Open Roberta is a free, drag and drop, cloud-based platform for programming LEGO EV3 robots. Check it out at this link: http://www.open-roberta.org/en/welcome/ and see below for my video summary and review.
To use Open Roberta, you will need a micro SD card with an adapter and a wifi adapter (we found that the Edimax adapter works well). Using the Open Roberta Setup Wiki, follow the steps for downloading the necessary files onto the SD card. Once you have the Open Roberta files, you will be able to run the Open Roberta menu right on your EV3 Brick!
The last step is connecting your EV3 brick to a wifi network, and then typing in the Open Roberta Lab code from your EV3 brick into the Open Roberta lab on the computer. This wirelessly connects the program on the computer to your EV3 brick and allows you to create programs and run them wirelessly on your robot.
If you run into any issues or have programming questions, simply check out the extensive Open Roberta Wiki, which includes tutorials and example programs!
Programming with Open Roberta is made easy with a simple drag and drop platform that still allows users to create complex programs. Since it is all cloud based, there are no logistical issues about where to save files. Instead, students can simply save programs to their account, access them from any computer, and run them with any robot. Students can also continue working on their programs from home by simply logging in. Best of all, if your program doesn’t run as expected and you need to make changes, there is no hassle with having to plug your robot back in and download the new program. Instead, users can simply make their changes and hit run!
Check out my video summary and review of Open Roberta…
Sara Willner-Giwerc
Latest posts by Sara Willner-Giwerc (see all)
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Thx for this additional article!
Since our first release in 2014 we have added a lot more functionalities e.g:
The main advantages are:
-Create one program for the real robot and for the simulated robot. This means now you can create a NEPO-Program test it with the OpenRoberta-Sim and then download it to the real EV3-Robot. It makes it very comfortable to create programs.
-Make changes during OR-Sim runs
Now you do not have to switch back to the programming environment if you want to make changes on your NEPO-Program. You can change the program while OR-Sim is running.
-Update blockly for better performance and zoom function
We integrated a zoom function โ if you create huge programs you now be able to zoom out to get a better overview of the whole program
-Animated EV3 stone
With OR-Sim you now be able to use the EV3 screen and buttons
-Toolbox icons
For better usability on small screens (smartphone etc.) the Toolbox text will be change to icons
-Manual to run Open Roberta Lab on Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. We will provide a user manual which descripes how you can run the whole Open Roberta Lab on a Raspberry 2 / 3
-Open Roberta Starter Kit
To make it as easy as possible we provide a Open Roberta Starter Kit which includes a Wifi dongle and a pre-installed image of the Open Roberta lejOS firmware
We hope to fit your expectations with the new release. Open Roberta is open source โ everybody is invited to join our community https://github.com/OpenRoberta/robertalab
Thanks for the update Thorsten!