Dr. E's Challenges

Do you start the school year (or FLL build season) with all your LEGO neatly sorted into kits, but find yourself with something that looks more like a junkyard after just a few weeks? If so, you’re not alone. Every teacher who uses LEGO materials with their students has had to deal with the challenge of organisation and storage. There is no one solution and ...

The SPIKE Prime Heart Program is a great resource for quickly testing sensors, controlling motors, or controlling a motor with a sensor. You can test your builds without any programming or even build simple robots or other mechanisms that work without writing any code. For such a handy tool, it’s surprising that it is given little or no attention in the ...

Developing your skills with LEGO Technic is an important part of building robots or mechanisms that are sturdy and perform consistently. Here are our three top tips to help you create better Technic builds.   1. Never use an axle to do the job of a beam As a beginning technic builder, you might be tempted to use axles to bridge gaps between different ...

How can you incorporate paper and other craft materials into your LEGO creations? Leave your suggestions in the comments below, but here are a few ideas to get you started. Windmills Create a windmill by cutting four windmill blades out of thin cardboard. You can use a manila folder, food packaging or similar material (see image: cut blades from a used ...

This post builds on Get Into Gears, Part 1 with ideas for classroom activities to explore gears and their properties, as well as some recommended books and other resources. Classroom activities 1. Gear ratios Create a series of gear trains with something to indicate "up" on each of the driver and the follower as in the following example. Divide the room ...

Gears can be used for a number of different purposes, including: to increase or decrease speed, to increase torque, and to change the direction of movement. In this post we look at some terms associated with gears and gear ratios, the main types of LEGO gears, and some techniques for analysing gear ratios and building with gears. For more on this topic, ...

Dr. E's Challenges recently wrapped up its first LEGO brick challenge called Animal and Habitat . We had so many great submissions that we couldn't just pick one to highlight! Check out the video below to see all of Dr. E's Top Picks! If you are new to Dr. E's Challenges and want a place to get started check out our other blog posts for tips on how to post to Dr. ...

Challenge 1: Animal and Habitat is no longer accepting submissions, but is open for voting until Wednesday, August 12th, 2020. Challenge 2: Pet Helper is accepting submissions until Monday, August 17, 2020.