45678 LEGO Education SPIKE Prime

[Saberwing40k]

Ugh, the colors are eye searing, 90'stastic NEON. I don't particularly like it, especially for structural components. Like I can understand panels, but not frames and other parts.

[1gor]

On 4/6/2019 at 2:41 AM, Saberwing40k said:

Ugh, the colors are eye searing, 90'stastic NEON. I don't particularly like it, especially for structural components. Like I can understand panels, but not frames and other parts.

 ...so old fart hopes for light bluish gray and black frames; at least for 7 X 11 frame...

Edited April 8, 2019 by I_Igor

[coinoperator]

17 minutes ago, I_Igor said:

light bluish gray frames; at least for 7 X 11 frame

42100 will have some

[Yevhen]

16 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

The expansion set is already available:

https://education.lego.com/en-us/shop/spike-prime/spike-prime-products

Wow, thank you for the link!

For that price (or even cheaper on sales) I might think about purchasing the set, even though I've never dealt with Lego programming.

[1gor]

1 hour ago, coinoperator said:

42100 will have some

I know my friend, it will be in white.

Thanks for honest intentions 

[AVCampos]

1 hour ago, Yevhen said:

For that price (or even cheaper on sales) I might think about purchasing the set, even though I've never dealt with Lego programming.

As an expansion, I'm almost sure that it won't contain the hub and most of the motors and sensors.

[Yevhen]

44 minutes ago, AVCampos said:

As an expansion, I'm almost sure that it won't contain the hub and most of the motors and sensors.

That's sad. However the grass-cutter on the photo looks promising!

[pagicence]

I kind of like that crazy color scheme. It will make builds more interesting, and when you are forced to use a certain color, you will try to add a few more elements in that particular color to add more accent to the model.

[Yevhen]

Just now, pagicence said:

I kind of like that crazy color scheme. It will make builds more interesting, and when you are forced to use a certain color, you will try to add a few more elements in that particular color to add more accent to the model.

Actually you are free to choose any color scheme when building these education models. There are no strict rules.

[pagicence]

Yes, but I was talking about all other different mocs.

[LucyCol]

4 hours ago, Yevhen said:

For that price (or even cheaper on sales) I might think about purchasing the set, even though I've never dealt with Lego programming.

This type of set are normally sold through specialist education retailers, and very rarely appear in sales.

[Maaboo the Witch]

1 hour ago, LucyCol said:

This type of set are normally sold through specialist education retailers, and very rarely appear in sales.

Matches Wyldstyle's hair too! 

[allanp]

Well it's an education set so the colour scheme really doesn't matter I guess, although it would be nice to have these new parts available in useful colours. But I also don't get the reasoning behind it. Is it really exclusionary to have "male colours"? Isn't it more sexist to assume women are so weak minded as to turn away from a profession in STEM because the Lego sets used to teach it weren't girly colours?! I dunno. But I do know the colours look freaking awful, as if they had a competition to decide how to make it as tasteless and uninviting to anyone blessed with the gift of sight as possible!

[Ngoc Nguyen]

The color palette of this set is actually a reference to the CMYK color mode and serves as a reminder that if you design something that will be produced in physical forms later you should convert your color mode to CMYK right from the beginning 

[dr_spock]

CMYK would probably make it easier to print manuals. Only have to use the basic CMYK inks, no mixing required.   And avoiding that popular complaint: distinguishing between black and dark bley in the printed instructions.   

 

[andythenorth]

Eh colours what?  It's an education set.  They use bold colour schemes.  Keep up eh?

Spike colours are:

• different to Boost, which is cyan and orange
• different to WeDo which is cyan, and greens
• different to Mindstorms, which uses red accents

The colour coding makes the parts easy to work with, and easy to find / sort / tidy up / inventory in a classroom context.

You spooners aren't the target audience  

The colours aren't gender specific, most of gender-specific colour theory is bollocks.  And yes girls like robots too, who'd have ever guessed?  Lego League is a huge educational STEM event in the UK, about 50:50 gender balance in my experience.

Edited April 6, 2019 by andythenorth

[Samer]

Interesting viewpoints about the colors.

My son is 13. While his younger sister reacted very positively,  he didn't like these colors at first sight . I know not all boys will react the same but I know this does take place for many boys.

This is aside from the idea that many would want to innovate builds (including schools) that involve their other part inventory and it looks to me they will struggle to match the colors.

 

[Wolf_Zipp]

On ‎4‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 8:55 PM, andythenorth said:

Eh colours what?  It's an education set.  They use bold colour schemes.  Keep up eh?

Spike colours are:

• different to Boost, which is cyan and orange
• different to WeDo which is cyan, and greens
• different to Mindstorms, which uses red accents

My question and fear is :

how do the Systems fit together ??

And with Power Up in Trains and Batmobile ?

Same connectors , but work the motors crosswise between the sets ??

 

PF time will end soon ... I got some parts in my stock last time .

[andythenorth]

21 hours ago, Wolf_Zipp said:

how do the Systems fit together ??

Very valid question.  I can only recommend these 2 threads in Trains forum, lots of information there

 

[Toastie]

22 hours ago, Wolf_Zipp said:

how do the Systems fit together ??

And with Power Up in Trains and Batmobile ?

Same connectors , but work the motors crosswise between the sets ??

Yes indeed there is lot going on in Train Tech regarding the PUp (some including TLG call it PF2, I like the PUp acronym for some reason) system as well as hardware integration work.

The thing so far is the PUp 6 pole plug/socket. I believe it will be not >so< straight forward for TLG to come up with a converter cable, which:

• codes the old hardware correctly (there are 4 of the 6 lines which can be used for that but don't have to - in other configurations a smart device such a motor with rotation encoder sends data over these lines etc. etc.)
• allows to connect arbitrary sensors from e.g.- Mindstorms and other systems in the right way without a chance of blowing something (which in turn means that TLG will be sued …) 
• cannot be swallowed
• or if swallowed is fully digested and discharged properly
• add long list here …

Other than that when you for example just want to run "a LEGO motor" (regardless which one of the 12V/9V line): It works. I used the two power lines of the 6 wires to run a 4.5V train motor (don't go to full speed), a 12 V train motor (not coming to full speed), a PF, RC, 9V train motor, a Technic mini motor, Technic motor, Technic micro motor, PF M motor. OK I had to cut off a PUp plug from a PUp device (the PUp LED lights are currently the cheapest way to do that) and used - wait what did they call it … forgot - socket headers and pin headers (??) to attach the old non PUp devices.

What I found happening is that the over-current protection of the PUp hub (Hub.No4) kicks in fairly early - the 9V train motor does that at least. I have to check with @Philos motor comparison page whether or not that makes sense. Cool though is that the PUp hub raises an event and fires that into the BLE space. When your software is properly set-up, it will see that happening. When you watch the train: It stalls for a second when under inappropriate load. PF is much more tolerant in that regard.

Given the constraints above: TLG needs to tell us the manufacturer of the PUp plus. Or: Someone pitches that to ShapeWays

In summary: Yes the systems do fit. With some non-purist moves that is.

All the best
Thorsten 

 

[Aanchir]

On 4/6/2019 at 10:24 AM, allanp said:

Well it's an education set so the colour scheme really doesn't matter I guess, although it would be nice to have these new parts available in useful colours. But I also don't get the reasoning behind it. Is it really exclusionary to have "male colours"? Isn't it more sexist to assume women are so weak minded as to turn away from a profession in STEM because the Lego sets used to teach it weren't girly colours?

Let me flip that right back to you. "Is it really exclusionary to have "female colors"? Isn't it more sexist to assume that men are so weak minded as to turn away from a profession in STEM because the LEGO sets used to teach it weren't boyish colors?"

After all, the inclusion of colors like Medium Azur and Bright Reddish Violet (Magenta) in this set wouldn't be noteworthy at all if it weren't for their glaring absence from the color schemes of most other Technic-based sets and themes. White and Bright Yellow, of course, have always been pretty common in most themes, regardless of whether they're masculine-coded, feminine-coded, or neither, so I can't imagine they're what you're taking issue with.

For that matter, even Medium Azur has shown up in a few Technic sets by now, including https://brickset.com/sets/42059-1/Stunt-Truck (which paired it with white accents) and https://brickset.com/sets/42050-1/Drag-Racer (which actually paired it with Bright Reddish Violet accents, albeit as stickers rather than recolors). So this set's extensive use of Bright Reddish Violet building elements in a theme that's not specifically girl-targeted is basically the only thing about it that's too surprising compared to what we've come to expect.

That said, either version of the statement you gave is pretty absurd and reductionist, considering the colors in this set are no more inherently "girly" than the colors in many older Dacta, RoboLab, WeDo, and Mindstorms kits are inherently "boyish". Heavily masculine-coded themes and subthemes of the late 90s and early 2000s such as Cyber-Slam/Competition, CyberMaster, Throwbots/Slizer, early Mindstorms, early Racers, and early Bionicle) allused Bright Violet (Purple), Bright Bluish Green (Dark Turquoise), and Bright Yellow (Yellow) parts pretty conspicuously, sometimes all three together in the same set.

This set's colors roughly correspond to those same three colors, albeit adjusted slightly to form a more balanced and aesthetically pleasing triadic color scheme, and without first-generation Mindstorms sets' other extraneous colors like Bright Blue (Blue), Bright Red (Red), and Dark Green (Green) which reduced the color scheme into a random-looking mess. I'm not sure why anybody (regardless of gender) wouldn't see this as a vast improvement on the trying-too-hard-to-be-edgy brand identity that RCX-era Mindstorms, and EV3-era Mindstorms, and Power Functions were unfortunately saddled with.

If you genuinely feel like using a CMYK color palette is "sexist", though, I'm sure you can take it up with the printing department at your nearest office supply store! They could probably use a laugh!

[Mr Hobbles]

2 hours ago, Toastie said:

...some including TLG call it PF2, I like the PUp acronym for some reason

It's becoming clearer to me over time that "Lego Power Functions 2.0" (LPF2) is the name for the peripheral standard and Lego Wireless Protocol 3.0 (LWP3) is the wireless standard, whereas WeDo 2.0, Powered Up, Boost, Control+, and SPIKE Prime are names for the brands of Lego products that use the the LPF2 standard. :)

The peripheral standard appears to dictate how the peripherals (motors, sensors) connect to their hubs, both in terms of the wire protocol and physical connector.
The wireless protocol dictates how the hub communicates back to the users smart device, be it a laptop or phone.

For example:

• For simple automation of system models there is Powered Up, for which the peripherals utilise the LPF2 hardware standard, and the hub utilises LWP3 for communicating back to the users smart device.
• For simple automation of Technic models there is Control+, for which the peripherals utilise the LPF2 hardware standard, and the hub utilises LWP3 for communicating back to the users smart device.
• For education and learning:
  • There is WeDo 2.0 for primary education, for which the peripherals utilise the LPF2 hardware standard, but does not use LWP3 as its wireless standard. It uses an older (somewhat similar but more basic) wireless protocol (LWP1? LWP2?).
  • There is SPIKE Prime for secondary education, for which the peripherals utilise the LPF2 hardware standard, LWP3 for communication with other LWP3 devices (ie. Powered Up remotes), and new, as yet undocumented, Bluetooth classic and USB protocols for communicating back to the users smart device.
• For robotics in the home:
  • There is Boost for younger users, which utilises the LPF2 hardware standard, and LWP3 for communicating with the hub.
  • There is Mindstorms for older users, which currently uses its own hardware standard and wireless protocol. I fully believe there will be a new Mindstorms product within the next year or two which utilises LPF2, and likely, LWP3 somewhere.

So far, Lego has released documentation for LWP3, so that we can write code that allows our devices (laptops, phones, etc) to talk to LWP3 hubs - https://lego.github.io/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs/

Lego has not so far released documentation for the LPF2 wire protocol though, but I believe they plan to - the SPIKE Prime vision sensor has a removable back, exposing an 8-pin connector and enabling hardware enthusiasts to design and connect up their own motors and sensors. They'll need to release the LPF2 wire protocol publicly to enable people to do this.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Mr Hobbles

[iLego]

If @Mr Hobbles is right, then all the new wave electronics will be compatible with each other !

I think that's really powerful !

I will not mind the missing compatibility with old PF in that case.

My only request to Lego is to keep an interface with regular computers also. Some things are hard with phones and tablets.

Edited April 9, 2019 by iLego
Improve wording

[Mr Hobbles]

46 minutes ago, iLego said:

If @Mr Hobbles is right, then all the new wave electronics will be compatible with each other !

I think that's really powerful !

I will not mind the missing compatibility with old PF in that case.

My only request to Lego is to keep an interface with regular computers also. Some things are hard with phones and tablets.

The released ones already are. :) We have WeDo 2.0 sensors working with the Boost hub, Boost sensors working with the Powered Up hub, Powered Up train motors working with the WeDo 2.0 hub, etc, as they are all LPF2. :)

This isn't possible with official Lego apps, but people in the community (myself included) have written other software to enable people to do this, including on laptops. Lego just need to update their apps to do this officially. But the hardware is compatible as is.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Mr Hobbles

[lcvisser]

7 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

So far, Lego has released documentation for LWP3, so that we can write code that allows our devices (laptops, phones, etc) to talk to LWP3 hubs - https://lego.github.io/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs/

This is LEGO official documentation? I thought all the efforts were community powered reverse engineering, but if there documentation support from LEGO I see a bright future!

i was really late to the PF1 party and feeling sorry for myself, but maybe I should be glad I didn’t invest that much money into PF1. Is there already a rechargeable battery available?