Comments on: LEGO power functions with Arduino https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2017/04/23/lego-power-functions-with-arduino/ All about electronics and circuit design Sun, 05 Apr 2026 18:35:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.14 By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2017/04/23/lego-power-functions-with-arduino/comment-page-1/#comment-1731551 Mon, 25 Oct 2021 12:51:32 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/?p=54557#comment-1731551 New Part Day: Raspberry Pi LEGO HAT
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/21/new-part-day-raspberry-pi-lego-hat/

The Raspberry Pi Foundation have been busy little bees for the last couple of years producing their own silicon, new boards and now in collaboration with the LEGO Education team a new HAT to connect to the LEGO SPIKE education platform. This new HAT board will work with every Raspberry Pi board with a 40-pin GPIO header.

Based on the RPI2040 microcontroller, it makes an interesting detour away from dumb slave boards, although it looks like the firmware is closed (for now) so you’ll have to make do with the pre-baked capabilities and talk to it with the supplied python library.

According to the documentation, the communication between the Pi and the RPI2040 nestled beneath the HAT PCB is plaintext-over-serial, freeing up the majority of the GPIO pins for other uses.

Meet the Raspberry Pi Build HAT: create with Raspberry Pi and LEGO® Education
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-build-hat-lego-education/

]]> By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2017/04/23/lego-power-functions-with-arduino/comment-page-1/#comment-1729727 Wed, 20 Oct 2021 19:05:49 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/?p=54557#comment-1729727 Raspberry Pi is releasing an add-on that will let you use many of its tiny, inexpensive computers to control certain Lego robot motors and sensors. The add-on is called the Build HAT (HAT stands for Hardware Attached on Top), and slotting it onto a Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins will give you four ports that you can use to control Lego Education’s SPIKE components, which the HAT and its software are specially designed for. It’ll also connect to most other parts that use an LPF2 connector, including the components from the Lego Mindstorms robot inventor kit.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-raspberry-pi-add-on-lets-you-control-lego-robots/ar-AAPG1Fz?ocid=uxbndlbing

]]> By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2017/04/23/lego-power-functions-with-arduino/comment-page-1/#comment-1585089 Fri, 16 Mar 2018 19:37:22 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/?p=54557#comment-1585089 Leguino- Merging Lego® with Arduino™ -you are the inventor!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leguinofan/leguino-merging-lego-with-arduinotm-you-are-the-in

]]> By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2017/04/23/lego-power-functions-with-arduino/comment-page-1/#comment-1566725 Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:38:33 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/?p=54557#comment-1566725 LEGO-compatible Electronics Kits Everywhere!
https://hackaday.com/2017/10/12/lego-compatible-electronics-kits-everywhere/

Within the last few years, a lot of companies have started with the aim to disrupt the educational electronics industry using their LEGO-compatible sets. Now they’re ubiquitous, and fighting each other for their slice of space in your child’s box of bricks. What’s going on here?
Raison D’Être

The main reason for LEGO-compatibility is familiarity. Parents and children get LEGO. They have used it. They already have a bunch. When it comes to leveling up and learning about electronics, it makes sense to do that by adding on to a thing they already know and understand, and it means they can continue to play with and get more use from their existing sets. The parent choosing between something that’s LEGO-compatible and a completely separate ecosystem like littleBits (or Capsela) sees having to set aside all the LEGO and buy all new plastic parts and learn the new ecosystem, which is a significant re-investment. littleBits eventually caught on and started offering adapter plates, and that fact demonstrates how much demand there is to stick with the studs.

LEGO already has the Mindstorms set, and they just released the Boost robot for helping teach coding, so one would think this a dangerous market in which to exist.

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