🚀 go-pugleaf

   Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo
   From: bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)
   Date: 27 Jul 1992 11:13:50 GMT

   ....  Also, the Lego-Logo people publish
   plans for a build-it-yourself turtle out of Lego. 

As a warning, the Lego turtle is a bit disapointing once you've gotten
used to screen turtles or higher-tech robot turtles.  I've been using
it (not with Logo, with Scheme, but that is irrelevant) and it is
frustrating trying to calibrate how many seconds of turning for angles
of various measures, or even getting the forward/backward motion
reliable.  The design is completely open-loop -- there is no
"odometry" to measure how far the wheels actually turn, so you just
have to go by the times.  Closed curves rarely close, etc.  Another
limitation is that there is no pen up/down effector, so the pen is
always down (or always up -- you choose).

On the plus side, the Lego stuff is "open" -- you can build
whatever you want out of it, not just a turtle.  Or you can change the
design of the turtle -- e.g. you could try adding odometry or pen
control (if you succeed at either of these I'd love to hear from you).

   I don't have addresses handy but I'll try to look it up.

Lego Dacta, 555 Taylor Rd., P.O. Box 1600, Enfield, CT 06083-1600,
USA.  Phone: (800) 526-8339; Fax: (203) 763-2466.