Python Mindstorms RCX

Question

I've got 30 unopened Lego Mindstorms kits that I'd love to use in my intro programming class to do some simple robotics stuff at the end of the year. We're using Python in the class, so I'd prefer there to be a way for the kids to write the programs in Python. Unfortunately, these are old kits with RCX bricks - not the newer NXT ones, so most of the projects like NXT_Python can't help me. Is there any way to make that happen?

Answer 1

Running Python on the brick itself is probably hard (for the reason others already stated - size of the interpreter, available RAM on the brick for example) but this might be of interest:

According to this thread you should be able to use pylnp (remote) combined with BrickOS (on the brick; formerly legOS).

Answer 2

I doubt it.

The RCX bricks used an 8 bit microcontroller. While it might be possible to run some sort of a Python interpreter on it, I haven't seen one ported to it.

The closest you can get is Java:

http://lejos.sourceforge.net/

So theoretically, you could look at Jython and try to run class files compiled with it on the lejos JVM... Sounds like a long shot, though. The microcontroller in an RCX brick just doesn't have a whole lot of room for a big runtime.