BrickPi Kit Turns Your Raspberry Pi Into Your Own Custom LEGO Robot

If you got your hands on a Raspberry Pi last year when they became available, you’ve probably had a lot of fun with it. Even though I’ve had my Pi from the beginning, it never gets old. It’s always fun to tinker with it, and make it do things you never thought it could do. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube, and after learning from one of those, I was able to watch Star Wars off my Pi. It didn’t skip or lag at all. Did you know you can also build a custom LEGO robot with your Pi?

There was a small Kickstarter campaign launched a few days ago by Dexter Industries. They were only trying to raise $1,889. With 34 days to go, they’ve already raised $21,406 (at the time I’m writing this). Of course, I had to see what all the buzz was about, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was all about creating a LEGO robot with a Raspberry Pi.

BrickPi is a kit that you can get to create your own Pi-based LEGO robot. It comes with two parts – the board and the case. The board allows your Pi to do all the mechanical stuff, and the case allows the LEGO bricks to connect to your Pi. It’s a very simple solution that yields some pretty rad results. You can see a selection of photos below.

Aside from BrickPi, the only things you’ll need to make your own Pi LEGO robot are of course a Raspberry Pi, a 9V battery and that big box of LEGO bricks in your basement. According to their Kickstarter page, you can get fancy and “add some USB stuff, add some MINDSTORMS motors and add some sensors.” If you decide to make your own LEGO robot with your Pi, I hope you come back here and leave us a picture so we can see it!

Turn Your Raspberry Pi Into A Custom LEGO Robot