Details of the release are found here at Xanders Blog.

I’m in the processing of trying it out, and working my way through some RobotC samples. Especially for using the HiTechnic Experimenters board.

Here is the first project.  The red circle in the bottom right is the push button (it’s a temporary switch… you hold it down if you want the light to stay off).

The red-orange dot on the left is my LED (it was on when I took the picture).    The circuitry at the top of the breadboard is the Experimenters board.  It plugs directly into the breadboard, and has a NXT compatible jack.

I ran into a few issues with this project.  Namely… the LED wouldn’t light up.

Since I’m new to electronics, I started with step 1 in debugging.  Double and triple checking to make sure that the circuit was created properly.  Some components can be connected any way you want (like jumper wires and resistors).  Others have polarity, and can only be connected one way (like the switch and the LED).

After much checking and re-checking, everything was fine.  So my next thought, was I had a bad breadboard (It was a new board that came with the Experimenters Kit).  I swapped everything over to one of my other breadboards.  Still no light.

My next thought, was either the Experimenter Prototype board was bad, or it was the code.  Since it came from HiTechnic, and I assumed they tested everything first, I started checking code.

First thing I noticed, is that Xander wrote the tutorials for HiTechnic for this. From what little I know of Xander, I know he tested the code before it became a tutorial, so my best guess, is something changed between the version of RobotC that was originally used, and the version (2.02) I’m currently using.

The example code displayed the value for the button on the screen.  I noticed it was 0 for when the button wasn’t pushed, and –1 for when the button was pushed.

However, the code was looking to see if the value was less than 512 to turn off the LED, and if it was more than 512, it turned the LED on.

They didn’t match.  So, I just changed the code to check for less than 0.  If it’s less than 0, turn the LED on.  Otherwise, turn it off.

TADA!  Works.

I’ll dig later into why it changed the values.  I’ve had some fun today learning a few very basic electronics bits, and digging into debugging some RobotC.

I’m going to write about my adventures (and I do say adventures, since electronics is not my strong point).  I have some grand ideas to use for this Experimenters kit, but I need to master the basics first.

HiTechnic has released a new sensor.  It’s an Electro Optical Proximity Detector.  It detects minute changes in distance.  Very accurate and very fast.

A version of this for the RCX was using in building the famous Steve Hassenplug LegWay.

This sensor will detect objects up to 30 Centimeters away.

As you may have heard, FTC has updated its systems to use a hybrid system.  It uses some of the VEX parts, combined with the NXT brain.  Pitsco is now selling a parts kit for the FTC competitions.  Note: These parts themselves are not LEGO compatible.  You will need to get the HiTechnic controllers that allow the NXT to control the VEX motors and sensors.

News updates courtesy of The NXT Step.