Introduction to programming using lego NXT

This is the LEGO Mindstorms NXT graphical programming environment. To get started, you need to create a new program by clicking on the New icon or File, New. And when you create a new program, it'll show up as a tab here. I have multiple programs open. I was working on these earlier. And that's no problem. The next step is to realize where all your tools are, which is the left-hand side here. And this is the Common palette. Think of it as a toolbox. However, you want to switch to a better toolbox, which is the Complete palette. And this is for advanced users. And that means it just doesn't hide any detail from you. And don't worry if you don't understand these blocks. Just be comfortable with experimenting with each of them and learning them one at a time. Now, this is organized in an intuitive manner. The green block are all of your outputs, such as your motors. The yellow block are all of your inputs, such as your light sensor or ultrasonic sensor. The orange block are all of your flow-related blocks, such as looping or waiting. And the data block contains your math block, your comparison block. Or if you want to generate a random number or store a variable, that all lives in this data block. And the final one is the advanced block, which are lesser used blocks, such as calibrating your sensor or storing values to files. Now, that is your complete toolbox. And let's do a very simple example so we know how to download and run programs to make sure everything's working. I'm going to grab my sound block, which is an output, and drop it onto my sequence beam. And you should understand that programs execute from left to right. So right now, all my program does is hit this sound block and do whatever this sound block is configured to do. And then my program ends. Let's say I want to drag a second sound block beside it. And when you click on a block, you have to pay attention to the settings down here. So getting to know your blocks is getting to know your settings. In the case of the sound block, it allows me to play either a sound file or generate a tone. I can adjust the volume of the tone. And there's even a little keyboard here so I can quickly select what note I want to generate. So I'm going to generate a higher C for this sound block for half a second. And then click on this sound block. And click on Tone. And I'll generate a lower tone for half a second. And that's my whole program. So all my program will do is play two tones. To download a program, it's very easy as long as your NXT's plugged in and turned on. You just click this Play button here, and that will download and run it. Or you have the option of just downloading it if you don't want it to run because it's upside down or something. So I'm going to download and run this program. And that's all there is to it. So now this program actually lives on the brick. I can unplug it. And I can just run it by selecting it on the Brick menu. OK, let's get started.