EVN ALPHA is a LEGO® Technic™-compatible robotics controller built by the Centre of Robotics Excellence in Singapore: an RP2040 with four EV3/NXT motor ports, four servo ports, sixteen I2C and two UART ports, and 18650 cells charged over USB-C. It is meant to pick up where LEGO® MINDSTORMS® left off — the same motors and the same studs, with a controller that is open, current and programmable in Arduino, PlatformIO or MicroPython. This organisation holds the code: the Arduino library, an example PlatformIO project, the robot builds, and the MicroPython firmware with its VS Code extension and documentation site.
EVN is a joint project of Kenneth Chow and Heng Teng Yi, mentor and mentee: Kenneth Chow the Strategic Lead, who founded the Centre of Robotics Excellence in 2014, and Heng Teng Yi the Technical Lead, who brought four years of international competitive robotics to it, including wins in five RoboCup sub-leagues, and who wrote the EVN Arduino library. The EVN ALPHA was first developed at the end of 2018. With LEGO® MINDSTORMS® discontinued in 2022, the material for learning with it thin and serious robotics hardware expensive, EVN is meant to be an affordable, open platform — a basecamp for students who want to get serious about robotics — and it reached the world through the Kickstarter campaign EVN: The Natural Evolution of the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® System, which 71 backers funded with S$13,053 between 22 December 2023 and 20 February 2024.
| 🧱 The EVN ALPHA controller | What it is, what is in the box, where to get one. |
| 🐍 EVN ALPHA MicroPython | The documentation site: getting started, the API reference, the blocks reference, the downloads. In early access. |
| 🎓 Centre of Robotics Excellence | The organisation behind EVN: robotics education in Singapore. |
| Repository | What it is |
|---|---|
| EVN-arduino | The Arduino IDE library for the RP2040 in EVN ALPHA: motors, servos, the standard peripherals, the display and the wireless link. |
| EVN-robot-builds | Complete robot builds, with stud.io build instructions and the Arduino code that drives them. |
| EVN-PlatformIO-example | A ready-made PlatformIO project for EVN ALPHA, for anyone who would rather not use the Arduino IDE. |
| evndevs.github.io | EVN ALPHA MicroPython: the documentation site at evn.coresg.tech, the firmware UF2 and the VS Code extension. |
A VS Code extension that flashes the board, runs your programs, completes the evn API as you type,
gives you a Scratch-style block editor that writes MicroPython, and keeps the board live in the
editor: motor angles and speeds, the battery, the servo and serial ports, the fifteen standard
peripherals and a Python console — over USB or over Bluetooth.
Get started · API reference · Blocks reference · Downloads · Changelog
EVN was created by Kenneth Chow and Heng Teng Yi · The story on Kickstarter
LEGO®, Technic™ and MINDSTORMS® are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this project.
