JB

The standard colour sensor block in EV3Lab unfortunately does not have the functionality to give you raw values for RGB values (Red, Green and Blue). This is a problem if you want to calibrate your colour sensors properly, i.e. look at the raw values of each component, and from these values derive if the sensor is seeing a specific colour you're interested in. Fortunately, you can install a 3rd party sensor which gives you access to all these values. Please see  EV3 Color Sensor RGB Block Enhanced – OFDL Robotics Lab Taiwan . Note: although third party plug-ins were not allowed previously in FLL competitions, from 2020 that restriction was lifted where any software can now be used to program the robot. If you have multiple colour sensors, please use the same generation of colour sensors, because the RGB values can differ a lot between different generations for the same colour. You need to look at the code on the sensor itself to determine the generation. The code is in format 99N9,...

One of the FLL rules says you can only use 4 motors in total. Typically you would have 2 motors for steering, which leaves you with 2 motors for all your missions. Since different missions would require different usages of the motors, you can build different attachments, but you will need a way to couple your attachments to the motors. I think the best way is to build something where you use a 20 tooth double bevel gear (part 32269) on the motor, and put that gear on one side of a 7x5 frame. Repeat that for the other motor and join them together, and fix it to your robot: For attachments you need to build a frame than can be pushed onto the system above. You can use a 12 tooth double bevel gear (part 32270) which slide into contact with the 20 tooth gear on the robot. There should be a guiding hole on the robot side (done above with the 5 beam on the other side of the 7x5 frame). Once you have this you can use the axles on the other side to do whatever you need to do with your attachme...

I have been mentoring a FLL team for a couple of years and I see a lot of confusion when it comes to the EV3 gyro sensor. In this post I will try to explain some of the things I have learned and hopefully clear up some of the confusion. There two different generations of EV3 gyro sensors - although they look the same from outside. You need to look at the code on the sensor itself to determine the generation. The code is in format 99N9, where the first 99 is the week number and the last 9 is the year number (from 2000). If the year number is 2 or 3, you have the old generation, and if it is 4 or higher you have the new generation. Read this page to learn more: https://ev3lessons.com/en/ProgrammingLessons/advanced/GyroRevisited.pdf The new generation (N4 and up) is more accurate. We are only using the new generation because the old generation gave us too many problems. There is a difference between resetting the gyro and calibrati...

This post will explain how to use the free Hyper-V Windows 2019 Server version. This version doesn't come with any GUI interface as provided in the full Windows 2019 Server version. Instead it comes with a character interface, but with the help of some third party tools you can easily get a fully functional Hyper-V server for free. The following will be assumed: You have a dedicated server connected to a network and you want to install Hyper-V 2019 on this server to run Virtual Machines and/or act as a file server. You have physical access to this server to do the installation. You have another machine connected to the same network to do remote management, running a recent version of Microsoft Windows. You don't want to join a domain or use Active Directory. You can do this if you want to, but this is not included in this post. First you'll need to download the Hyper-V 2019 ISO from  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019 . You’ll...

The Lego EV3 Education core set (45544) comes with a sorting tray (see e.g.  https://stemrobotics.cs.pdx.edu/sites/default/files/EV3%20Organizers.pdf ). It seems there is nothing similar for the Lego EV3 Retail / Home version (31313). Our Lego Robotics club received some EV3 Home version kits and the kids can take these kits home to play & learn. This is my first attempt of constructing a sorting tray. I'm sure it's not perfect, so I'll update as we go. I've copied the images from  http://robotsquare.com/2013/11/25/difference-between-ev3-home-edition-and-education-ev3/ , which also offers a nice explanation of the difference between the two versions. Top tray: ( High resolution ) Bottom tray: ( High resolution ) Part list: PDF document for all the parts, sorted by block (A-M for the top tray, Z for the bottom tray).

If you're using Windows 10 18.09 or later and try to install Lego Digital Designer (LDD) 4.3.11 you'll probably get an installation error for Adobe Flash Player. However, there is an easy way around it: Download the installation file for LDD 4.3.11. Rename the .exe file to .zip. If you don't see the .exe extension in Explorer, go to "View - Options" on the Explorer menu, then under the "View" tab deselect the "Hide extensions for known file types". Open the zip file with Windows Explorer. Copy all files in the zip to another directory on your computer. In the new folder: Delete install_flash_player_active_x.exe. Copy OpenGLChecker.exe and rename it to install_flash_player_active_x.exe. Run LDDSetup.exe. In short the installer will execute install_flash_player_active_x.exe during the installation process, but all it does now is to execute the same logic as what OpenGLChecker does. In theory you can run any .exe that will not retu...