Lego’s Spybotics stand as one of the first popular DIY robotics kit. Loaded with a bot, controller, connector cable and a software disc, thisdecade old robot series allowed hobbyists to assemble the bot, program and control it for various missions that came along with it. Though their stint was for a small time, spybotics did give its owners a really nice machine to play around with. Now that its software has become obsolete, what are you going to do if you are handed over a spybotics? Place it in the shelf? Or are you going to Google for its software and any latest updates? Can you hack and control it using something more lucrative, like an Arduino? It won’t be a difficult task to choose the favorite among the three, after all who doesn’t love to hack a gadget and give it his own stamp of creativity.
For this hack, you have to take off the chassis of the bot and dig into its machinery, do a little bit of careful de-soldering and solderingof its DC motors before pitching the Arduino brain in it. After all it’s the DC motors whose movements have to be coordinated as per the Arduino’s wishes. Arduino and its little circuitry get housed over the chassis of the spybot and can be powered by a source as convenient as 3 AAA batteries. An easy code to control the hacked bot, all you have to take care that the Arduino and hack circuitry are small enough to fit over the chassis.
In terms of hardware, Lego’s Spybotics are a sturdy piece of hardware. However, with no current sales and support, it does become a bit difficult to manage such gadgets. With development boards like Arduino coming up to the rescue, we have just made sure that no valuable piece of electronics becomes obsolete with time and gives maximum use to its owner.
Filed Under: Reviews
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