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Trail: Essential leJOS Classes

# Lesson: Controlling the Hardware

In former times there have been two major obstacles one had to face when trying to build a robot on his own:

- one had to possess very distinct mechanical skills to assembly the machinery (let alone the tools) and
- one had to deal with the electronic controlling of the robot's hardware on a low, i.e. very machine-oriented level

As a matter of fact, building even a very simple robot was extremely difficult without having a degree in cybernetics and being in possession of a machine factory at the same time.

The appearance of the LEGO MINDSTORMS™ marked a turning point: everybody who was able to put two LEGO® bricks together was more or less in the position now to build robots at home.
The second barrier was overcome by languages like leJOS; in fact it is particularly easy with leJOS to control the LEGO MINDSTORMS™ robot's hardware.
In the following lessons we will discuss how this is done for RCX related parts like

- Buttons
- LCD
- Motors
- Sensors
- Infrared interface.

| ## Buttons takes a look at the VIEW, PRGM and RUN buttons on the RCX.
| ## The LCD introduces two classes which may be used to display simple output on the RCX display.
| ## Motors discusses the important topic of controlling the motors you might have connected to the RCX.
| ## Sensors delivers insight into the perception abilities you can add to your robot.
| ## The IR interface describes some simple mechanisms to transfer infrared signals between the RCX and the LEGO® tower.
| ## Sound works on the audio capabilities of the RCX.

The leJOS Tutorial

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