[J. Benschop] is mentor his nine-year-old kid electronics by providing him a few wires, LEDs, as well as batteries. Eventually, the kid looked over at his dad’s workbench as well as wondered what the bit bug-shaped rectangles did. Microcontrollers as well as embedded programming are just a bit as well advanced for somebody who hasn’t hit a double-digit age, however [J] figured he might still have his kid experience the awesomeness of programming electronics by building a custom-made electronic Lego microcontroller system.

This isn’t as complex as a Lego Mindstorms system. Really, it’s only an ATMega as well as a 2.4 GHz wireless transceiver. Still, that’s a lot more than sufficient to add a few sensors as well as motor drivers, as well as an incredible introduction to electronics development. The enclosure for the LegoDuino is, of course, compatible with every Lego brick on the planet. It’s made of a 6×16 plate, three blocks high, with sufficient space for the electronics, three AA batteries, as well as the IO headers.

Programming an ATMega, even with the Arduino IDE, is a bit beyond the capability of [J. Benschop]’s nine-year-old son, so he made a few modifications to the Minibloq programming atmosphere to support the recently produced LegoDuino. It’s a graphical programming language that youngsters of just about any type of age can pick up quickly, as well as with the included RF transceiver inside the ‘Duino, it can even be programmed wirelessly.

It’s an remarkable piece of work, as well as much, much easier than even the noob-friendly Lego Mindstorms. Not as powerful, though, however when you’re just mentor programming as well as electronics, you truly don’t requirement much.