3 ms·

The newish "Powered UP" line is also a lower-priced alternative to Mindstorms (still not cheap, you're looking at at least $50 for a hub plus $15 per motor or s

The newish "Powered UP" line is also a lower-priced alternative to Mindstorms (still not cheap, you're looking at at least $50 for a hub plus $15 per motor or sensor), using a Bluetooth-connected phone or tablet as the 'brain' with a visual programming system similar to Mindstorms. These have been included as a part of some of their newer big sets, including a few that are basically RC cars built out of Lego.

swiley 6y ago
>$50 for a hub plus $15 per motor or sensor For the kind of thing they're doing (hub connected to peripherals over a UART connection or similar bus) this is actually a pretty hard price to beat building everything from scratch. (you can, but you'll need to be pretty optimal and probably need a 3d printer and ICSP for whatever micro controller you want to use for each peripheral.) Plus all the time you take re-implementing stuff is time you don't spend on your project. It's a bummer it looks like the largest hub only has 6 I/O ports, it wouldn't be crazy to design something compatible with the peripherals that had more.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  I know you can sorta daisy-chain the Robot Inventor hubs with careful use of the light sensors (you can light up the LED in multiple colors, so you can use light sensors facing each other as a communication mode), though you'll have to program the encoding yourself. No idea if or how much the same kind of possible with the Powered UP hubs.
dolmen 6y ago
You can get 42109 quite cheap as it is well known to have poor performance, so it can easily be found in sales. https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/app-controlled-top-gear-rally-car-42109 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/app-controlled-top-gear-r... But I would recommend to buy 17101 Boost (harder to find now, but also in sales) which will give you an out of the box programming experience and sensors, not just motors. Also the Boost app works on cheap Android tablets (even Amazon Fire 7) while newer LEGO apps for Powered Up/Boost don't.

swiley 6y ago

>$50 for a hub plus $15 per motor or sensor For the kind of thing they're doing (hub connected to peripherals over a UART connection or similar bus) this is actually a pretty hard price to beat building everything from scratch. (you can, but you'll need to be pretty optimal and probably need a 3d printer and ICSP for whatever micro controller you want to use for each peripheral.) Plus all the time you take re-implementing stuff is time you don't spend on your project. It's a bummer it looks like the largest hub only has 6 I/O ports, it wouldn't be crazy to design something compatible with the peripherals that had more.

crooked-v 6y ago
I know you can sorta daisy-chain the Robot Inventor hubs with careful use of the light sensors (you can light up the LED in multiple colors, so you can use light sensors facing each other as a communication mode), though you'll have to program the encoding yourself. No idea if or how much the same kind of possible with the Powered UP hubs.

dolmen 6y ago

You can get 42109 quite cheap as it is well known to have poor performance, so it can easily be found in sales. https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/app-controlled-top-gear-rally-car-42109 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/app-controlled-top-gear-r... But I would recommend to buy 17101 Boost (harder to find now, but also in sales) which will give you an out of the box programming experience and sensors, not just motors. Also the Boost app works on cheap Android tablets (even Amazon Fire 7) while newer LEGO apps for Powered Up/Boost don't.