Programming LEGO mindstorms NXT with visual programming

Abstract

Lego Company has made a programmable robot set named Mindstorms NXT(NXT). This set comes with several types of sensors, motor, and programmable brick. The NXT set is provided with visual programming environment. Novice programmer can easily make a program for robot using this visual programming environment. The software of NXT is based on National Instruments' Lab VIEW. Also, Microsoft developed a platform called Microsoft Robotics Studio(MSRS) which is aimed to support all types of robot. MSRS also provides visual programming environment named Visual Programming Language(MVPL). Both programming environment are in user friendly interface which programmers just have to drag an icon and release it on the main program screen to use it. Fluent knowledge on programming is needed to work with robot and this affects novice user to restrain to study robotics. However, visual programming can reduce the hesitation of novice user to start programming robots. In this paper, MSRS VPL programming environment and NXT programming environment was used to run the same task using the same robot. Characteristics, merits, and demerits of the each environment was compared and evaluated to introduce a guideline for an efficient method to learn robot using visual programming.