2020 Mindstorms set

[Coder Shah]

1 minute ago, Lok24 said:

Yes. The point is: not all models must be robots driving around.

Think about a warehouse where you can use the EV3 to display the available goods and navigate through them via the 5 buttons, i.E.

 

You're absolutely right. I'm thinking maybe LEGO can put in a customisable user interface on the programming software, so you can see that information on your tablet or computer. I quite liked that feature in Boost.

[Lok24]

2 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

 I quite liked that feature in Boost.

Part of that you have with the controller of the PoweredUp app, which you can use for the Move Hub and technic Hub as well.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Lok24

[Coder Shah]

3 hours ago, Lok24 said:

- no "save" function or close without changes, every mistake ot test is saved immediately

Yeah, that is different from what I'm used to, so now I duplicate a known good program and work on it so that if I mess up I still have a good program to work on.

[Alitai]

Pretty hard:

编码 = Coding
and
控制 = Control

Visual image and text encoding

[Coder Shah]

4 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

I don't agree. It is sold for a while for much money to schools, but how should children learn about robotic, if they can't be sure if its's their fault or a buggy software?

Just my opinion.

And it's not one software, because the Boost/Powered Up is different.

In a perfect world all software is bug free from day of launch. Alas, even macOS and iOS that I use these days also has bugs and they cost a lot more than the SPIKE Prime set. And as an iOS Software developer the tools I use (Xcode) also have bugs, and I have spent many hours trying to troubleshoot an issue only to find it's an Xcode bug and not my fault. So in a way that will be the world the kids are going into. 

Anyway, it is my hope that LEGO listens and does make an effort to resolve the issues. Friends at LEGO have advised me to submit all bugs that I find to LEGO Customer Support. 

3 minutes ago, Alitai said:

Pretty hard:

编码 = Coding
and
控制 = Control

Visual image and text encoding

Thanks! Control sounds interesting! Wonder if it will be a virtual interface or connectivity to hardware controllers, but seeing what LEGO has done with Powered UP!, it's probably going to be a virtual interface.

15 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Part of that you have with the controller of the PoweredUp app, which you can use for the Move Hub and technic Hub as well.

Indeed! Here's hoping they do something similar with 51515, or have something like the Robot Commander app.

[Lok24]

2 hours ago, Coder Shah said:

Anyway, it is my hope that LEGO listens and does make an effort to resolve the issues. Friends at LEGO have advised me to submit all bugs that I find to LEGO Customer Support.

I did that half a year ago with half a dozen PoweredUp errors, programm containing only one or two commands.

All documented with videos and program code.

Errors can be reproduced, and most of them can be avoided taking another type of hub or another type of motor.

Reaction: none, not even a confirmation.

 

[Alitai]

The Battery Theory:

They sell the Battery, the Large Hub + Battery and the Spike Prime Set (All 3 certified separately).

Now Set 51515 comes out and they have to certify the whole Set again (The same Document for the Battery test and color does not matter).

If they would have changed something on the Hub and they want to sell the Hub + Battery Standalone (which they normally do) they need to certify it again which did not happen. So they changed nothing.

What do you think?

Edited June 4, 2020 by Alitai

[Coder Shah]

4 hours ago, Alitai said:

The Battery Theory:

They sell the Battery, the Large Hub + Battery and the Spike Prime Set (All 3 certified separately).

Now Set 51515 comes out and they have to certify the whole Set again (The same Document for the Battery test and color does not matter).

If they would have changed something on the Hub and they want to sell the Hub + Battery Standalone (which they normally do) they need to certify it again which did not happen. So they changed nothing.

What do you think?

Personally I think it's the exact same hub and battery

10 hours ago, Lok24 said:

I did that half a year ago with half a dozen PoweredUp errors, programm containing only one or two commands.

All documented with videos and program code.

Errors can be reproduced, and most of them can be avoided taking another type of hub or another type of motor.

Reaction: none, not even a confirmation.

 

I'm sorry that was your experience. If you don't mind opening a new topic (call it PoweredUp bugs and issues) and posting all the errors you found, I'll verify them with my own set and do an independent submission to Customer Support. My LEGO friend says it's always more effective if there are multiple reports on the same issue.

I'll also be opening a new topic called Spike Prime bugs and issues to address issues with the 45678 and 51515 sets.

P.S. I also tweeted LEGO Education and today I got a response!

 

 

[Lebostein]

I have no idea, but why is a display on the hub important for you? I think the Spike Hub quite intuitive. 2 seconds boot time, choose your program with left/right buttons and press START! The time to the program start should be shortest with this hub compared to EV3 and NXT. Yes, the NXT also booted fast, but you had to navigate through a multilayer menu to launch a program...

[GianCann]

6 minutes ago, Lebostein said:

The time to the program start should be shortest with this hub compared to EV3

Sorry, but... where is the relation between LCD and boot time?

In 2020, it's not possible to have a device with a LCD (at colours?) and with a fast boot time/menù?

[Lebostein]

5 minutes ago, GianCann said:

Sorry, but... where is the relation between LCD and boot time?

In 2020, it's not possible to have a device with a LCD (at colours?) and with a fast boot time/menù?

Yes, that is exactly the question I had (not answered yet): why is a display on the hub important for you?

[GianCann]

10 minutes ago, Lebostein said:

why is a display on the hub important for you?

If you look on YT, there are a lot of projects made with EV3 that using the LCD display.
You can use display (and five buttons) to select specific functions, see data collected from the sensors, get analytics (and better readable) feedback on the status of the program, show "hi-res" image/animation, show text without scrolling, and so on...

It's not the same thing with a 5x5 matrix of LED.

Edited June 5, 2020 by GianCann

[Coder Shah]

5 minutes ago, Lebostein said:

Yes, that is exactly the question I had (not answered yet): why is a display on the hub important for you?

One example given by @Lok24 is a model of a warehouse where the display can be used to display the available goods and navigate through them. See the video.

 

Another example I can think of is Daniele Benedettelli's Car Factory where the display allows you to choose which body parts you want on your car. See video.

 

The feeling I get though is that a lot of the time, the display is not used. Perhaps LEGO did a customer survey and the response is very few people use the display. I don't know.

It is my hope that LEGO will put that interface on the app, similar to what they have done for Boost and Powered up, but we shall see.

 

[Lebostein]

Yes, monitoring is a good reason for a display. To use it as input interface is also a good reason. Thanks.
But animations and games are no normal use cases.

What about a small (touch) LCD screen with a technic frame around it as an extra and optional component?

Edited June 5, 2020 by Lebostein

[GianCann]

1 minute ago, Coder Shah said:

It is my hope that LEGO will put that interface on the app, similar to what they have done for Boost and Powered up, but we shall see.

@Coder Shah, where is the "interface" in the PU App?

You can't design your UI as you like. There are a lot of other problems moving the UI to another device, instead of have a mini LCD on board.

9 minutes ago, Lebostein said:

But animations and games are no normal use cases.

Depends on the use. Think a school classroom where the boys using the EV3 to develop a production chain (don't forget the "daisy chain" feature of EV3) and need to display the progress/status of the production system.

In italy (but I think in many others place), the EV3 bricks is large used on the school system because is simple to learn and useful to build robot/structures thanks to LEGO Technics elements.

[Coder Shah]

7 minutes ago, GianCann said:

@Coder Shah, where is the "interface" in the PU App?

You can't design your UI as you like. There are a lot of other problems moving the UI to another device, instead of have a mini LCD on board.

You are right that you can't design the UI as you like, but that doesn't mean that won't change in future. The first version of the Powered UP! app only allowed you to change the actions of the buttons. The current version allows you to program the sliders as shown by the video below. So maybe in future the UI will be customisable. Perhaps you can create a new thread in this forum for Powered UP! feature requests.

 

Getting back to the Mindstorms 51515 set, at this point, I doubt very much that LEGO would change the hardware for SPIKE Prime and MIndstorms 51515. That's why I'm looking for ways to have UI on another device, or even a small i2uc display that you can plug in into one of the ports. Or perhaps just go to a different platform entirely such as BrickPi.

22 minutes ago, Lebostein said:

What about a small (touch) LCD screen with a technic frame around it as an extra and optional component?

I would love to see such a thing, if any third party is willing to develop it.

[GianCann]

9 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

but that doesn't mean that won't change in future

I have a "good" knowledge on the PU ecosystem (see my "magnetic sensor" for PU) and the "speed of change" (new firmware and new App releases) is so slow to leave me  doubts.

15 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

I would love to see such a thing, if any third party is willing to develop it.

I made some experiments with LCD and Powered Up, using LEGO UART Protocol... It's a possibile to do, but I repeat: it's not the same thing to that have all in one.

[Coder Shah]

8 minutes ago, GianCann said:

I have a "good" knowledge on the PU ecosystem (see my "magnetic sensor" for PU) and the "speed of change" (new firmware and new App releases) is so slow to leave me  doubts.

I made some experiments with LCD and Powered Up, using LEGO UART Protocol... It's a possibile to do, but I repeat: it's not the same thing to that have all in one.

Wow your magnetic sensor is very impressive! Great work!

With regard to the LCD, I'm afraid that all in one is not possible in this iteration. Perhaps if there is a lot of customer request, LEGO will think about this for the next version. Would love to see your experiments though. Perhaps start another thread?

[Lok24]

1 hour ago, Lebostein said:

I have no idea, but why is a display on the hub important for you? I think the Spike Hub quite intuitive. choose your program with left/right buttons and press START!

That's the point. Having different models and different programs: they can only be identified via a number.
Choosing the wrong programm leads usually to a complete crash of your modell.

As I usally have >10 programs on an EV3 that makes it difficult.

And it's the user interface for the machine. In fact there are very few electronical products without display....

2 hours ago, Coder Shah said:

I'm sorry that was your experience. If you don't mind opening a new topic (call it PoweredUp bugs and issues) and posting all the errors you found, I'll verify them with my own set and do an independent submission to Customer Support. My LEGO friend says it's always more effective if there are multiple reports on the same issue.

 

All feedback of users was collected by the LUG ambassadors and sent to to the powered Up team in January. Did you find any answers to that  campagne?

Is the a list of known issues on the LEGO github site?

I think: no and no.

I had one error last year and the answer in about 20 mails was: it is not supported to attched boost parts to a powered Up hub. It is not recommended to mix the sets.
They didn't even understand the problem.

It's completely useless.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Lok24

[Coder Shah]

1 hour ago, Lok24 said:

I had one error last year and the answer in about 20 mails was: it is not supported to attched boost parts to a powered Up hub. It is not recommended to mix the sets.
They didn't even understand the problem.

Well the efforts of yourself and the LUG Ambassadors must have had an effect because now it is possible to attach Boost parts to a Powered UP! hub and program them with the Powered UP! app.

So thank you for that. Video shows a line follower made by Isogawa Yoshito using a Powered UP! motor and the Boost color/proximity sensor.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Coder Shah

[Tcm0]

2 hours ago, GianCann said:

I have a "good" knowledge on the PU ecosystem (see my "magnetic sensor" for PU) and the "speed of change" (new firmware and new App releases) is so slow to leave me  doubts.

A controller interface customizer is announced.

We have 2 controller interfaces in the Powered Up app currently with fixed control elements. Can we expect a fully customizable interface within the app?

Yes.

(https://racingbrick.com/2020/05/lego-powered-up-intervew/)

22 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

Well the efforts of yourself and the LUG Ambassadors must have had an effect because now it is possible to attach Boost parts to a Powered UP! hub and program them with the Powered UP! app.

I'm 99% sure that that was the plan from the beginning.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Tcm0

[Lok24]

20 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

Well the efforts of yourself and the LUG Ambassadors must have had an effect because now it is possible to attach Boost parts to a Powered UP! hub and program them with the Powered UP! app.

 

Sure it works.
It worked from the beginning, as many videos and my own experience showed.
The functionallity got lost with one update of the FW in Jan 2019.
Error: Attaching two sensors or a Boost Motor(=sensor as well) and a color sensor turned off the hub.

That worked before the update. The answer was, that this before working function was an accident and no feature.
That was corrected with the summer update.

And the answer is completely wrong, because that was the promise in the LN announcement in 2018(!):
What can be plugged together has to work. It doesnt, until today.

There is no central and interested instance at the LEGO site to report to.

[Coder Shah]

37 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Sure it works.
It worked from the beginning, as many videos and my own experience showed.
The functionallity got lost with one update of the FW in Jan 2019.
Error: Attaching two sensors or a Boost Motor(=sensor as well) and a color sensor turned off the hub.

That worked before the update. The answer was, that this before working function was an accident and no feature.
That was corrected with the summer update.

And the answer is completely wrong, because that was the promise in the LN announcement in 2018(!):
What can be plugged together has to work. It doesnt, until today.

There is no central and interested instance at the LEGO site to report to.

Thanks for the clarification! I'll reproduce the bug and submit to LEGO Customer Services. It may be futile but it's the only thing that I can do.

[Lok24]

9 minutes ago, Coder Shah said:

Thanks for the clarification! I'll reproduce the bug and submit to LEGO Customer Services. It may be futile but it's the only thing that I can do.

This was in 2019 and now it works (again).

It was an example what happens if you report errors  to the Customer Service.

Another issue (and seems to be still wrong) is that the acceleration block works very strange (and different on technic hub and smart hub, as far as I remember)

The problem always is the FW, and I fear that this won't be better with mindstorms 51515.

Ever tried to report the Spike motor angle to a technic hub?

Edited June 5, 2020 by Lok24

[Coder Shah]

3 hours ago, Lok24 said:

This was in 2019 and now it works (again).

It was an example what happens if you report errors  to the Customer Service.

Glad to hear it's working again. So if I understand you correctly, if you report errors to Customer Service, nothing happens. But from what i understand from the software industry, issues are assigned priorities, and it's just not high on the list of priorities to fix, but eventually it will be addressed. It can be disheartening and frustrating, but I guess that's how the software industry works currently. 

3 hours ago, Lok24 said:

Another issue (and seems to be still wrong) is that the acceleration block works very strange (and different on technic hub and smart hub, as far as I remember)

The problem always is the FW, and I fear that this won't be better with mindstorms 51515.

Ever tried to report the Spike motor angle to a technic hub?

To clarify, do you mean plugging a SPIKE Prime motor to the Control+ hub? I don't have one to test yet, but I'll try and do so at some point. Hispabrick did do a video testing all motors with the Powered UP! hub though, perhaps @Jetro can comment on your specific issue.

I think it's better to continue this particular discussion in a separate thread though.

For a change of pace, I would like to share this link posted on the SPIKE Prime FB page. You can probably build it with 51515.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Coder Shah