LEGO Roller Coaster Upgrade

This Project uses LEGO Mindstorms EV3 sensors to study the motion of a LEGO roller coaster, specifically its acceleration as it rolls down the ramp.

The EV3 brick is programmed by ev3dev, an system that allows users to program the brick using python. Through the interface, I was able to make the sensors record the intensity of their reading at a high frequency (0.1 second), and show noticeable changes once the sensors caught the movement of the roller coaster as it passes by. In the end, I was able to connect my EV3 brick with Thingworx, an IoT platform developed by PTC, and upload my sensor data to the cloud from simple python command.

This project is an exploration of combining the LEGO Mindstorms devices with other LEGO product to facilitate the learning of basic robotics concepts and programming. Though there were limitations to the sensors that kept me from obtaining a nice, graphable data, there are plenty of rooms for improvements to the practice.