Programming Tools

Exploring different types of programming tools

 MAIN
•
TOPICS:
Identify the different programming tools for constructing
a robot.
• Enumerate the different NXT Sensors used for robot
construction.
• Enumerate the blocks used in the NXT programming
environment.
Lesson 1 Programming Tools
Lesson 2 NXT Sensors
Lesson 3 Blocks Used in the NXT Programming
Environment
MECHANICAL TOOLS
1. Small vise: This is a device
consisting of two parallel jaws
for holding a workpiece; one of
the jaws is fixed and the other
movable by a screw, a lever, or
a cam.
MECHANICAL TOOLS
2. Hammer: A hammer is one of the standard tools you
will need.

3. Screwdrivers & Wrenches: Two spanners of equal

size are required for lock nutting.

4. Saw: Metal and wood saws. Miter saws can be very

handy but are pretty expensive. A miter box might
MECHANICAL TOOLS
5. Square, measuring tape, scriber, and
other marking out tools.
6. Vernier calipers: Allow very accurate
marking out and measurement. Also, they
can be used to check thread pitch on
machine screws without a dedicated pitch
gauge.
MECHANICAL TOOLS
7. Files: They are used especially
when working with metal, as rough
metal edges are sharp.
8. Centre Punch: Essential for
accurate drilling of holes in metal to
prevent the drill skating over the
surface.
 MECHANICAL TOOLS
9.Drill Press: (small tabletop versions suffice) is
very handy for drilling accurate holes. Can also
provide the low speeds for drilling large holes in
metal, which hand drills cannot do easily.
10.Hobby Tool: Useful for many purposes.
11.Sharp utility knifes: Mostly used when working
with plastics.
 MECHANICAL TOOLS
12. Hot glue guns: Handy for quickly mounting parts. Not too
strong bound, but useful for many applications.
13. Arc Welder: Only useful when working with thick steel on
large projects (use a gas welding torch for thin metal; arc welders
tend to burn holes right through the workpiece). Aluminum
cannot be welded with ordinary welders. (Unless you have a
MIG/MAG or TIG welder available)
 MECHANICAL TOOLS
14. Paint stripper/Electric Heat Gun: Like a
hairdryer on steroids. Useful for bending
plastics, also applying heat-shrink tubing to
electric cables at low power.
15. Safety Goggles: You only get one pair of
eyes, and machine tools are potentially
dangerous. Safety goggles are essential for
using anything other than hand tools.
ELECTRONIC
TOOLS
Exploring different types of electronic tools
Soldering Iron
The soldering iron is a very useful tool for
assembling electronic circuits and
connecting copper wires together.
For electronic circuits you will need a light
soldering iron (~25W) with a small point
(shaped like a pencil point). Especially SMD
components require small points (or even
better: special SMD soldering points).
Soldering Iron
For connecting metal wires, you will need something more powerful
(30W-100W) like a soldering pistol, but an ordinary soldering iron
would do just as well. Copper is easy to solder and has a reasonable
strong bond. Aluminum has a weak bond.
For stronger connections it is better to braze instead of soft soldering.
Brazing involves higher temperatures (typical between 450°C and
1000°C) and different flux ("Borax") and solder (copper and zinc or
silver alloys) it also requires a welding torch instead of a soldering
iron.
Breadboard
Breadboard
The boards allow you to build a temporary circuit in no time.
Especially handy for testing new circuits. Connections are made with
either ordinary thin stiff wire with the insulation removed at the ends
or with special breadboard wires with stronger tips. Wires with
crocodile clamps are needed for hooking up signal generator,
oscilloscope, DMM, etc. Larger boards have connectors (typically
banana plugs) for the power supply.
There are small breadboards with an adhesive strip at the bottom.
These can be mounted on an empty part of a microcontroller board and
can be used to build small circuits.
 Electronic Equipment
• Multimeter: measures voltage, current &
resistance. Many can measure transistor and
diode characteristics, frequency, and capacity.
Some can measure temperature or light
intensity.
o Note: measuring voltage and current of an AC
source is not as simple as measuring DC
levels. But since robots rarely use AC, this would
be out of the scope.
 Electronic Equipment
Oscilloscope: makes an electric signal visible. Very useful
when working with more complicated electronic circuits,
especially analog signals, and data communication.
Oscilloscopes exist as stand-alone devices or as add-on
modules for PCs. The latter provides extra abilities like
spectrum analyzing and recording of signals.
Variable power supplies: power supplies with variable
output. Either AC or DC. Either the output voltage or
current can be regulated, although most power supplies let
you set a max current.
 Electronic Equipment
• Signal generators: generates different shapes of signals (sine, square, saw
and triangle), with variable frequency (1Hz up to 100MHz) and amplitude.
• Logic probe: pen-like devices that detect logic levels (either TTL or
CMOS). Most can detect pulse signals. Very handy when working with
digital electronic circuits.
• Frequency meters: measures the frequency of a signal. Can also be used as
a pulse counter. Oscilloscopes can be used for measuring frequency, and
storage scopes can freeze a waveform onscreen allowing pulses to be
manually counted, but frequency meters re a good investment if this needs to
be done very often
 Electronic Equipment
• LEDs: LEDs can be a valuable tool for testing digital circuits, offering advantages
over voltmeters in certain scenarios. They allow for simultaneous observation of
multiple input and output values without the need for numerous voltmeters or
constant checking with a logic probe. They are particularly useful for instantly
displaying the status of several logic signals at once, which is not possible with a
logic probe. Incorporating LEDs into breadboard setups can aid in verifying correct
power supply and detecting potential faults such as intermittent or noisy power
sources or component short-circuits during operation.
 Connectors
- Insulation Displacement Connectors (IDC)
Assembling parallel ribbon cables from ribbon and the
Practical Tips: IDC connectors:
1. Note that IDC ribbon cable is usually not provided with multicolored or
‘rainbow’ insulation, but with single-color insulation — usually grey or white.
However, it also has a stripe of colored ink or paint (red or black) down one side, to
guide you with connector orientation. If you need to strip away some of the wires
of a multi-way cable to suit the IDC connectors you are using, remove them from
the side furthest from the ink stripe so it’s still present on the cable.
 Practicall tips:
2. It’s usual to fit IDC connectors to the cable so their pin 1 end is on the stripe side of
the ribbon. This also helps guide you when you are mating the cable connectors with
those on the equipment, knowing that the stripe corresponds with pin 1.
2. Before clamping an IDC connector to a ribbon cable, make sure that the cable grooves
are aligned with the contact jaw tips and that they are also aligned with the scallops
molded into the underside of the clamping strip.
3. Make sure too that the connector pin/jaw axis is as close as possible to 90° with
respect to the ribbon cable wire axes. If the connector/ribbon angle is not close to 90°,
some connections may not be made properly. If the connector is being fitted at the end of
a ribbon cable, cutting the end of the ribbon cleanly square first will allow you to use it
as a guide.
 Practicall tips:
4. Try to squeeze the IDC connector and its clamping strip together as evenly as possible,
so they remain as close as possible to parallel with each other during the operation. This
too ensures that all joints are made correctly. The easiest way to squeeze them together
evenly is by using a small machine vice or a special compound-action clamping tool.
5. If an IDC connector has a second cable clamping strip, do not attempt to fit this as part
of the main assembly. Assemble the main parts of the connector first on the ribbon cable,
and only then fit the second clamping strip.
6. When you are bending the ribbon cable around before fitting the second clamping
strip, do not pull it hard. This may loosen some of the connections inside the IDC
connector. Just bend the ribbon around gently — a small amount of slack won’t do any
harm and may in fact protect the IDC connections from strain.
 Practical Uses:
A common IDC cable in use is an IDC D9 socket to
IDC 2 by 5 header socket. This cable is often used to
connect a PC serial (RS232) port to a microcontroller
development board. On the board there will be a 2 by
5 pin header.
RJ45 Network Connector
UTP network cables commonly use RJ45 connectors, with a
smaller version (RJ11) employed for telephones. A crimping
tool is necessary for affixing these connectors to the cable.
They are versatile for linking various PCBs together. RJ45
connectors are practical for crafting serial (RS232)
programming cables for compact embedded systems, such as
credit card terminals utilizing a DB9 to RJ45 cable for
software downloads during development. For small
embedded controller boards, RJ45 connectors offer
convenient sizing for connectivity.
NXT Sensors
Exploring different types of NXT Sensors
 NXT SENSORS The Sound Sensor can detect both
decibels [dB] and adjusted decibel
[dBA]. A decibel is a measurement of
sound pressure.

SOUND
dBA: in detecting adjusted decibels, the
SENSOR sensitivity of the sensor is adapted to the
sensitivity of the human ear. In other
words, these are the sounds that your ears
are able to hear.

TOUCH dB: in detecting standard [unadjusted]

decibels, all sounds are measured with
SENSOR equal sensitivity. Thus, these sounds may
include some that are too high or too low
for the human ear to hear.
 SOUND
SENSOR
The Sound Sensor can measure sound pressure levels up to 90 dB –
about the level of a lawnmower. Sound pressure levels are extremely
complicated, so the Sound Sensor readings on the MINDSTORMS
NXT are displayed in percent [%]. The lower the percent the quieter
the sound. For example:
• 4-5% is like a silent living room
• 5-10% would be someone talking some distance away
• 10-30% is normal conversation close to the sensor or music played
at a normal level
• 30-100% are people shouting or music being played at a high volu
me
 LIGHT SENSOR and
ULTRASONIC SENSOR
The Light Sensor is one of the two sensors that give your robot vision
[The Ultrasonic Sensor is the other]. The Light Sensor enables your
robot to distinguish between light and dark. It can read the light
intensity in a room and measure the light intensity of colored surfaces.

The Ultrasonic Sensor is one of the two sensors that give your robot
“vision” [The Light Sensor is the other]. The Ultrasonic Sensor enables
your robot to see and detect objects. You can also use it to make your
robot avoid obstacles, sense and measure distance, and detect movement.
The Ultrasonic Sensor measures distance in centimeters and in inches. It
is able to measure distances from 0 to 255 centimeters with a precision of
+/- 3 cm.
 THE ULTRASONIC
SENSOR
The Ultrasonic Sensor uses the same scientific
principle as bats: it measures distance by calculating
the time it takes for a sound wave to hit an object and
return – just like an echo. Large sized objects with
hard surfaces return the best readings. Objects made
of soft fabric or that are curved [like a ball] or are
very thin or small can be difficult for the sensor to
detect.
 Servo Motor / Rotation
Sensor
Each motor has a built-in Rotation Sensor.
This lets your control your robot’s
movements precisely. The Rotation Sensor
measures motor rotations in degrees or full
rotations [accuracy of +/- one degree].
One rotation is equal to 360 degrees, so if
you set a motor to turn 180 degrees, its
output shaft will make half a turn.