Update 8/2013: Our kickstarter has been funded and the BrickPi is now for sale here.
We’ve just launched a Kickstarter campaign for the BrickPi! We’ve had a phenomenal response, surpassing our funding goal by over 800% in just a few days.
The BrickPi is a culmination of some of the blog posts and projects we’ve done over the last few months controlling LEGOs with the Raspberry Pi. So many people were interested, we decided to combine it all into one single board that allowed you to control motors and read sensors with the Raspberry Pi.
Even though the campaign is fully funded, please take a look and give us your thoughts! The primary reason we wanted to do a Kickstarter campaign for this project was to try to get community feedback.
Check out the project and let us know what you think about it. We have a bunch of new video and pictures up on the Kickstarter page that showcase some of the projects you can build with the BrickPi.
And if you’d like to back the project, that’s awesome too!
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22 Comments
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Wow – this is amazing. So innovative.
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I’m really intrigued with your product for many reasons. 1) W
ill you be at the Bay Area Maker Faire May 18 & 19? 2) Are you going to develop for the EV3 sensors? 3) Do you think the BrickPi could be used with NXT sensors and drive motors and servo motors found in Pitsco Tetrix kits?-
Hey Cathy, thanks! To answer your questions: 1). We won’t be at the Bay Maker Faire sadly! We’ll be on the east coast and unable to attend! 2). YES! We haven’t tested it, but we have a lot of experience with Tetrix, and it has a well defined straight-forward I2C protocol. We will definitely be working the Pitsco Tetrix into our python libraries. So folks will be able to make some really heavy robots!
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My daughter has a Lego NXT robot and we will be purchasing a Raspberry Pi. Can you let me know when your Brick Pi will be available for purchase? Thanks; we r very excited!
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Hey Josh, fantastic! We’re still working out a retail plan, so not sure when it’ll be up on our website. We will definitely announce it here, but it will be after August.
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Could I buy one pre made with the robot after its success
Already backed on kickstarter-
Yes, definitely! Thanks for backing and thanks for your support! We’ll have them up for sale in the Fall, after we full take care of our kickstarter backers.
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Hello,
I am a teacher in France and I am very interested in this material. I have Lego NXT and a Raspberry Pi and I have to teach the Python language and robotics. If I could concillier it all together, it would be great and hardware seem to allow. Does programming in python will be affordable for beginners? Otherwise, what is the required level? Strongly the sale!
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Hey Frederic! All of our software will be up on the website and free for download. We hope that’s affordable. 🙂
I think you might have meant will the software be easy to use. We’re trying our hardest to make the python easy to use for students and teachers. This is always a challenge for us though as we’re engineers and it can be harder to see things through students eyes. We would love feedback on the libraries, especially for ease-of-use. Again, we hope it’s easy to use and we aim to make it easy to use.
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Hi there,
Brilliant Kickstarter project!!! Really pleased to find it.
What version of Python will the BrickPi use, (planned to use)? Will it be version Python 2 or 3?-
Hey Trent, we’re using version 2.7.
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This is my first time looking at your website and hats off to you guys at Dexter Industries. I am backing up the campaign and already pledged. I wish you success in the campaign and now waiting for the package to arrive (I hope it is sooner than what was listed in the campaign details). This is awesome because just the past semester, my son took up robotics and I am sure he will be excited to get this gift. Thank you very much. Have a nice day!
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I was in China, my son has a NXT. What should I use way? At what time to buy it then？
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Is it possible to still order – The Kickstarter CADILLAC Package? If so, do you have a link handy? I understand the order will not be complete till after September 2013, when the early Kickstarter packages are completed.
Thanks,
-Mark-
Hey Mark,
We’ve got all of the components up on our website for preorder. You should be able to get a Cadillac package together.
http://www.dexterindustries.com/BrickPi.html
Let us know what you think!
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This is like a dream come true! I wanted a LEGO robotic set that I could program in Python, and you guys have already made it a reality. What a shame I missed the Kickstarter campaign; I would certainly have contributed.
Question: will you support EV3 sensors?
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Hey Andrew, we’re really glad, thanks! It’s not too late, we have preorders going on right now:
- http://www.dexterindustries.com/BrickPi.html
As for EV3: no, it looks like because of hardware issues, we’re not going to be able to support EV3 sensors. Motors, however, work just fine. We’re going to keep trying on the EV3 sensors, but it’s not likely.
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Are you going to port brickpi to beaglebone black brickcape? Beaglebone black has more gpio and should be connect to more sensors.
Thx
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Something like this? http://www.dexterindustries.com/BrickBone/
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Hmm, what makes it unlikely that you can support EV3 sensors?
Won’t you anyway (sooner or later) have to adapt your sensors to the EV3 bricks – as the NXT bricks aren’t sold anymore?
I really like your idea of having a raspberry (on which I can use my favourite programming languages Python and C) controlling mindstorm robots, and therefore would like to use it in projects for beginners in computer science – but if the new sensors aren’t working (and are not likely to be supported anytime soon) I fear that I can’t convince my colleagues that we buy BrickPi for the whole class as the supply with sensors will be problematic in the future.
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Peter, we totally understand. We have a discussion about the technical aspects going on here: http://www.dexterindustries.com/forum/?topic=support-for-mindstorms-ev3-stuff
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