RobotC vs NXC for an 11 year old

[gator456]

My 11 year old son is reaching the limit of what he can do with the NXG language. What are the pro's and cons of RobotC vs NXC. I have a basic knowledge of C, however I do have a lot of programming experience with Perl and TCL.

I realize that RobotC cost money and that NXC is freeware.

Thanks

[muntoo]

Try going with NXC first to see if he likes it, and if he does, consider getting him RobotC.

Of course, others may disagree.

[ronmcrae]

My 11 year old son is reaching the limit of what he can do with the NXG language. What are the pro's and cons of RobotC vs NXC.

For the project part of their FLL season my team is developing a working prototype of their device using an NXT. It seems remotely possible they could accomplish the complex programming needs in NXT-G, but it would be way tougher than it would be to do it in a text based language. We had three options:

1) Labview
2) NXC
3) RobotC

To see how we fared, I started transitioning my daughter into NXC. IN a fairly short session we have already covered the basic programming constructs that she was already familiar with in NXT-G (loops, switch, variables, tasks/rungs) as well as some of the other features (motor control, sensor reading, screen display functionality). Her comments about ease-of-use and understandability have been very favorable, so it looks like we'll keep going this route.

My choice of going directly to NXC was made for three reasons:

1) I can better guide the team through problems, as I already have a lot of experience to draw from
2) there is no cost
3) I am confident that the language can meet the needs of the team for their project/prototype

Could they have accomplished the same thing with RobotC? Almost certainly. Labview? Possibly, but not with my guidance!

Ron.

[sidneys1]

You mention FLL... Just to make sure you know, unless the rules have changed since I was on a team, but the rules state that only NXT-G can be used to program the competing robot.

Just getting that out there Like I said, the rules may have changed, it's been a few years.

Have a nice day,
~Sidneys1

[ronmcrae]

the rules state that only NXT-G can be used to program the competing robot.

Since I did indeed mention FLL and NXC in the same post you are probably right to clarify the official rules sidneys1. The FLL programming rules have not changed in recent years, and the team certainly only uses NXT-G for their robot. On the other hand, the project rules don't impose any limits on what hardware and software can be used for prototyping an idea, so it seems to me that they are allowed to use whatever is most appropriate to their needs. Since they were familiar with the NXT hardware platform they decided to stick with that, but at the same time investigate alternate programming languages as it was concluded that trying to use NXT-G would likely over-complicate what they are trying to do.

To get back to the question asked in the OP (NXC vs RobotC), when it became fairly obvious that NXT-G wouldn't meet their needs the programming sub-team discussed the problem. In coming years they will likely be forced to move to RobotC for FTC competitions, but at this time they decided to move forward with NXC since it is readily available as freeware and has support for all the sensors they plan to use on their device (Accelorometer, Gyro).

Ron.