Hi Paul

> I bought some Smalltalk books off Amazon last year and it kindly  
> informed me
> today about Stéphane Ducasse's new book "Squeak: Learn Programming  
> with
> Robots. (http://smallwiki.unibe.ch/botsinc/ )"  I read the reviews and
> searched the archives but it is not clear to me what exactly the book
> covers.   I spent a lot of time with Lego Mindstorms and Brian  
> Bagnall's
> book "Core LEGO MINDSTORMS Programming: Unleash the Power of the Java
> Platform" and it taught me a lot.  I also spent some time with the  
> PPRK
> (http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/ 
> palm_pilot_robot_kit_pprk_review).
> Both have taught me a lot and help me understand the Java and robots.
>
> I'm still very interested in understanding Smalltalk. What was not  
> clear to
> me was if Stephane's book has a real hardware platform to  
> experiment with or
> whether is it all virtual.  I also searched the archives and didn't  
> see
> anything recent about Mindstorms or any actual hardware platform.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) Is the "Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots" tied (or easily  
> tied) to a
> real robotics platform.  Is it tied to hardware or is there  
> interest in
> tying it to a experimental platform.

no this is just a morph that looks like a robot to teach programming  
basics

> 2) Is there anything recent with Squeak and a real hardware  
> platform.  I
> have Mindstorms and am interested in the new Vex Platform as well  
> as doing
> something from scratch.


Alex coded something to talk from squeak to Mindstorm.


>
> 3) I read the "Seeking Squeak Mentor" thread - anyone interested in
> mentoring me in the robotics arena? (p.s. I'm in Albuquerque) and  
> possibly
> tying the lessons to hardware?
>
>
> Best regards,
> Paul
>
>
> p.s. I just ordered Stephane's book from Amazon!

I hope that you will not be disappointed and that you will have fun  
with it.
Really, today I had a lab with people that never programmed in their  
life and I have to teach oo modeling
so we started to have fun with the robot :)
and they had fun!


Stef