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Microsoft releases DIY robotics development suite

Posted by Adam Conway on May 21, 2010 at 7:20am
How cool would it be to be the guy at Microsoft whose job it is to build robots all day. Microsoft apparently released a tool set to build robots on the .NET framework.

The good news is that it is free. The even better news is that it only runs on Windows

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Comments

  • AVS May 24, 2010 at 4:21pm
    It is microsofts alternative to labview. The worst it can do it bring down the price of labiew :)
  • Adam Conway May 23, 2010 at 10:36pm
    I was at the Maker Faire today (stopped by Geekdad but missed you, Chris) and happened through the Ford area. They had a system that they had put together with the robotics development studio to build "apps" for the car (PC+touchscreen+network). I was fortunate enough the be there while a particularly crusty faire-goer expressed his disgust to hapless Ford employee, that Ford just used the "apps" to hook into twitter and not to do things like actually control the car...

    You go, crusty old dude!

    (no offense to any crusty old dudes reading this... I may soon resemble that remark)
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson May 22, 2010 at 8:54pm
    No, it supports virtual machines on other platforms, such as Lego Mindstorms. But in all cases you need custom firmware to work with the Microsoft tools.
  • Jason Lyons May 22, 2010 at 3:19pm
    So am I right in understanding that in order to have this working on a robot, you need to have windows mobile or CE on it?
  • Adam Conway May 21, 2010 at 7:41am
    Ah, I read that and didn't register it, thanks for the correction.
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson May 21, 2010 at 7:29am
    Some clarifications. Robotics Development Studio has been out for years; the news is just that Microsoft is making it free (there has always been a free version, but this is for the whole thing). It's really designed for development across robotic platforms, and is way too heavyweight for most of what we do. It hasn't had much success in the marketplace so far (perhaps because it's so overbuilt), but maybe the new pricing is Microsoft's effort to change that.
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