After months of speculation about the new rechargeable battery and the small Technic hub, LEGO finally revealed the 45345 Spike Essential set:
LEGO 45345 Spike Essential kit with small Technic hub, small angular motor & 3×3 LED matrix
Tag: Powered Up
Remote control for Control+ sets without an app or smartphone – Pybricks
Update 9/3/2022 – please use the code below in the standard environment of Pybricks, not in the beta one.
One of the most frequent complaints about the Powered Up system is the need to have a smart device constantly for control, and you can only use touch controls with the official Control+ app. Even if you change touch control for the remote, you still need to run the Powered Up app all the time.
Here comes Pybricks – a custom coding environment for Powered Up devices that allows you to run code on the hub itself. Sounds complicated? It isn’t, no coding required to give it a try! Here are all the details in my video:
LEGO 10277 Crocodile Locomotive review & motorization with Powered Up, Power Functions and BuWizz
The LEGO 10277 Crocodile Locomotive is inspired by the Class Ce 6/8 II locomotive, first built for the Swiss Federal Railways between 1919 and 1927. This train model measures over 6” (16cm) high, 20.5” (52cm) long and 3.5” (8cm) wide. The recommended price is – 99.99 EUR – 899DKK – 99.99USD. Here is my review of the set:
Continue readingNew LEGO Technic 2020 Summer sets and the new Simple Technic hub
Back in January after the Nuremberg Toy Fair we already knew some details about the 2020 summer wave of the LEGO Technic sets. We had to wait another 6 months to have official images about them, they first appeared in the LEGO 2HY catalog and a few days later additional official images were posted by some retailers. Here is the video I made about the sets based on the photos in the catalog:
Continue readingLEGO Powered Up – interview with the product owner
In the past 2 years I followed the development of the Powered Up system very closely, and I published a lot of content about it. There were many questions raised about the system itself, why it is developed this way, and what will be the development path in the future.
I’m happy to say that you’ll get answers to a lot of questions today, because I had the chance to do this interview with Mr. Flemming Bjørn Jessen, who is the product owner of the Powered Up app at LEGO.
Here is the video version of the interview:
Powered Up code block guide created
The LEGO Powered Up system has great potential but the app has one major flaw – it has zero documentation available. I created a detailed code block guide that has all blocks listed in the current version of the app.
You can access the block guides from the top menu or here as well:
How to export/import a project in the Powered Up app on Android
I managed to test successfully a method to export/import projects in the Powered Up app on Android, thanks to some helpful members from the Powered Up Community Facebook group who suggested the location of the project files on the phone.
LEGO Powered Up 3.0 update – are we there yet?
LEGO released the 3.0 update of the Powered Up app yesterday. As we were informed previously this is an important update with long awaited features like the multi-hub support or the support for the Technic hub and the L and XL motors. Check out the features and my opinion about the update in the video:
Cheapest smartphone for LEGO – Xiaomi Redmi 7A
Since the introduction of the Boost system, the Powered Up and Control+ sets I read a lot of complaints about the smartphone requirement. People usually does not want their kids to use the parents’ expensive devices to play with LEGO. I decided to find the best option for a phone that meets the requirements of these applications but still reasonably priced and easy to get.
LEGO Technic 42099 4X4 X-treme Off-Roader stage 2 upgrade – even more power with only 4 extra gears!
After the first crawler upgrade of the LEGO Technic 42099 4X4 X-treme Off-Roader set here’s the next level – by replacing the other gear sets the vehicle becomes a real crawling monster:
