This is what I like about the Mindstorms community. It’s also why I publish building instructions for my robots. Beginning users will enjoy the printer as an advanced project, but advanced users like Daniele Benedettelli, take the existing design to the next level. Danny wrote a Java program to enable the printer to draw not just straight lines, but also curves and even a vectorized picture! Check it out below.
But what it really tells me… I need a more evil looking logo for my website! 🙂
Very cool!
Is Daniele Benedettelli’s Java program available for download? I checked Daniele’s web pages but couldn’t find any reference to the printer.
Good question. I don’t know if he’s sharing the code. If you ask him, please let me know, and I’ll add it to this page.
Hey Laurens how come Danny always uses NXC or any other programming language instead of NXT-G block programming? Do you know why?
Text programming languages are easier to work with when you make large programs. Especially when you do math (even simple stuff), NXT-G is just tedious to use. Take incrementing a variable. You need a block to read the variable, add 1 to it, and put it back in the variable. That’s three blocks and two wires while in NXC it is just one text line: hello = hello + 1;
The reason I use NXT-G in my books is that it makes it accessible for everyone. For my personal projects, I also use a text-based language (RobotC).
“…That’s three blocks and two wires while in NXC it is just one text line: hello = hello + 1;…”
Actually, you can make it even less by using “hello += 1;”. That’s basically the same thing.
Actually, you can use hello++; in most programming languages.
But when you explain something, the key is to keep things simple and clear. 😉
Yes, I knew that, but “hello += 1;” is more generic since “hello++;” only adds one.
Yes, but I would consider that simpler, as it uses less text.
Laurens Valk:
I’ve armed the printer of the book “The unofficial lego ….”, but when I put the sheet and start the program, the blade locks. Can it be that it locks, because the blade is thick 80mg? If so, please tell me where I can get finer leaves. (for example 25mg)
Too bad Danny isn’t sharing the source, although I contacted a YouTube user and was able to get his Java source for his EV3 plotter.
I’ll try it out and let you know if it works, and link you to the guy so he can send you it too. 😀
It would be awesome to be able to write nxt programs with a text compiler. NXT-G is sooo limited with the stuff you can do and its wicked glitchy with any semi large programs like the pong program I made. If anyone knows how to write programs this way or have it read a text file with character positioning can you please share? That would be epic! Thank you