Hi,
My son (10 yrs)and I are crazy fans of NXT. we use NXT software to program and have lots of fun.

I just started exploring MSRDS and happened to bump into your SIM environment.
I downloaded your product and installed it.
It looks like a great amazing product.
I could connect to the NXT ( blue tooth connection) and could "Drive" the NXT Robot using the "BALL" and Control it.
The Office environment is cool.
My son is amazed is spending a lot of time controlling the NXT robot using the Drive ball in Simply SIM.

My only wish is --
I wish there is some tutorial or some pointers on how to use your prodcut with VPL or MSRDS.

I feel I'm missing something - some imp task - Could you HELP please.


Thanks and Regards.

Hi,

First, thank you for your feedback, we are very glad that you enjoy it.

You should take a look at the samples. You will found them in “Start Menu > Programs > SimplySIM > NXT-MSRDS > Samples” or in \samples\Platforms\SimplySIM\NXT-MSRDS\Sources of your robotics studio installation directory.

You have two kind of samples : C# samples and VPL samples. C# samples can be opened with Visual Studio 2008 (at least Visual C# Express 2008) by double clicking on NXTSamples.sln. For VPL samples, you have to browse VPLSamples directory. There are comments in both.

As you will see in the samples code/VPL, we use generic actuators and sensors services to run the code on both simulation and real robot (generic differential drive, generic analog sensors …).

The samples can be run on both simuled and real robot by using the “Services” part of the interface. Just select a service and click on “Run in simulation” or “Run on real robot”.

For example, you could try to run Sample3Service on simulation (with the robot on the simulation start position (click "reset" for that) and on the real robot (just put the robot on a black line of the Lego pad as it is in the simulation).

Feel free to modify samples codes and to recompile it (you have to stop the simulation before recompiling).
You can also create your own services (with classic MSRDS code or VPL). Use generic actuators and sensors as partner (just like in samples), compile it (“Build” in C#/VB, “Compile as service” in VPL which is not available in Express version ...) then launch the simulation, click on “Add”, select your service in the list (if it doesn’t appear, try to clear the MSRDS cache by deleting the contractDirectoryCache.bin file in store\cache folder in you robotic studio installation directory), assign sensors and motors to partner and click on “Add”. The service should appear in the list and you could run it like samples.

You can find documentation in \samples\Platforms\SimplySIM\NXT-MSRDS\Help\Howto.html of your robotics studio install directory.

I hope this will help you

Regards