Starting Off - Budgeting

Hello

A very open ended question. I am looking into brick pi for my son, who belongs to a robotics club which uses Lego Mindstorms. I already have a Pi2 and now I looking at what else I would need so that he could make a couple of things at home.

Thanks for your help.

Hello @andbow
Does your son have Mindstorms at home too, or just at school? Or can he borrow them?

If you have access to Mindstorms sensors and building blocks and you already have a Pi, you would need the base kit:
http://www.dexterindustries.com/shop/brickpi-advanced-for-raspberry-pi/

I don’t know how equipped your Pi2 is already but it does need the basics: a wifi dongle, an SD card, and it’s recommended to have an ethernet cable to start. You may or may not have them already.

I’m hoping this helps in budgeting,
I’ll be happy to answer any more question you may have about this.
Cleo

Hi Cleo

Thank you for responding. I have the PI2, WiFi and LAN etc. But I don’t any any mindstorm parts at all and I can’t borrow them. Looking at all the mindstorm parts available it is hard to decide what to get or he will need.

Andrew

I’m not the best person to answer this as I’m not much of a Lego person. I can follow build instructions but I’m awful at creating my own, so I don’t really know what’s useful.

That said, you would need up to four motors, and sensors. I got mine off eBay. Then you need to get some LEGO Technic building blocks.
If you look at this document you will find a list of all blocks (including their block numbers) that come with the default Mindstorms EV3.
Sometimes you can get a kit off ebay that has just the building parts (there’s one at this very moment, it sells for 90$ but only has the building blocks, no sensors, no motors. Sometimes you can also get a cheap set from someone who killed their Lego brick but I’m not seeing one at this moment.

Cleo