First Look At Robolab 2.9

Within the first few minutes of opening Robolab 2.9, I completely understood ALL the NXT commands, and what was added to the palette from the 2.5.4 version. It took only 10 minutes more for my two RCX’s and my NXT to upgrade their firmware to the 2.9 versions (and yes, my NXT did need a firmware upgrade, but that must only change the compiling system, as there were no other visible changes). It has a neat NXT panel that comes up after a program download to the NXT that lets you see the battery level, the KB remaining, and the option to remotely start the program you just downloaded. Within the start block for the NXT you get the option to name the file with the name you’ll see on the brick. The only real issue is that Robolab seems not to have NXT bluetooth support at all, and at least you’ll still have a USB cable, which is a more stable communication protocol anyway, so I’m fine with it. There is about twice the code blocks as there were in 2.5.4, almost all for the NXT, but the other huge chunk because the “Investigator” is now programable from within “Inventor”. Happy Thanksgiving, Alex.