Build robots and contraptions! Experiment with mechatronics using Arduino and LEGO Mindstorms NXT!

Use the Bricktronics Shield Kit to connect up to two LEGO NXT motors and four LEGO NXT sensors to an Arduino.

• Supports up to two LEGO NXT motors, and reading their encoders

• Supports up to four simultaneous LEGO NXT sensors

• Supports LEGO NXT touch sensors on all four sensor ports

• Supports LEGO NXT 2.0 color sensor on two ports

• Supports LEGO NXT ultrasonic sensor on two ports

• Uses NXT cables

• Two TIP120 transistors help you switch larger loads

• Tested compatible with Uno and Duemilanove, but will work on many other Arduino compatibles (contact us for details)

All you need to do is get the kit, download the easy-to-use Arduino library, check out the examples, and start building!

Options

The Bricktronics Shield comes pre-assembled, ready to plug-in to your Arduino board.

If you are interested in working with non-NXT sensors and motors, or just want to be able to plug wires into your Arduino even when a shield is attached, then it may be useful to install "stacking headers" instead of the standard male headers when assembling your kit. The Bricktronics Shield PCB also includes a row of holes adjacent to each row of header pin connections (which work well with standard 0.1" female headers), for making temporary or permanent electrical connections to the Arduino. However, be aware that the Bricktronics Shield uses almost all the Arduino pins for various functionality (pin-use listing available on our website), so there are not many free pins left. However, some pins (notably D0 and D1) are unused, which enables the use of chips and shields that only use pins 0 and 1 (serial port RX/TX) or only use the I2C pins (I2C allows multiple chips per bus).

What you need

The Bricktronics Shield Kit connects an Arduino to LEGO NXT motors and sensors. Arduino, motors, sensors and NXT cables are not included. The Mindstorms NXT 2.0 set includes three motors, two touch sensors, one color sensor, one ultrasonic sensor, and a variety of NXT cables.

Motors take more power than can be supplied by a USB cable. You typically want about 600 mA per motor, but up to 1000 mA peak per motor. A 9 volt 2 amp wall adapter works great, and any 2.1mm 9 volt adapter with at least 1.3 amps should work. If you want to power your creations on the go, a 6 AA battery pack works well.

Open Source Hardware

This kit is open source hardware. We make the hardware source files like the schematic and the pcb files available for anyone to use as long as they credit us and release any modifications as open source hardware. The schematic and pcb files are available on the Bricktronics Shield download page.

Feedback

When you're finished building the kit, let us know how it went! We use feedback to improve future versions of our kits, and the warm fuzzies help us make more kits! Let us know in our forum or via email.

Notes

A portion of the profits of this kit go to John Baichtal, an author of the Make: Lego and Arduino Projects book.

Wayne and Layne, LLC and our products are not connected to or endorsed by the LEGO Group. LEGO, Mindstorms, and NXT are trademarks of the LEGO Group.