what is your thoughts on this?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2117994&cp

i'm getting to for Christmas. And another question is that it uses serial but i have serial to usb converter do you think it will still work?

 

Should be a good start...

Yep, a USB-Serial converter works just as if you had a serial port. No issues there.

 

It seems like a good kit. The comments rate it high. The chip is not removable so you can't use it as a programmer for other chips. I can't find out who made it so don't know if the usb/serial device is Linux compatible but if you're using it on windows that won't matter.

I'm using the arduino and the FTDI chip shows up as a virtual com port. It works the same in windows and anything that will talk to com ports like processing, flash, max etc will work with it.

Once you get the tutorials done you can learn how to make this
http://www.processing.org/ talk to to that kit. The kit can gather data and send it to processing, processing can then talk to the device and tell it what to do. I'm told flash and max will do it but have no idea about them.

 

It looks to be a good kit with which to explore the fun of playing with robots. The serial-to-usb should not be a problem. The comms link is just being used to download you own software control routines as far as I can tell.

The kit will no doubt provide many hours of enjoyment.

Once you have assemblied it and become familiar with programming it, please come back to the forum and give us your impressions of the pros and cons of the kit. I am sure there are other members who would be interested in obtaining the kit for themselves.

hgmjr

 

I concur with the above, a very reasonable price for what must be a good starter kit for getting into m/c and programming.

Let us know how it goes.

Dave

 

Ok I sure will let yall know the pros and cons of it.

 

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Micro...efault.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

I believe that is who makes it.

 

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Micro...efault.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

I believe that is who makes it.

It is indeed. I notice they have a few more advanced modules (at an increased price of course) at equally competitive prices. I'm not sure how other m/c modules for learning compare but this seems reasonable to me.

Dave