? Whats the difference, does anyone know?

[Dryw Filtiarn]

The color sensor that comes with the NXT 2.0 is NOT the sensor Hi-technic used to make! It's a higher quality one, which is able to detect more colors and more accurately. I have heard though that Hi-technic will come with a new color sensor that will beat the one of the NXT 2.0 again which has an even wider range of colors that it can detect.

[Legoman]

I personally want 2 of the new (non hitechnic) ones, but they're not on BL yet Does anyone know how to upload parts to BL? I tried, but it didn't work...

[Dryw Filtiarn]

The new color sensors aren't even up on S@H yet, so I think you'll have to wait for a bit till the get available through Lego. I think chances are slim that people will part out the NXT 2.0 to sell again at this time.

[astra]

Last weekend I've done some research towards the differences between NXT 1.0 en 2.0. Turns out that a lot of parts are different between the two sets. In fact, the difference is so big that I don't think Lego will bring us an upgrade kit.

I've compared the inventory of both sets using Peeron and the difference-list was quite big. (if someone's interested, pm me and I will e-mail a copy)

However, I don't think I will buy the 2.0 set. I like 1.0 very much but I can't seem to find the time to do a lot with it, so spending €250 on a set I will hardly use is a bit much. But I'm going to order the parts on Bricklink and do an upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0 myself, using the HiTechnic colorsensor.

Now only I have to find someone who is willing to send/sell me the NXT 2.0 software, that's something Bricklink doesn't have 'in stock' (yet?).

[Bricktrain]

Last weekend I've done some research towards the differences between NXT 1.0 en 2.0. Turns out that a lot of parts are different between the two sets. In fact, the difference is so big that I don't think Lego will bring us an upgrade kit.

I've compared the inventory of both sets using Peeron and the difference-list was quite big. (if someone's interested, pm me and I will e-mail a copy)

However, I don't think I will buy the 2.0 set. I like 1.0 very much but I can't seem to find the time to do a lot with it, so spending €250 on a set I will hardly use is a bit much. But I'm going to order the parts on Bricklink and do an upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0 myself, using the HiTechnic colorsensor.

Now only I have to find someone who is willing to send/sell me the NXT 2.0 software, that's something Bricklink doesn't have 'in stock' (yet?).

There will be more copies available on Bricklink, I know 3 have been sold already. But as there are only 2 main parts different there is not a lot of value in parting out the sets, they will come eventually though.

[astra]

Hmm. ok. Those copies went fast then, I think. I really haven't seen them. Oh well, first I have to collect all of the different parts before I can start worrying about the software

[Parax]

Also will the models instruction book be put online?

Its all in the NXT 2.0 Software! no instruction booklet as such!

I really think an upgrade kit should be available from Lego S@H (Just a parts bag and CD, no fancy box!)

which should include NXTG2 software (this may become available as a seperate CD like 1.1 did) its is a lot less buggy than NXTG1 (or 1.1) and has some useful features like the Data logging and is no longer integer only!

This is also being discussed on NXTStep at the moment (click here) regarding the books for NXT 1 set not working with NXT 2 set.

so perhaps they need these three items:

a set 1 > 2 upgrade Kit (so you can build NXT2 Models (official and from books) with NXT1 Set)

a set 2 < 1 downgrade kit (so you can build from the NXT1 Books with the NXT2 Set)

an NXTG2.0 CD Pack

I'm sure the colour sensor will be available soon, as with the other sensors.

BTW does anyone else have trouble with the colour LED offset on the colour sensor? or is it just me?

P.

Edited October 28, 2009 by Parax

[astra]

hmm... would be nice, but like what I said a couple of posts back, the difference in parts (numbers and types) is very big. I counted over 50 pieces which are of a different type or have a different amount of them in the set. And that's not counting the software, booklet or sensor...

I definitely would buy an upgrade set if available, but I don't think this will ever happen.

[Jetro]

AS said above, thank god there's BL!

BTW does anyone else have trouble with the colour LED offset on the colour sensor? or is it just me?

P.

The position of the elements (LED, Colour sensor, Light Sensor) does make it a little complicate to connect to a Fibre Optics cable

[Burf2000]

I got hitechnic colour sensor off ebay (not sure if its v1 or v2 yet) and though its cool I cant think of a real reason I need it yet

The v1 software was crap, I went and brought RobotC as I just found it sooo bad (I am a programmer). So v2 software could be a positive reason to get it.

Unless its a present or cheap. I wont be getting nxt 2. Brinklink, Hitechnic and RobotC all the way

[Dryw Filtiarn]

The v2 software is still crap I believe. I'm a programmer by profession as well and I can't work with this visual programming thing. Just give me raw code to write and I can manage a lot better.

Although I must say that the software definitely improved, it's more stable now at least. I should be doing a proper check to see it's full potential, haven't done that so far.

[Jetro]

The v2 software is still crap I believe... [snip] I should be doing a proper check to see it's full potential, haven't done that so far.

Interesting opinion given the fact that you haven't really checked.

And when you do, please bear in mind that this is a piece of software that was designed to be use by kids aged 10-16 with the aim to make it as accessible and non-breakable as possible. If after that you still believe it could be improved you may well be right, but it's a lot more powerful that the previous LEGO Programming Environment, RIS.

[Dryw Filtiarn]

Interesting opinion given the fact that you haven't really checked.

And when you do, please bear in mind that this is a piece of software that was designed to be use by kids aged 10-16 with the aim to make it as accessible and non-breakable as possible. If after that you still believe it could be improved you may well be right, but it's a lot more powerful that the previous LEGO Programming Environment, RIS.

I entirely agree on that it's fine for kids and certainly is better then the software that came with the RIS. But for ME it's just a piece of crap. As you could have read I'm a programmer and for that category of people the visual programming thing isn't general the way they want to work.

[Burf2000]

Hmm, to be honest RIS software for its time (+ Robot Lab) was a lot simplier than the NXT software however I would say it is a lot more limited. I tried to do the simplest things in NXT 1 and it was horrible. RIS has always been quite easy to use to me and good for testing simple things.

I would say RIS would work for 10 to say 14 year olds and NXT 14-16

[Dryw Filtiarn]

I believe that both are quite similar, although the NXT software is somewhat more powerful and has more features, which in some cases makes it a bit harder to work with compared to the RIS software. This difference is of course mainly due to the fact that the NXT is far more advanced then the RIS was.

[Jetro]

Although both are visual programming languages that use blocks, there is a huge difference between RIS and NXT-G. NXT-G is very much more powerful, although it will take someone used to programming in a text language some time to get the gang of it... the oder in which you need to do certain things and the way the program is built up are quite different in some aspects. On the other hand, the MyBlock capability of NXT-G allows you to create reusable code blocks that can be called several times inside the same program. You can also have parallel tasks which was impossible in RIS.

NXT-G compares a lot better to RoboLab since you can pass data through wires between blocks, but in NXT-G you only need wires if you go beyond basic use because all the blocks are immediately connected to a beam. At the same time it is a little harder to see the configuration of each block as you need to click on it before you can see that data.

[Balrog]

Sorry to bring this topic back up, since the discussion got offtopic anyway.

I found the upgrade and downgrade kits from inanimatereason. Did anyone purchase one of these yet? The kit itself wouldn't be too expensive, but the delivery cost is pretty high from the US to germany (which cuts the deal a lot), so I'd rather purchase this from somewhere in germany or europe at least.

Does someone have a idea? Else I could assemble this myself at bricklink, but the complete version would be more attractive in my opinion. Thanks for any hints.

[Burf2000]

Sorry to bring this topic back up, since the discussion got offtopic anyway.

I found the upgrade and downgrade kits from inanimatereason. Did anyone purchase one of these yet? The kit itself wouldn't be too expensive, but the delivery cost is pretty high from the US to germany (which cuts the deal a lot), so I'd rather purchase this from somewhere in germany or europe at least.

Does someone have a idea? Else I could assemble this myself at bricklink, but the complete version would be more attractive in my opinion. Thanks for any hints.

I seen these sold on eBay UK to

[Balrog]

I seen these sold on eBay UK to

Ebay was a good hint. Didn't think about that before, just found someone who sells all the technic parts from NXT 2.0 for about the same price as the inofficial upgrade kit would cost. Well we will see, but I guess I just order it.