Plezmo Inc. Launches Kickstarter Campaign to Bring Early Learners Innovative Coding Apps and Intelligent Wireless Building Blocks

The design team behind Plezmo launched their Kickstarter campaign today and is looking to raise a total of $75K to put their product into production. Plezmo Elements, similar to building blocks, pair wirelessly with Plezmo Apps and allow children to code things like their very own games or contraptions, make music, develop their own smart wearables and much more.

Plezmo Apps will be available on iOS, Android and Chromebook and will allow kids to program their Elements wirelessly by using an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop visual programming interface. The cloud-based application provides community sharing features to Plezmo users so they can share their own projects or try interesting projects done by others. Plezmo’s built-in simulator allows kids to try their programs on screen before using the physical elements. Plezmo Apps were also designed to be compatible with LEGO® Mindstorms®, LEGO® Wedo®, Sphero® elements and more all in one easy-to-use program.

“Our team has a real passion for innovation, learning and technology,” said co-founder Amol Palshikar. “As our collection of products and team continues to grow, we hope that this project will help us expand and build upon our passion for developing fun, educational products for children that will have long-lasting benefits.”

Plezmo will prove to be perfect for the classroom, day care, family night and even play dates. With 13 different Elements and 5 types of accessories, the possibilities for creativity are endless. Kids have the ability to code through the app and play sounds, show photos, sense tilts and movements, create moving projects and much more. Plezmo Elements are designed to work with everyday objects such as existing toys, cardboard-based creations, bags, bikes and other objects and turn them into smart objects. Plezmo Elements are also designed for hours of constant usage and require a simple recharge. Even if it’s in the airport, on the road or in a deadzone, no internet connection is required to use Plezmo.

Early supporters can pre-order Plezmo packages on Kickstarter for $109, which is over 25% less than the market retail value. Packages will be available for beginner and advanced levels. For more information about Plezmo Elements and Apps, visit http://bit.ly/PlezmoKS.

ABOUT PLEZMO INC.

Plezmo Inc. is building a platform of the best possible building blocks to learn, teach and play with technology for the education and maker markets. The Plezmo team believes that cutting-edge technology should be put in the hands of children in a safe and simple way to empower them to create things that are in line with the world around them. For more information, visit http://www.plezmo.com.

LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 – Project „Mak3rBot“

The Mak3rBot is a LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot that consists of 3D printed Parts. The design is based on Damien Kees RileyRover / Joe Menos Retailrover as this design only needs a few parts. All parts were printed on a Vellemann k8200 3D printer. Most of the parts could be found on Thingiverse, some needed to be exported from Ldraw/LeoCAD. The LEGO ActionCam Camera mount has been designed by Andy Milluzzi. The mission of this robot is to travel to Maker Faires and share the #MINDSTORMSMAGIC with the makers around the world and show them that it is possible to combine LEGO with your maker hobby and create your own parts and robots.

The pictures were taken at Legoworld Utrecht 2016. The Mak3rbot robot and pictures were made by me, Sebastian Trella. Feel free to share pictures or contact me if you need more information or help with creating your own robot.

LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Introduces Mobile Programming With New EV3 Programmer App For Tablets

NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Today the LEGO Group announced the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 Programmer App, a new application that allows builders to create programs for MINDSTORMS robots directly from iOS and Android tablet devices. Featuring a streamlined selection of the most-used commands, the EV3 Programmer App allows for more interaction away from the desktop or laptop computer, giving users even more freedom to explore and tinker with the MINDSTORMS platform.  The EV3 Programmer App will be available in free versions for iOS and Android tablets in English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean and Russian in late November 2015. The app is not a standalone experience, but designed for LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, the LEGO construction set that allows you to build and program robots that do what you want them to do (U.S. SRP $349).

The EV3 Programmer App consists of the 11 most popular programming blocks in the LEGO MINDSTORMS software, including action blocks, flow blocks and comment blocks. After writing and saving a program within the app, a user can progress to more advanced programming by opening it in the LEGO MINDSTORMS desktop software.  To provide additional inspiration for beginner robot makers, the app will feature building missions, videos and building instructions for five starter robots that represent a variety of building and programming experiences all while delivering the fun factor for which LEGO building is known.

„By extending MINDSTORMS robotic programming to tablets, we are embracing the ‚anywhere, anytime‘ of mobile devices to unleash even more creativity in building and programming with MINDSTORMS,“ said Filippa Malmegard, LEGO MINDSTORMS community manager. „When we untether the experience from the desktop, programming really becomes a playful extension of building, allowing users to add a new behavior or interactivity to their LEGO creations. This extra level of mobility will make the EV3 Programmer App an accessible and convenient programming starter experience for a new generation of users, while at the same time adding play value for our existing MINDSTORMS Community.“

From Play to Prototype: LEGO MINDSTORMS at World Maker Faire and Smithsonian Innovation Festival
To further inspire the next generation of innovators, the LEGO Group is showcasing the creativity and innovation of the MINDSTORMS Community at two high profile events this weekend, World Maker Faire, September 26-27, in New York, NY, and the Smithsonian Innovation Festival, September 26 – 27, in Washington, DC. At each event, MINDSTORMS makers will demonstrate inventions they’ve built using MINDSTORMS building sets as prototyping tools in addition to showcasing a variety of fun LEGO robots.

A number of recipients of LEGO Prototyping Kits from this summer’s Play to Prototyping Challenge, launched during the National Week of Making in June, will participate in World Maker Faire. LEGO MINDSTORMS Community Manager Filippa Malmegard will also moderate a panel on the topic „From Play to Prototype“ where featured builders will discuss how LEGO bricks and elements can serve as a creative prototyping platform for new concepts and inventions ranging from prosthetics to 3D printers. (Saturday, September 26, 3:45PM – 4:15 PM)

At the Smithsonian Innovation Festival in Washington, DC, Shubham Banerjee, the 14-year-old founder of Braigo Labs will demonstrate his braille printer built entirely from LEGO MINDSTORMS and share his process of invention with attendees.  Alongside Shubham, Cameron Kruse, Fulbright alumni and LEGO MINDSTORMS builder will demonstrate a prototype for his baseball mudder, a machine that can apply the same amount of mud to each new baseball, eliminating inconsistencies in the ways mud was applied to new baseballs before they were used in a game. Both Shubham and Cameron will participate in 15 minute Q&A interviews as part of the event as well.

The EV3 Programmer App for tablets will be available through the App Store and Google Play in late November 2015. For more information on LEGO MINDSTORMS and examples of robots built using LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, please visit www.LEGO.com/MINDSTORMS.

RoboSnap – Vision for your Robot

Truckee, CA, May 22, 2015 – 10 Imaging Inc. launched their debut product on Kickstarter, RoboSnap.  RoboSnap provides “Vision for Your Robot”, by detecting objects in the environment by their color, location, shape and size.  The creator of RoboSnap, Shari Vedovato says, “We created RoboSnap to add a new dimension to your robot to allow it to have more understanding of the environment and be more autonomous.”

RoboSnap currently works on the LEGO® Mindstorms EV3 as well as the Raspberry Pi with the BrickPi add-on board.

 

Not only can RoboSnap add vision to your robot, it can be programmed with Snap!, a Scratch extension or with the Python and C programming languages.  Shari says, “We provide many choices to program RoboSnap in order to support our youngest customers to our most experienced.  We received a lot of positive feedback about the ability to program the EV3 with Snap! at our demonstrations at the San Mateo Maker Faire.  Many kids are learning Scratch at school and it is comfortable for them to continue to program with this language as they move into robotics.”  Kickstarter backers can select to receive the “JUST THE SOFTWARE”  reward if they are interested in programming their robots with Snap! on the EV3.

Riley Breuner, a high school student who recently competed in the FIRST Robotics League competition said, “It’s great that there’s a new sensor that can detect colors accurately and reliably. It’s almost impossible to use the existing Lego sensors because you can run the same program and get different results or it just detects the wrong color. RoboSnap is a much better option.“  Shari agreed, “When watching the recent FIRST LEGO League missions I noticed that it was difficult for the robots to perform the ‘Search Engine’ mission in one pass.  It was necessary to use the ‘eyes’ of the players to determine the color.   We have shown that RoboSnap can do this mission in a single pass.  Although RoboSnap is not currently sanctioned to be part of the FIRST LEGO League competition, we are working on having it accepted.”

 

RoboSnap will be available exclusively on Kickstarter from May 13 to June 12, 2015 with the first shipments of RoboSnap cameras in October 2015.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robosnap/robosnap-vision-for-your-robot

Der neue Roberta-Grundlagenband ist da!

Dieser Band stellt das Roberta-Konzept vor und enthält Grundlagen zur Planung und Durchführung von Roberta-Kursen. Dazu gehören insbesondere didaktische Hinweise zur gendergerechten Kursgestaltung. Explizit werden die beiden Roboter-Baukastensysteme LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT und LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 vorgestellt. Des Weiteren gibt das Buch einen Überblick über den Einsatz und die Verwendung von Robotern in der heutigen Gesellschaft. Aufgrund der zahlreichen Aufgabenstellungen mit unterschiedlichem Schwierigkeitsgrad, bietet dieser Band gerade für Lehrkräfte viele Anregungen zur Gestaltung eigener Roberta-Kurse. Alle im Buch enthaltenen Aufgabenstellungen folgen dem langjährig erprobten Roberta-Konzept und können kostenfrei auf dem Roberta-Portal heruntergeladen werden.

Link zum Shop

LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 angekündigt

ev3rstorm-mindstorms-ev3-smallDie LEGO Gruppe gibt ihre neueste Innovation im Bereich LEGO MINDSTORMS in dieser Woche auf der internationalen Consumer Electronics Show (CES) bekannt. LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, der Nachfolger des LEGO Mindstorms NXT setzt die beliebte LEGO MINDSTORMS Produktlinie fort, und ist besser als je zuvor.

Mit LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 können Sie Ihre LEGO Kreationen in Roboter verwandeln, die jeden Befehl befolgen. Das neue LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Set beinhaltet alles, was Sie brauchen – Motoren, Sensoren, programmierbaren intelligenten Baustein, 550 + LEGO Technic Elemente, Fernbedienung – zum Bauen und Programmieren der Roboter deiner Wünsche! Lade die 3D Bauanleitungen herunter und die neue App zum Steuern deines Roboters per Smartphone, dann programmiere deinen Roboter zu gehen, sprechen oder was auch immer du möchtest mit der neuen intuitiven Programmiersoftware, dem intelligenten Baustein oder deinem Smartphone.

MINDSTORM_EV3_RGB_Trans_thumb

Die Spezifikationen des neuen LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Systems:

EV3 Intelligenter Baustein:

  • Stärkerer und schnellerer ARM9 Roboter-Prozessor
  • 16 MB eingebauter Flash-Speicher
  • 64 MB RAM plus SD-Steckplatz
  • LINUX-Betriebssystem, unter Open Source Lizenz veröffentlicht
  • USB 2.0-Schnittstelle ermöglicht die WiFi-Konnektivität
  • 4 Eingangs-Ports: Schließen Sie bis zu 4 Sensoren gleichzeitig, einschließlich Ihrer NXT-Sensoren an
  • 4 Ausgänge:  bis zu 4 Motoren (Entweder Large, Medium oder NXT)
  • Bis zu vier intelligente Steine können  ​​miteinander verbunden werden (Das sind 16-Sensor und 16 Motor-Ports!)
  • Matrix-Display mit Lautsprecher
  • Bedienknöpfe mit Statusanzeige
  • verbesserte Programmiermöglichkeiten auf dem intelligenten Baustein (auch ohne Computer programmieren)
  • Bluetooth ® v2.1
  • iOS und Android kompatibel

Hardware:

  • 3 interaktive Servomotoren: 2 große und 1 mittlerer Motor
  • 1 Berührungs-Sensor
  • Neuer IR Seeker Sensor misst Abstand, Bewegungen und erkennt Objekte, und wirkt als ein Empfänger für die Fernbedienung
  • Die neue IR Beacon Fernbedienung steuert den Roboter aus bis zu 2 Metern Entfernung
  • Verbesserter Farb Sensor erkennt 6 Farben sowie die Helligkeit von Lichtquellen
  • Abwärtskompatibel mit LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: Verbinden Sie Ihre NXT Sensoren und Motoren mit EV3
  • Sortiment von 594 LEGO TECHNIC ® Elementen

Programmier-Software:

  • Herunterladbare Software ist PC-und Mac-kompatibel
  • Icon-basierte Drag-and-Drop-Umgebung