Is there a way to program a robot with python (ex, an electric motor)

[Sardonic]

i hope someone here can help me.

basically, me and my friend have a summer project.

in this project, we need something that would basically function as a blender. we know we'll need to buy a motor that spins, but what we're having trouble with is figuring out how to program it. we want to be able to control the speed of the motor. how would we accomplish this?

i'm new to all of this, so i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it'd be possible to program one of those things :\

ex: what if i want the motor to turn for 10 seconds. stop for 5. then turn the other direction.

would you program it the same way you would on a personal computer (via c, python, etc)?

[bartonc]

i hope someone here can help me.

basically, me and my friend have a summer project.

in this project, we need something that would basically function as a blender. we know we'll need to buy a motor that spins, but what we're having trouble with is figuring out how to program it. we want to be able to control the speed of the motor. how would we accomplish this?

i'm new to all of this, so i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it'd be possible to program one of those things :\

ex: what if i want the motor to turn for 10 seconds. stop for 5. then turn the other direction.

would you program it the same way you would on a personal computer (via c, python, etc)?

Starting from the ground up, as you suggest here, may be a daunting task unless you have a year of two of experience with such things. A great way to get that experience is to start with a kit that has such parts as motors and communication to your PC. For Python, there are interfaces to be picked up for such things as "Lego Mindstorms Bluetooth interface". Sounds like a great project. Look into that kit and let me know if you need links or want to go some other route.

[linksterman]

lego mindstorms has a program which will hook up either bluetooth or USB. it will run on your mind storm, and there is a program that will un on your computer. what the program on your computer basically does is constantly look for a file in teh folder and if it does find the file, executes what commands are in it. so you could just write your python program to read and write the files in the folder to easily accomplish this task. but sadly i forgot the name of the program. but i know it exists because i have used it.