embedded programming education with lego mindstorms nxt using java (lejos), eclipse (xpairtise), and python (pymite)
In this paper we show how the Lego Mindstorms NXT can be used for embedded team programming in Java. Furthermore, we demonstrate-for the first time-Python booted on NXT using an embedded Python project. Lego Mindstorms NXT is based on an ARM7 micro processor, and it comes with open source C code. There now exists a number of firmware replacements which permit programming NXT with different languages. One of these possibilities are Java, and we combine that solution with an Eclipse plugin for team programming in Java. We demonstrate the system and provide reasons why it is worthwhile to do this in computer science classes. Python is a popular scripting language. It is often used in relation to a larger operating system, and rarely as an operating system itself. In this paper we also demonstrate that it is possible to run Python directly on an embedded processor. We use the open source project PyMite as a proof-of-concept. Lego Mindstorms NXT comes with an open source operating system and together with the open source project nxtgcc, it becomes possible to boot Python on NXT.
education lego mindstorms mindstorms java python arm7 embedded systems gcc