A little while ago, I was asked by Packt Publishing to review one of their new e-books called “Instant LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3” by Gary Garber. It’s a small (82 pages) e-book that is “A concise guide full of step-by-step recipes to teach you how to build and program an advanced robot.” It aims to be usable for both an experienced ...
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The EV3 has a lot of cool features but a push-to-eject micro-SD card drive isn’t one of them. It’s fine for users who don’t work with custom Linux distributions on their brick, but a major PITA (no, not the Döner Kebab kind) if you’re like me. It takes a needle nose pliers and a lot of patience to remove the ...
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Ralph Hempel is no stranger to MINDSTORMS and he’s been quietly working on something very special: a port of Debian Wheezy on the EV3. The folks of the Debian organisation wouldn’t let him use the Debian name (for copyright reasons), so this project is called ev3dev. What is ev3dev? It’s a complete Linux distribution for the EV3. What do I ...
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It seems that “due to unprecedented demand”, there is a world-wide shortage of EV3 hardware. This seems to affect the Educational set which some of LEGO’s distributors are marking as out of stock until March 2014. I currently have no info on what the situation is on the retail EV3 set. I’ll update when I know more. I am surprised ...
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If you’re a fan of C#, then you will love Monobrick, a communication library that works with the EV3. It uses the EV3’s direct commands to remote control the brick. It works with both the NXT and the EV3. You can simply import the library into your project and start hacking away. A simple example: using System; using MonoBrick.EV3; public ...
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Finding the right USB cable for your EV3 daisy chaining needs is not easy. Most of them will stick out like a sore thumb, but not this one. It features 90 degree angled connectors that work with you, rather than against you. I came across this one on Deal Extreme two weeks ago and ordered it straight away. I wasn’t ...
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HiTechnic has brought out a couple of EV3 programming blocks for its sensors. The blocks and instructions on how to import them into your software can be found here: [LINK]. With these blocks you will be able to use the Angle, Compass, Accelerometer, IRSeekerV2, and Gyro sensors. Cool!
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The new LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 website is live! You can download the software while you wait for your set to arrive. You can also see all the cool bonus models in great detail. So what are you waiting for? Point your browser here and check it out!
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As some of you know, the EV3 runs a stripped down version of the Angstrom Linux distribution. The cool thing is that the kernel has been configured to output diagnostics data to the first sensor port (S1). You can easily access this data by using a USB to serial converter. You can make one yourself or if you’re not that ...
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It will come as no surprise that Mindsensors, purveyors of cool stuff, have created a very easy to use LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 USB console adapter. The EV3 has a serial console, which is accessible on the 1st Sensor Port. This small device will allow you to simply plug an NXT/EV3 cable in one end and a USB mini cable in ...
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Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots