Combine a LEGO® kit with the power and flexibility of a Raspberry Pi computer and you’ll open up endless possibilities for design, engineering and construction. However, there are a few challenges involved in interfacing LEGO® components to the Raspberry Pi board's ports.
But now this challenge has been greatly simplified by the release of the Official Raspberry Pi Build Hat and three other associated products.
The Build Hat
The new Official Raspberry Pi Build Hat is a $25 add-on board for your Raspberry Pi. It connects to the 40-pin GPIO header and can be used to control up to four LEGO® Technic™ motors and sensors from the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Portfolio.
This new HAT works with all 40-pin GPIO Raspberry Pi boards, including Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi Zero. Use a ribbon cable, or other extension device, and you can also connect it to a Raspberry Pi 400.
The Build Hat Python Library
To help budding LEGO® engineers bring their inventions to life the Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a Python Library for the Build Hat.
This library supports all the LEGO® Technic devices included in the SPIKE™ Portfolio, those associated with the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Robot Inventor kit plus other devices that use an LPF2 connector.
The New Power Supply
LEGO® Technic motors are really powerful, which means to drive them you’ll need an external 7.5V power supply.
Fortunately, there's a brand-new $15 power supply for the Build HAT that’s both reliable and rugged to help make the most of those motors.
The LEGO® Maker Plate
The LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime Expansion Kit includes an exclusive LEGO element the Maker Plate - the first one designed to connect to something that isn’t another piece of LEGO®. The Maker Plate makes it super easy to add a Raspberry Pi to your LEGO construction.
LEGO® SPIKE™ Prime components are perfect for rapidly prototyping projects. There is a distance sensor, a colour sensor, and an incredibly versatile force sensor. While the angular motors come in a range of sizes and include integrated encoders you can query in order to find their position to precisely control movement, or as input devices in their own right.
If you don’t have a Maker Plate take a look at this list of Build Hat compatible LEGO® elements to help identify what works best for your project.
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