Summary

In this chapter, we examined an impressive program provided by LEGO, the Gyro Boy. You saw many examples of some programming shortcomings and why there is a need for order and hierarchy in visual programming along with sufficient documentation. The Gyro Boy program shows the potential of what can be done with the LEGO EV3 kit, particularly with advanced programming techniques.

Although you might not think that the EV3 would change much over time, I have seen the evolution of this kit since I first played with the prerelease alpha versions of the EV3 in the summer of 2012. Some of those early pieces were made on a 3D printer and the people from LEGO Education showed me the trick of calibrating the Gyro by physically unplugging it. We now know you can calibrate the Gyro by changing the Gyro modes with sensor blocks. You will not find this trick in the Gyro Boy program, which leads me to think that this was a later development. There have been subtle unannounced hardware changes. For...