songsparrow Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 We tried to participate in CS2N's Robotics Summer of Learning program, but ended up with nothing but frustration. The summer program did not require the purchase of a physical robot kit. Instead, they had a virtual robot program to which you would download your instructions, and a virtual robot on the screen would carry out your instructions. It seemed like a cost-effective way for the girls to try out robotics and see if they were interested in pursuing it further. However, we've run into nothing but trouble with their virtual robot program. First, our primary computer is a Mac, but ROBOTC will not run in a Mac environment. So, we tried running it on an older PC laptop we still have. We could do the programming fine, but due to the sometimes slow frame-rate refreshing on the old computer, we would end up with the virtual robot responding unpredictably - it would run the same code differently on multiple tries. I tried tweaking the settings per their instructions, but it still didn't work properly. Then, we tried installing Parallels for Mac and running a windows virtual machine on the Mac. I adjusted all the settings as suggested by CS2N, but the virtual worlds program will not start up - I get a crash error. So, I've given up on completing their summer program, but I'm wondering in the future whether or not it's worth it to invest in a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit. ROBOTC appears to be functioning fine in the Windows Virtual Machine, so I would hope that we could successfully download our programs to a physical robot. But I don't want to spend the money on the kit, only to find that it won't work with the computers that we have, either. So, are there any Mac users out there that successfully run ROBOTC and program Lego Mindstorms robots? Can you tell me how you set up the software and hardware, and if you had any difficulty getting the robots to run? Or is there any alternative Robotics setups that work better on a Mac? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 I don't know anything about ROBOTC, but we did mindstorms on my wimpy old MacBook a couple of years ago. I don't remember having any issues or problems--just loaded the software and it worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songsparrow Posted August 12, 2013 Author Share Posted August 12, 2013 I don't know anything about ROBOTC, but we did mindstorms on my wimpy old MacBook a couple of years ago. I don't remember having any issues or problems--just loaded the software and it worked. Thank you! I am totally new to this, and thought we needed to use ROBOTC. If the Mindstorms software will run directly on a Mac, that would be so much better! Off to research Mindstorms as a potential Christmas present . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraceyS/FL Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Thank you! I am totally new to this, and thought we needed to use ROBOTC. If the Mindstorms software will run directly on a Mac, that would be so much better! Off to research Mindstorms as a potential Christmas present . . . I noticed there is a buy starting this week at HSBC on the Mindstorms. I have no idea what there discount normally is.... but sigh, I want it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songsparrow Posted August 12, 2013 Author Share Posted August 12, 2013 I noticed there is a buy starting this week at HSBC on the Mindstorms. I have no idea what there discount normally is.... but sigh, I want it! Thank you for the tip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted August 13, 2013 Share Posted August 13, 2013 Mindstorms works just fine on a Mac. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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