TechniChriS

Edison - fun robotics for tomorrow's inventors!

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Edison - fun robotics for tomorrow's inventors!

Have you ever wanted to get into robotics, but found it too difficult or expensive?

Meet Edison...

  • Affordable – Less than $40 each and less than $30 each for a full class set
  • Programmable – Free open source graphical programming software
  • LEGO® compatible – Modular and easily expandable
  • Easy to use – Has many pre-programmed functions activated by barcodes
  • Remote control – Learns commands from TV/DVD remote controls
  • Suitable for all ages – From 5 to 95
  • Built to last – Yes, the car scene in the video is real!

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https://www.kickstar...rrows-inventors

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I reckon "mindstorm" and Technic have never get on well together......I mean pure Lego technic fans tend to stay away from mindstorm!

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I reckon "mindstorm" and Technic have never get on well together......I mean pure Lego technic fans tend to stay away from mindstorm!

not quite get the point... why do pure LEGO Technic fans tend to stay away from Mindstorm?

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Cos from my point of view, and for what I've seen so far, Mindstorm it's more based on "softwares, programming, electronics" applied on simple technic/non technic models, and most of the time for "explorating and learning porpouse", suck as studentish things. Techinic designer/players prefer to have a "ontime" controls of the functions, rather than programming a machine that does it for you. Plus the way of thinking it's completely dfifferent, we have motors, LA actuators, and funcions. So an INPUT, a mechanism and a movement. Pure technic and mechanical, it's there, you can see it. Where programming or telling a software to move your creations sounds like if there is a line between you and the model.

Hopefully makes sense.

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I reckon "mindstorm" and Technic have never get on well together......I mean pure Lego technic fans tend to stay away from mindstorm!

This is a Technic, Mindstorms and Model team forum.

Edison looks quite a good idea. A cheaper mindstorms system will certainly be accepted by schools :thumbup:

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This is a Technic, Mindstorms and Model team forum.

never meant to say that this is not the right area where to talk about it! All I said is that normally looks like technic designer/fans don't use mindstorm or similar. Although there are of course those who do. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

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Looks like a great idea. That orange suit though :tongue:

He is obviously proud to be Dutch.... :laugh:

I don't see the point of this robotic device other than it might be cheaper than NXT,but for those moc builders who like to use robotics in there models NXT is a far better solution.

Lego made WEDO which I think is very similar to this Edison thing.

Edited by Alasdair Ryan

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I think it looks interesting, as a kind of cheaper alternative to Mindstorms with not so many easily stealable parts :laugh: I use Mindstorms in education and I would definitely consider using this if it fits into my course plan especially if I am travelling and I don't want to carry several NXT units around with me plus lots of sensors etc. NXTs are not especially fragile, but they can be broken quite easily and are expensive to replace. Also to make it cheaper to use I would probably be happy to use clone brand bricks together with my clone brand Mindstorms :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Couple of points though:

- Lego have given up on sound sensors- they are practically unusable in a real classroom because it is too noisy- I think this will be a dead end in this device

- I would have preferred to see a colour sensor rather than a simple light sensor even if it added another few dollars to the price

- interesting that the software is available for Linux as well, that means it would probably be usable together with a Raspberry Pi to make a cheap complete system

- the communication method is a bit weird. Why not just use USB? It must be cheap enough

it will be interesting to see if the community adopts this little machine and produces homebrew sensors, alternative languages etc- I would like to see RobotC (for example) support this

EvilTwin

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Another thought :laugh:

I would guess that the main competitor to this product would not be NXT (or EV3) but cheap secondhand RCX units which can do nearly all the same things (and probably do many things better). RCXs can sometimes be bought for around UK£10-15 on eBay and have all the support from years of being available to the community.

EvilTwin

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I reckon "mindstorm" and Technic have never get on well together......I mean pure Lego technic fans tend to stay away from mindstorm!

Probably thinking from a point of view where n=1?

Edit: I have to do more study on using emoticons.

Edited by TechniChriS

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Probably thinking from a point of view where n=1?

Edit: I have to do more study on using emoticons.

Well, if EUROBRICKS forum is "n=1"....

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Mindstorms and technic do go well if you want to build an autonomous and sensor driven contraption - but that is very rarely what techinic builders want to do

Mindstorms = expensive quartz watch, chronograph, countdown timer, alarms, etc...

Technic = Seiko automatic watch with day date if you are lucky

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The price point is very interesting, so for educational purposes this can be great. Other than that I don't see this as a real competitor for Mindstorms.

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Love the price! I was going to buy an arduino but this may also be interesting. Can you remove wheels?

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I have updated the first post with some information.

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Love the price! I was going to buy an arduino but this may also be interesting. Can you remove wheels?

In the video you can see one of the units with 24z gear wheels where the wheels were so I guess so...

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oh no...not another LEGO related Kickstarter Project I need to spend money on... :wink:

A robotic base for 40€ ( retail ) is a good price especially for a LEGO compatible one. And I allways thought that a mindstorms set is more for education and robotic enthusiasts than for kids to get startet with robotics on their own.

Shure it has limited functionality but should be fun for younger builders. :thumbup:

Edited by gerkenz

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This looks like a really great product for kids, but since the sensors are built into the brick, it won't be of much use to advanced builders.

It does have some useful applications, though.

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Very interesting. For introductory settings, I can see this being very helpful, and I do love how many sensors are contained in the relatively small form factor, but...

While small compared to how much space all those equivalent Mindstorms sensors would be, I have a hard time picturing ways to incorporate multiple Edison units into a single model. Even then, getting them coordinated would be another challenge altogether.

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Is he Dutch or Australian... I'm getting a bit confused by the Kickstarter.

B.t.w. I think it is a great project, the EV3 sets are way too expensive for education. In my former school (I'm a tech / Informatics teacher), we had three, for the three FLL teams, but we could never have afforded upgrading our old NXT's to EV's in CS class.

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