Recently Announced: Robots Using ROS: Lego NXT

Willow Garage seems to be a really cool place to work at -- if you remember the video of the PR2 robot fetching a cold one from the fridge you'll know what i mean -- and with the recently announced NXT-ROS software stack, based on NXT-Python, their days now include playing with LEGO Mindstorms!  Check out the recent announcement here:

Willow Garage recently announced that it designed code to link the popular Lego Mindstorms NXT to the formidable Robot Operating System (ROS)

Once a robot is connected to ROS, you can start running applications such as the base controller, wheel odometry, keyboard/joystick teleoperation, and even assisted teleoperation using the ROS navigation stack. The NXT-ROS software stack includes a number of example robot models for users to play with and to get a feel for using NXT with ROS.

One part that caught my attention is the use of  LEGO LDD files in ROS’s 3D visualization display.

If any of you have tried out this package please come back here and comment about your experience :)

Please see the nxt page on the ROS wiki for documentation, demos, and more. The developers would like to thank the nxt-python project for support and development.