4 ms·

What’s the best set to buy right now?

• crooked-v 6y ago
  The current Mindstorms set is Robot Inventor (released 2020), which has a variety of improvements over the older EV3 (half the size and weight, programming and remote control via Bluetooth, better sensors, better programming interface, etc), but which can't be flashed to run a Linux distro like the older EV3 (released 2013). For a step down in price, there's the Powered UP hub/motor/sensor sets, which have a partial degree of programmability compared to the Mindstorms hubs, similar remote control functionality, and interchangeable motors/sensors with Robot Inventor (though the Powered UP ones generally are lower quality). The Powered UP components look like they're also being set up as a generic replacement for previous powered parts (for use with trains, motorized parts of architecture pieces, etc), but there's some things still missing (like 'dumb' battery boxes to connect to motors) before it can realistically replace the older Power Functions parts for a lot of people. One very interesting thing is that they've actually publicly released specs for the Bluetooth connections used by Robot Inventor and Powered UP: https://lego.github.io/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs/ https://lego.github.io/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs/