EV3 Robotics with Python (Mac)

Attila Vágó
Bricks n’ Brackets
10 min readJan 6, 2017

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EV3 Python logo on monochrome Mindstorms projects

Aaaand I am back to writing. Now bare with me, this is absolutely going to be worth your time, and you will get python running on your EV3 brick, but I feel like I have to rant about something first: developers are terrible at sharing knowledge and/or writing documentation that is complete. I don’t know why this is, but 9 times out of 10 whenever I find myself trying out something new, I end up using a large number of sources of information because none of the developers took the time to do a proper job. Aaaargh!

Anyway… back to EV3 and Python. Once I proved myself and the rest of the EV3 community out there that writing Swift code for the intelligent brick is definitely an exciting option and an admirable effort, it is still a half-baked one, awaiting improvements. Naturally, I had to find a worthy substitution, so back to scavenging I was — my goals still being more or less the same: program the brick in a non-visual way, but in any other language than Java. I don’t know… Java is like, just not my thing. I’m too cool for Java and all that Oracle nonsense. I ended up looking at Basic and Python.

Basic flew out the window right away (pun intended) because it runs on … Windows! And I ain’t no PC guy. Mac all the way, so Python it is. The website — as usual — is another prime example and reason why youngsters tend not to go for robotics, or software development in…

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Attila Vágó
Bricks n’ Brackets

Staff software engineer, tech writer, author and opinionated human. LEGO and Apple fan. Accessibility advocate. Life enthusiast. Living in Dublin, Ireland. ☘️