Respiratory New Life Right into a 1998 Lego Mindstorms Package with a Raspberry Pi 5 and AI

The Lego package

Launched in 1998, Lego Mindstorms was meant to introduce youngsters and youths to robotics by means of an simply approachable/acquainted interface. The primary product was the Robotics Invention System (RIS), which featured a big, yellow brick containing a microcontroller (known as the Robotics Command eXplorer or RCX) and display, in addition to an assortment of motors and sensors that could possibly be linked to the management module. The RCX comprises a Renesas H8/300 8-bit MCU and options 32KB of each RAM and ROM for working easy applications.

After discovering one among these authentic kits in unopened situation, Andy West from element14 Presents needed to repurpose each the RCX and one among its sensors right into a challenge match for the fashionable age. His concept concerned taking a Raspberry Pi 5 and digicam, leveraging ChatGPT-4o to detect if an merchandise is trash or recycling, after which instructing the RCX tips on how to place the merchandise into the proper class of trash or recycling.

Making ready the {hardware}

Unboxing the package and assembling a easy challenge was easy, however West found one key subject: the rubber materials used for the wire insulation had change into brittle and flaky. He promptly opened the housing for the motor connector and lightweight sensor earlier than desoldering and changing the degraded wires. From right here, the RCX’s IR tower was linked to a Raspberry Pi 5 over USB along with a Raspberry Pi Digicam Module for capturing photographs of trash.

Wait, that is for Home windows 95?

Given how the RCX was launched in 1998, the software program meant to manage it solely loved strong help by means of Home windows XP, leaving West’s copy of Home windows 11 unusable for the package. Nonetheless, because of the the Mindstorms neighborhood reverse engineering the RCX’s firmware, initiatives equivalent to Not Fairly C (NQC) can be utilized to load new applications from fashionable units. With the firmware now loaded, West created a customized graphical programming setting dubbed “Blockstorms” that exposes a Scratch-like interface for sending instructions to the RCX. An individual can then flip their drag-and-dropped blocks into a listing of NQC CLI instructions by working the Python code technology device.

AI imaginative and prescient integration with ChatGPT-4o

On the software program facet of the challenge, West was in a position so as to add a ChatGPT-4o question block into his Blockstorms setting that sends a immediate to the service together with a picture from the Raspberry Pi Digicam Module. The directions inform ChatGPT to deal with the merchandise positioned within the middle of a conveyor belt and classify whether it is trash or recycling in a single phrase. Relying on the response, the Raspberry Pi will ship the “Motor A run” command with a specified route for 3 seconds.

Sorting some trash

The whole setup took the type of three fundamental elements: the Raspberry Pi 5 + Digicam Module, the RCX brick and its IR tower for communication with the Pi, and the belted platform that might transfer an merchandise into the trash or recycling bin on both facet. To see extra about how West repurposed this 26 year-old package right into a extra fashionable, AI-enabled trash sorter, you possibly can watch his construct log video right here on YouTube.