Write LOGO, but for controlling UAVs (and potentially AUVs) rather than controlling a boring turtle! Currently being written. Will also include utilities to potentially deal with sensor data, because that is the ultimate difference between an "unalive" turtle and an UAV/AUV in real life.
This entire excerpt is copied directly from MIT's library discussing, just to give an idea of what commands Beav should have at the minimum.
Excerpt
The Logo Programming Language, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its features - interactivity, modularity, extensibility, flexibility of data types - follow from this goal.
Although there are some versions of Logo that compile, it is generally implemented as an interpreted language. The interactivity of this approach provides the user with immediate feedback on individual instructions, thus aiding in the debugging and learning process. Error messages are descriptive. For example
fowad
> I don't know how to fowad
(The word fowad
is not a primitive - one of Logo's built in words - nor a procedure that you've defined.)
forward
> Not enough inputs to forward
(Now that you've spelled it correctly, Logo knows the word forward
, but can't run your instruction because forward
requires additional information.
forward 100
(Logo is happy. There's no error message. The turtle moves forward 100 steps.)
Logo programs are usually collections of small procedures. Generally, procedures are defined by writing them in a text editor. The special word to
is followed by the name of the procedure. Subsequent lines form the procedure definition. The word end
signals that you're finished.
In our turtle graphics example we defined a procedure to draw a square:
to square
repeat 4 [
forward 50
right 90
]
end
and used it as as a subprocedure of another procedure
to flower
repeat 36 [
right 10
square
]
end
Similarly, flower
could be a building block of something larger.
to garden
repeat 25 [
set-random-position
flower
]
end
No, set-random-position
is not a primitive, but random
is and so is setposition
(or setpos
or setxy
). Or you could write set-random-position
using forward
and right
with random
.
Once a Logo procedure is defined it works like the Logo primitives. In fact, when you look at Logo programs there's no way of knowing which words are primitives and which are user-defined unless you know that particular Logo implementation. In our language sample we used the procedure pick
to randomly select an item from a list, for example in the procedure who.
to who
output pick [Sandy Dale Dana Chris]
end
In some versions of Logo pick
is a primitive while in others you have to write it yourself. who
would look and work the same way in either case.
Logo allows you to build up complex projects in small steps. Programming in Logo is done by adding to its vocabulary, teaching it new words in terms of words it already knows. In this way it's similar to the way people learn spoken language.
Logo works with words and lists. A Logo word is a string of characters. A Logo list is an ordered collection of words and or lists. Numbers are words, but they're special because you can do things like arithmetic with them.
Many programming languages are pretty strict about wanting to know exactly what kind of data you claim to be using. This makes things easier for the computer, but harder for the programmer. Before adding a couple of numbers you might have to specify whether they are integers or real numbers. The computer needs to know such things. But most people don't think about this so Logo takes care of it for you. When asked to do arithmetic Logo just does it.
print 3 + 4
> 7
print 3 / 4
> .75
If you are unfamiliar with Logo but work in other programming languages, the following sequence may surprise you:
print word "apple "sauce
> applesauce
print word "3 "4
> 34
print 12 + word "3 "4
46
Here's a recursive procedure that computes factorials:
to factorial :number
if :number = 1 [
output 1
]
output :number * factorial :number - 1
end
print factorial 3
> 6
print factorial 5
> 120
Here's a process to reverse a list of words:
to reverse :stuff
ifelse equal? count :stuff 1
[output first :stuff]
[output sentence reverse butfirst :stuff first :stuff]
end
print reverse [apples and pears]
> pears and apples
Sensors.
Beav is short of beaver. Beaver is MIT's mascot, specifically for the Beaver Works Summer Institute.