Lego Mindstorms Ev3 App

[Akinlolu Bellotti]

AsI researched the product I discovered that the EV3 brick, which is at the core of the Mindstorms robots, runs on Linux. Despite that, all of the coding software distributed with the project runs on Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android. I found an open source project that allowed the EV3 brick software to be modified, ev3dev. ev3dev is an open source project that allows the Mindstorm user to create a Debian-based operating system (OS) that boots from a microSD card. Once the EV3 brick boots the Debian image, the user can interact with the EV3 via SSH using the command line in a terminal window.

David Lechner is the lead developer for the project, and I had a chance to ask him a few questions. David's background is a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State, then he spent the next eight years doing industrial automation in the water and wastewater industry. Recently, for the last four years he's been doing freelance computer programming for primarily open source projects, such as ev3dev.

I asked him how the ev3dev project got started and he said his inspiration came from a blog post by Ralph Hempel, the founder of the EV3dev project. Being a tinkerer at heart, David couldn't resist. He said, "Even though I had no idea what I was doing, I jumped right in and started learning how to write kernel drivers (I had to start with "Hello World" in C because I didn't have any experience with the language) and how to maintain Debian packages and all sorts of other things that are needed to make an operating system." Fortunately for him he was in a position that allowed him to focus his efforts on that task. It wasn't long before Ralph realized that David had more time to devote and he made him a co-maintainer of the project.

I asked David how many people are involved with the project and he said, "It's hard to say exactly. Since LEGO robots are just a hobby for most people, we have quite a few people that show up for a weekend or two and then disappear. However, I would say that we have somewhere between 5 and 10 contributors that have been with us long term." I asked him if the project would consider allowing younger people to be involved since Mindstorm robots are used in so many schools. He said, "Of course. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we don't have much to offer that is very kid-friendly for younger students. Hopefully some day. On the other hand, it would be great to work with high school and/or college students that have just a little bit of programming experience already." He said that a potential developer in the project should not be frightened by lack of experience as he himself was very inexperienced when he got involved with ev3dev.

David said he enjoys working with students and has taught some after-school NXT robotics classes. He is currently serving as a coach of a First LEGO League team. I asked him what his most pressing needs are in the short term, and he said, "I would really like to see some other contributors that are willing to spend a significant amount of time making ev3dev better before the next generation LEGO Mindstorms robot comes along and everyone moves on to that. Perhaps some university students could make some aspect of ev3dev their senior design project, or companies that develop Mindstorms-compatible products could adopt ev3dev as a platform instead of developing their own."

When asked about his longterm goals, he said, "I would like to get our hardware drivers into the mainline Linux kernel. Jason Kridner (of BeagleBone) and Greg Kroah-Hartman (of The Linux Foundation) have been pushing me to do this in the short term. But, there is quite a bit to be done to even get the EV3 bootable from the mainline Linux kernel before we even get to the ev3dev-specific bits." David encourages users of ev3dev to try it and let the project know how they can improve, and let them know ideas that will yield iterations to the project.

To get started with your own ev3dev experience you need a LEGO Mindstorms Home or Education kit, the EV3 brick, and a 2GB or larger microSD card. Go to the ev3dev website and download the latest Debian Jessie image file. Download Etcher for your particular operating system to transfer the image to your microSD card, then after the image is on your card insert it into your EV3 and power on the unit. Follow the directions on the ev3dev website. Connect to the EV3 with the USB cable that comes with your kit and start having some fun.

My kids are in a first lego league. I wish they have a version of the mindstorm software that ran on Linux. It really frustrates me that Lego felt Linux was good enough to run their robots but they didn't feel the need to give back to the community by supplying a version of mindstorm for Linux.

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The biggest option the Lego community keeps asking for is face detection. If there was a Lego version of OpenMV with face detection, colour blob tracking and line following it would be the best Lego machine cam on the market.

I think that if OpenMV was to make a Lego Labview interface that it could sell a lot of cams to the Lego community at a slightly higher price to cover the cost of developemnt to the lego version.

Obviously the OpenMV software side of this is only writing a short script to make these features available as a slave to the Lego EV3 brick (Lego processor). The OpenMV hardware will be just make a case with lego attachment holes and also a lead to interface bewteen the OpenMV and the EV3 brick.

Some info on the Lego mindsorms EV3 platform. It is a Linux OS that runs a Lego virtual machine that auto boots a Lab view programming environment. see the EV3 developer tool kit at the bottom of this page -us/mindstorms/downloads

I do know 1 of the guys that maintain EV3DEV which is a alternative Linux OS for Lego EV3 that allows you to program the EV3 brick in Python, this guy loves machine vision and I have already showed him your cam and he was excited and though it would be great fro Lego.

I had camp last week and I had a challenge to build this sorter. I built it and downloaded the mindstorms programmer to my computer. It comes with all the programs to all of the listed builds. If may be a little confusin but it is manageable.

Hey Laurens! Can you upload the program for H25? If you dont have the program, can u pls give me the opportunity to create a post, cuz i have the H25 program, i programmed it with the program turtorial from the education site. Im ten years old, almost eleven ?

Hi,

Thanks for the PDFs. Indeed, my pupils want to build the four Robot models of the EV3 core set.

Does anybody know if there is some documentation / explanation about the Programs of these models? (Not the building instructions, but for the LabView programs, which are quite complex).

THANKS !

They already provide the building instructions for free, so why not the EV3 project files to go with them? Yes, people can develop the robot programs themselves, of course, but not everyone wants to do that. Sometimes, building a robot and downloading an existing program to it is all people want to do.

Hi Laurens,

I have a question for you and i hope to get a reply from you soon. I have been assigned to build a robot using EV3 Kit 31313, and i am supposed to make a robot which uses IR sensor without IR beacon and it is capable of detecting obstacles using that IR sensor.

I would really appreciate if you would please help me with the design such that the robot is able to move forward or backward and also it is able to move its IR sensor sideways.

Thank You.

Hi

Thanks so much for sharing all the valuable content.

My daughter and I have the Home set, bought all the elements to bridge the gap between that on the Core Education set , and now have the education expansion set. She loves EV3. We are struggling to find the project code to go with all the extra robots we cannot build, e.g Elephant or Puppy. Does anyone know how we can get these? We are learning to program ourselves bit by bit, however these may be rather beyond our current level and great to see how that are crafted.

Thanks

I have taken over a school robotics program and have one computer with the education software installed. However, I can not find the programs for the projects above. I am working with our IT department to re-install the software if possible, but are the programs themselves downloadable somewhere if you have your software key?

The Mindstorms education software is now free of charge. You can login with your Lego ID and download it on the Lego education website.

This includes all building instructions and programs for both sets 45544 and 45560.

Hey Layrens

I was wondering if you could help me with the coding for the Robot Arm H25 as we school team and I have created the robot but there are so many types of coding and most of them donk work where the others just stop mid way through. Please, can you help us with this as we are trying to beat another team in the school!

Thank you for the information! I have 2 students that created the robotic arm using the program from the software and neither is working. I have looked at them both and they appear to be built correctly. When they execute the program the display does not show the question mark prompt after it initializes. I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to what a solution might be?

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