Hacking Your LEGO® Mindstorms® EV3 Kit

2. Project: Plotter Bot

The first project creates a drawing robot that resembles the device known as the plotter—essentially a robot that manipulates motors to draw with a pen (see Figure 2.1). Professional plotters have precisely turning motors whose rotations are divided into hundreds of steps (they’re called stepper motors, unsurprisingly), which lets them draw shapes with great precision. This robot is not precise, but it is fun, and you get to build and program it yourself with nearly everything found in your EV3 set.

FIGURE 2.1 The PPlotter Bot draws on an index card.

Parts List

Let’s get started! You need the following parts to build ...