[REVIEW] 51515 - Robot Inventor

[Newest_Tech320]

Love the New black and teal parts!

[jrx]

21 hours ago, Jim said:

That is something I was wondering myself as well. TLG says that the new hub is placed between Boost/Wedo and EV3, but if they stop producing EV3's this doesn't really make sense. Well, it actually means that TLG isn't offering the "anvanced" option anymore.

I think TLG will take out 31313 from shops but is still supporting the old system as there's those huge user base. But for all new starters it will be the new system aka 51515.

15 hours ago, Jim said:

That is actually a different motor, which won't work with the hub

As far as I have tested and seen the motors differ only in color and ID.

15 hours ago, Jim said:

Have you tested this motor with the new hub

With my Spike Prime Hub I was able to drive all motors which where available at the time of my test in the default Spike Prime Test program. Those were:

• C+ XL
• C+ L
• WeDo 2.0 Medium 

But I wasn't able to use those motors from inside the Spike IDE. So I think it's the same with the large angular motor in combination with the 51515 Mindstorms Hub.

You can see my test here (motor tests starting at ~1h15m) :

 

[Jim]

Just now, jrx said:

As far as I have tested and seen the motors differ only in color and ID.

Have you tested the rotation functions etc? I'm sure it will run, but did you test whether if supports all the functions?

I remember reading that the Volvo one is different, which resulted in a search on Bricklink and I noticed the part number is actually different.

Could be wrong though.

[jrx]

1 minute ago, Jim said:

Have you tested the rotation functions etc?

At the time of my test the volvo wasn't available so I couldn't test ist. If I can grab one I'll do it. I derived my considerations from my observations with the other engines.

Quote

Could be wrong though

Me too :D

Edited October 13, 2020 by jrx

[Jim]

44 minutes ago, jrx said:

At the time of my test the volvo wasn't available so I couldn't test ist. If I can grab one I'll do it. I derived my considerations from my observations with the other engines.

Me too :D

LoL

I'd love to see the result, because I assumed the Volvo motor was the same as well. But I started to doubt this.

[WouterVessies]

Thank you Jim for your review. Programming in Scratch 3 is more intuitive, than the standard EV3 software.

[Newest_Tech320]

Does the new mindstorms motor work with a connector PU to PF so you can run it with Buwizz or Sbrick?

[AVCampos]

It should work with the stuff in this video:

 

[m3eu]

On 10/10/2020 at 1:42 PM, Jim said:

VOUCHER
Using this voucher your kids can enter the park for free with a paid adult.

Great review!, you certainly added some nice to knows there.

Easy question; whats the validity date on the voucher? 

[Jim]

22 minutes ago, m3eu said:

Great review!, you certainly added some nice to knows there.

Easy question; whats the validity date on the voucher? 

Thanks.

I will take a look shortly.

[JaBaCaDaBra]

On 10/12/2020 at 8:35 PM, Jim said:

less need for such a sensor

@JimI don't know if you allready had your hands on I Spike set.
I have it and found that the touch sensor is force sensitive unlike the EV3 version that is only an on off switch.
So it really has a usefull function.

[Newest_Tech320]

6 hours ago, AVCampos said:

It should work with the stuff in this video:

 

I have watched that already, but the video only talks about ones that are not parts of the new Lego Mindstorms 51515 motors.

[Lyichir]

Very good review! I'm not much of a programmer so my initial impressions of this were limited mostly to aspects like the color scheme and physical form factor of the parts (both of which impressed me, especially as a fan of Technic during the Cyber-Slam/Competition era). So it's great to see some insight about the practical elements of coding and operating robots built using this system.

It is interesting how many elements of the Spike Prime starter set have been omitted here. I recently picked up the Monkie Kid's Cloud Roadster set so was able to get my first hands-on experience with both the small and large Spike Prime wheels, so it's a shame that those larger wheels aren't included here. The lack of a force sensor is also a bit of a bummer. Perhaps "expansions" for this set could be released in the future (like the various ones released during the RCX era), with the potential to include additional sensors, motors, and functional elements that this starter set lacks.

I'm not sure whether I'll ever end up getting this. On the one hand, I bought an EV3 set at a discount several years ago and never actually ended up getting the most use out of it. On the other, this seems like it might be more "accessible" to a novice programmer, and the improved form factor of the motors and hub might make them easier to integrate into other types of builds. I guess I'll see as time goes on whether space opens up in my budget or I come up with a MOC idea that this kind of thing would facilitate better than my current collection.

[JLiu15]

Are the electronics from this set cross-compatible with Control+? (i.e. use the Technic hub to control the motors in here or use the system here to control C+ motors). I'm wondering if I should get this as if it's cross-compatible with C+, it would really open up a lot more opportunities for making MOCs.

[makushima]

So there is no USER sound onboad of the hub, even it has speaker? Weird...

Again we should use Bluetooth microspeker to workaround it....

Why they cannot do such basic stuff...

[Jim]

50 minutes ago, makushima said:

So there is no USER sound onboad of the hub, even it has speaker? Weird...

There is sound on board the hub, for beeps and blips. But the hub doesn't play MP3 or WAVs.

8 hours ago, JLiu15 said:

Are the electronics from this set cross-compatible with Control+? (i.e. use the Technic hub to control the motors in here or use the system here to control C+ motors). I'm wondering if I should get this as if it's cross-compatible with C+, it would really open up a lot more opportunities for making MOCs.

They are compatible, but I am not sure if everything works out of the box. Obviously the regular Powered Up motors don't have control over rotations and stuff.

Maybe @kbalage (RacingBrick) can answer this question? 

[kbalage]

I wish LEGO did not come up with the Control+ "brand", it confuses everyone  

@JLiu15 Powered Up motors from the Technic (aka Control+) and non-Technic (aka Powered Up or Boost) sets all work with the Mindstorms hub. Simple motors (medium linear, train) work with power control, smart motors (L, XL, angular, Boost M) work with power and speed control as well. The Powered Up light is also working. The Color & Distance sensor is not recognized by the blocks designed for the Mindstorms sensors, but it returns numerical values according to the detected color. 

From the other side the Powered Up app does not support yet the Mindstorms angular motors and the sensors either. 

[Jim]

Thanks for chiming in. Interesting to read that most of the motors are working with the new Hub. That's a good thing.

[kbalage]

On 10/14/2020 at 12:21 AM, Newest_Tech320 said:

I have watched that already, but the video only talks about ones that are not parts of the new Lego Mindstorms 51515 motors.

From that perspective the motor type is irrelevant, since with the adapter you only use raw power control. 

@Jim yes it is good news for Mindstorms users, not very good yet for Powered Up users :) Motor control is pretty straightforward to add on both sides, I wonder when we will see properly implemented sensor usage in both apps. Would be nice to use Spike Prime/Mindstorms sensors in the PU app.

[Tcm0]

4 hours ago, makushima said:

So there is no USER sound onboad of the hub, even it has speaker? Weird...

Again we should use Bluetooth microspeker to workaround it....

Why they cannot do such basic stuff...

There is a sound converter from the community.

[Micka]

Do you know a site or forum specializing in LEGO robots (new Mindstorms and Spike) ?

[Jim]

20 minutes ago, Micka said:

Do you know a site or forum specializing in LEGO robots (new Mindstorms and Spike) ?

You are on it  (just kidding, I know not all the info is here)

There used to be a Mindstorms forum, but it isn't active anymore. Facebook has a lot of active groups for the different products.

[gw_shadow]

7 hours ago, makushima said:

So there is no USER sound onboad of the hub, even it has speaker? Weird...

Again we should use Bluetooth microspeker to workaround it....

Why they cannot do such basic stuff...

 

2 hours ago, Tcm0 said:

There is a sound converter from the community.

The sound format is literally just the raw 16 bit samples from a wav file at a sample rate of 16000 Hz.
I've just written a small python script that can play the samples ripped from the SPIKE Prime / Robot Inventor hubs. [ It's currently baked into my simulator ]

Interestingly the latest firmware for the SPIKE Prime and Robot Inventor hubs do have a large number of "extra_files" which is actually just a collection of sounds.
Here's a list of them all:

 1234              Exterminate        Kick                   'Seek and Destroy'
 Activate          Fire               Laser                   Shake
 Affirmative       Goal               Laugh                   Shooting
 Bowling           Goodbye            Like                   'Shut Down'
'Brick Eating'     Grab              'Mission Accomplished'  'Slam Dunk'
 Celebrate         Hammer             No                      Strike
 Chuckle           Hello              Ouch                   'Success Chime'
 Countdown         Hi                 Ping                    Tadaa
'Countdown Tick'  'Hi 5'              Play                   'Target Acquired'
 Damage            Hit                Punch                  'Target Destroyed'
 Deactivate        Horn               Reverse                 Whirl
 Delivery          Humming            Revving                 Wow
 Dizzy            'Hydraulics Down'   Sad                     Yes
 Error            'Hydraulics Up'     Scanning                Yipee
 Explosion         Initialize         Scared                  Yuck

 

[makushima]

7 hours ago, gw_shadow said:

 

The sound format is literally just the raw 16 bit samples from a wav file at a sample rate of 16000 Hz.
I've just written a small python script that can play the samples ripped from the SPIKE Prime / Robot Inventor hubs. [ It's currently baked into my simulator ]

Interestingly the latest firmware for the SPIKE Prime and Robot Inventor hubs do have a large number of "extra_files" which is actually just a collection of sounds.
Here's a list of them all:

 1234              Exterminate        Kick                   'Seek and Destroy'
 Activate          Fire               Laser                   Shake
 Affirmative       Goal               Laugh                   Shooting
 Bowling           Goodbye            Like                   'Shut Down'
'Brick Eating'     Grab              'Mission Accomplished'  'Slam Dunk'
 Celebrate         Hammer             No                      Strike
 Chuckle           Hello              Ouch                   'Success Chime'
 Countdown         Hi                 Ping                    Tadaa
'Countdown Tick'  'Hi 5'              Play                   'Target Acquired'
 Damage            Hit                Punch                  'Target Destroyed'
 Deactivate        Horn               Reverse                 Whirl
 Delivery          Humming            Revving                 Wow
 Dizzy            'Hydraulics Down'   Sad                     Yes
 Error            'Hydraulics Up'     Scanning                Yipee
 Explosion         Initialize         Scared                  Yuck

 

So can you explain the process how to make play user sounds on 51515 hub. It is little bit unclear for me. I have tank engine and shot sound in MP3, I will convert them to WAV 16 KHz, then put them in firmware image somehow and update firmware? And how to play them in program? 

Edited November 4, 2020 by makushima

[gw_shadow]

12 hours ago, makushima said:

So can you explain the process how to make play user sounds on 51515 hub. It is little bit unclear for me. I have tank engine and shot sound in MP3, I will convert them to WAV 16 KHz, then put them in firmware image somehow and update firmware? And how to play them in program? 

So you'd need to convert the files to wav, at 16KHz as you've done, you then need to remove the wav header from the file leaving just the 16bit sound samples.
There is a conver_sound.py python script that can do all of this. [ https://github.com/nutki/spike-tools ]

You then need to upload this binary sound file to the hub filesystem, you can use rshell for this, [ https://github.com/dhylands/rshell ]
This was my process on linux, on windows the /dev/ttyACM0 will probably be a com port name.

rshell -a
> connect serial /dev/ttyACM0 115200
> cp ./MY_SOUND_FILE /pyboard/sounds/MY_SOUND_FILE

Next you need to play the sound.
As a python script uploaded to the board (or run on the Micropython REPL over a serial connection) that looks like this:

import hub
hub.sound.play("sounds/MY_SOUND_FILE")

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by gw_shadow