Building Instructions

Let's play some basketball

Tricky might be the smallest Mindstorms 51515 Robot Inventor robot, but it's definitely one of the greatest. If you build Tricky with this particular Basketball attachment and grab the Mindstorms/Duplo ball, which is included in the set, you'll unlock a whole new level in playing basketball at home. Yes, yes, we know that you'll also need a basketball hoop, so you'll find a link for it below.

You can find the LEGO set, with which this was built, by following this link.

You can find other attachments for Tricky, by following the links below:

1. Kick the ball attachment
2. Writing attachment
3. Ball grabbing attachment
4. Turning attachment

You can find constructions created to play with Tricky, by following the links below:

1. Bowling Pins
2. Football Goal
3. Chain Reaction
4. Basketball hoop

Building instructions for the catapult that could be placed over the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Brick. The idea of the catapult it to throw objects. The fact that it is over the brick makes it very convenient to place the motors below the brick and to use the Catapult. 

This robot construction itself was used in the FIRST LEGO League Senior Solutions competition

Building instructions for a LEGO Mindstorms Catapult Motor and Touch Sensor that are used for triggers for firing objects

Advanced LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Construction. It has two rear motors and it could rotate the whole from part. It has 4 wheels and is kind of like unique in the Mindstorms world.

Building instructions are not very easy and you need LEGO Education Core and Extension Sets - 45544 and 45560. 

Apart from being advanced, it is also quite fun to try to build.

Building instructions for a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot that could be completed in about 3 minutes. Could you do it? Try it. 

We use this robot when we need something very fast for a demonstration or a small competition. Just attach the motors and you are ready. It is fast.

This is an addition for Welder - super simple Motorcycle built with LEGO Mindstorms EV3. It allows the motorcycle to drive on its back wheel and perform cool tricks that way. Exactly what tricks, you will have to find on your own!

I was looking around the house and thought, "This will be fun for the kids—let’s build a coffee machine." Little did I know just how fun it would be!

Built from the LEGO SPIKE Core Set 45678 and the LEGO SPIKE Expansion Set 45680, this coffee machine has a lid that can be opened and closed, and it's the perfect size for the hands of a 6–10-year-old child.

What my daughters did with it was have coffee with their other toys. They had fun building it, and found it especially exciting that the lid could open and close. As an engineer, I also took the opportunity to tell them a bit about the valve on the machine and why it's needed.

Best ~2 hours of play for this week!

Estimated weekly play time: ~2 hours in total.

This robot looks a bit weird. Can you guess why? The motors are placed in opposite directions. One of the motors is facing "forward" while the other one is facing "backward." This means that if you tell both motors to rotate forward, the robot will just spin! To make the robot move forward, you will need to make one motor rotate forward and the other backward.

The goal of this robot is to teach students that motors can be placed in various ways. It is not always the case that both motors face the same direction, and this needs to be accounted for during programming.

This is the initial construction of a catapult. The base on which we will place the rest of the robot. The goal of this construction is to give the catapult the ability to rotate.

Tempus means time in Latin.

Time flies when you are having fun! Luckily, we have this robot to keep us on top of our schedule. Tempus is a robot that is made to look like a clock. The two hands are each connected to a motor and are positioned between the two motors. This makes the robot simple to build and effective in showing how a clock works.

Famulus means waiter in Latin.

One pumpkin spice latte coming right up! This robot is made to serve the best drinks in the whole continent! It is one of the simpler robots that can be made with the LEGO SPIKE Prime set and it uses two medium motors to move around. The coolest part about the robot is the cup holder where a "cup" can be attached or removed. Bottoms up!

Building instructions for this part of the BigDaddy competition robot

The rotation frame requiers an NXT large double gear wheel that is not available at the EV3 set. You can use the instructions below to construct a similar mechanism from Mindstorms EV3 set

This robot is designed to easily lift a cup while still holding it upright. With its motor attached to the side of the hub, the robot can lift the cup to any angle you want. You could replace the LEGO cup and make it lift real cups with a few adjustments. Be careful around liquids though, the robot doesn't like beverages like you do!

You remember Mighty Coffee? Well, my wife is looking at me building Mighty Coffee and is like "Why can't we have a beer?"...yes, the world around me. At the end of the day we had a Mighty Coffee and MBEER and we realized that both of these are not appropriate for 6-10 years old, but nevertheless the children had a lot of fun with them. They were pouring coffee in the beer mug, then put the whole Mighty Coffee into the beer mug they played probably for about an hour. Built from LEGO SPIKE Core set 45678 + LEGO SPIKE Expansion Set 45680 this beer mug is just clean and beautiful. Only with blue frames. As an engineer I tried to construct it the first time with the children and then ask them to construct it without following instructions. Try it. It is like a puzzle. Build it the first time with the 3D Assembly Instruction and the second time without any instruction.

Play time for a week: ~1-2 hours in total.