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Control WEDO with EV3

Image
By
Ralph Hempel, the creator of the original EV3 bonus model printer.

Ralph created software to control the WEDO usb hub with a EV3. unfortunately this is not an easy added new sensor block in EV3-G but he used a more complex way in creating the code with EV3DEV.
What is EV3DEV?
The ev3dev distribution is a full Debian (jessie) Linux distribution running on the 3.16.x kernel that has been customized for the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 controller.

Rather than use custom language bindings that use direct access to mmap’ed files, this distribution aims to allow as many programming languages as possible to access the EV3 peripherals using simple Linux file access. If your favorite programming language is available as an ARM port, and it can read and write files, you can use it to program the EV3. Currently the ev3dev distribution includes the following languages:

bash/dash
awk/gawk
perl
Lua
guile
ruby
python
Google Go (golang)
Node.js

If your favorite language isn’t listed, you can still program with the EV3. ev3dev supports standard apt tools, so once you get up-and-running you can install whatever language you like.

And although you can directly access the APIs via file I/O if you want to, let’s face it: that’s tedious. It’s much easier when you have a higher-level library to use. Learn more about our pre-made language bindings on the documentation page. Features above and beyond the official LEGO kernel include:

Support for Atheros, Realtek, and other wifi chipsets so you’re not stuck with one specific wifi dongle
Support for SSH terminal sessions
Ethernet over USB functionality and a full network stack
Actual user accounts instead of passwordless root access
Fully upgradeable and customizable install using standard “apt” tools, running on the brick
NFS file share / file transfer capability
Automatic NTP clock updates
Access to device drivers through user-space filesystem
Built in text editors like vim and nano
Prebuilt support for programming languages like Lua, perl, gawk, Python, guile, Ruby, and more
Support for all host operating systems including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, even Blackberry!

Put more simply: ev3dev can do almost everything normal Linux can, while the stock LEGO kernel cannot. Using the ev3dev Kernel:
Don’t want to give up your official LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 kernel and rootfs? You don’t need to!

Just install ev3dev on any microSD card (min 1GB suggested, but can you even buy one that small anymore?) and plug it into the microSD slot on the EV3. The uboot loader will look on the card, find the ev3dev kernel and happily boot that instead!

When you want to use the official LEGO tools, just shutdown the EV3, unplug the ev3dev microSD card and restart the brick.

This is still an early beta, so it’s not as polished as the official LEGO offering, but it’s getting better every week as we add support for more of the native EV3 drivers. Alongside the main kernel, work is also being done on brickman, which adds a LEGO-like GUI. The state of the project

Currently, the project is being maintained by @dlech and @rhempel in their spare time. Active development is being done in the main ev3dev-kernel repo as well as in places like brickman and other related packages.

and now it also includes the functions to control and read the WEDO USB hub



DO you want to try?
1) go here and read the instructions for a download on an SD card

Thanks Ralph!
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