a There are other robot simulators out there, many of them far more sophisticated than RP1. Why would I be interested?
The interesting thing about RP1 is not its implementation, but rather what it is intended to accomplish. The goal of the simulator is to make it easier for people to build real robots. Like any simulator, RP1 lets developers test and refine the ideas more quickly than they could working with a real platform. It allows them to run tests series over-and-over again, in a simplified environment, without worries about battery life, mechanical failure, or the complexities of operating in the real world. RP1 also offers an important economy. A robot builder who develops a system using a simulator puts a lot of effort into getting his code to work. That effort should not be wasted when it’s time to move on to the real thing. When RP1 was conceived, a key consideration was that much of the code written to work with the simulator should to the actual robot more-or-less intact. Rossum’s Playhouse attempts to accomplish that end through the use of a client-server architecture.
