TheSpaceCadet

Wow this is always very insightful. I guess it's true that I was relying on other folks' imaginations for use cases, since that's what individual brick elements are really all about. The whole idea of LEGO is interchangable parts, so while it's probably impossible to assign a single use case to a piece, the creator of the individual part should do more to show use cases. And yeah, I looked at Keybrick One and thought it was a great gap filler to LEGO Powered Up hub, but then it failed. It's sad, since there are plenty people who can benefit from such a thing. If not Kickstarter, I'm not sure where to do. I think I needed to start much smaller, probably in the DIY electronics space with a development board type of thing instead of a fully certified, fully featured thing. Venture capital seems out of the question, since I'm not trying to make a ton of money - I want to bridge the gap between Lego Mindstorms and the relatively small group of people who can both program (text syntax style, not Lego block style) and love Lego. I don't think a venture capital type of person would see big money there - I sure don't. And yeah LEGO has some IP around their new connector, so it's going to be hard to really get in the game with any group of people who aren't willing to hack their way through something.

Yes that's actually the same line of connectors I used in my device, just the 4-pin versions! It looks like I may have missed the mark overall, though - it's not doing very well on kickstarter. I think maybe my demos and page isn't too great. What are the things you're looking for that it doesn't do for you? I'm not trying to sell to you, but this is great feedback so I'd be interested to know.

I had the same problem when I was trying to develop a controller/hub for Lego's new devices. I use a connector that you crimp right onto the cable, leaving the original cable fully functional but also breaking it out in a more universally usable way. If you'd like to see the full implementation and hub, check out the Kickstarter I just launched. Hopefully this plug isn't too shameless. Also, I ended up cutting all my cords - I just can't bring myself to fork out over $300USD for a spike prime when I've got plenty of technic pieces and I just want to program in Arduino.

Hey guys, I'm new to this place, but when I think of who I'm making this hub for, it seems like I've found the right place. I'd like to start this topic both to point you to my current Kickstarter campaign as well as see what discussion occurs around this project - maybe I was way off altogether, or maybe I should have started this discussion like a year ago, or who knows - maybe I just didn't post in the right place. It's called the Evlono. In general, it's an ESP32-based, Lego-embeddable, open-source controller with 3 ports, a built-in speaker, some LEDs, and some other nice hardware goodies (USB Power Devilery, WiFi, Bluetooth). It's programmed over Arduino. A co-processor handles all the communication to and from Lego devices and manages PID control of the motors, and the ESP32 issues it commands over I2C with an Arduino library. Let me know what you think. The link is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacecadet/evlono-one. Below you can see a quick GIF of an Evlono taking some motors through some steps functions.

Hey guys. It seems like we've all been working towards the same end. I developed a hub that works with control+, Spike prime, WeDo 2.0, and powered-up motors and sensors. It's programmed with the Arduino IDE. It's live on Kickstarter right now, as of a couple of days ago. Unless you're set on making your own hub, you should check it out and see if it meets your needs. It's all open source and it's got Bluetooth and WiFi. Here's the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacecadet/evlono-one