Lego Spike - Introduction

Do you love LEGO? Then you’ll love LEGO Spike Prime! Because with it, you don’t just build cool models — you bring them to life. Your robot can drive, grab things, and even react to obstacles. And best of all: you tell it what to do!

What is LEGO Spike Prime?

LEGO Spike Prime is a robotics set from LEGO Education. It consists of:

• LEGO bricks — you already know these! Though these are Technic parts with holes and axles
• A hub — this is your robot’s brain (the yellow box with the display)
• Motors — these let your robot move
• Sensors — these let your robot sense its surroundings (measure distance, recognise colours, feel touch)

What you need

• A LEGO Spike Prime set (available at KidsLab!)
• A tablet or laptop with the LEGO Education Spike app
• Some space on the table

Step 1: Get to know the set

Open the box and look at the parts:

• The hub (yellow): this is the heart of it all. It has a small screen, buttons, and ports for motors and sensors
• Motors (medium and large): these move your robot
• Sensors: the distance sensor (the “eyes”), the colour sensor, and the force sensor
• Cables: you use these to connect motors and sensors to the hub
• LEGO parts: beams, gears, wheels, and much more

Step 2: Turn on the hub

1. Press the big button in the middle of the hub
2. The hub shows a smiley on the display — it’s ready!
3. Open the LEGO Spike App on your tablet
4. Connect the hub via Bluetooth to the tablet (the app shows you how)

Step 3: Build your first model

Let’s start simple! Build a small vehicle:

1. Attach two motors to the hub — one on the left, one on the right
2. Attach a wheel to each motor’s axle
3. Build a support wheel (or a skid) at the front so your vehicle doesn’t tip over
4. Connect the motors to the hub with cables (Port A and Port B)

By the way, the app has great step-by-step building instructions — just follow the pictures!

Step 4: Your first program

Now it gets exciting — you’re telling your robot what to do!

1. Open a new project in the app
2. You’ll see colourful programming blocks (similar to Scratch)
3. Drag the “move forward” block into your program
4. Set how far your robot should drive
5. Press Play — and off it goes!

Try out these commands:

• Drive forward — your robot drives straight ahead
• Drive backward — your robot drives back
• Turn — your robot turns
• Wait — your robot pauses

Step 5: Try out sensors

Now attach the distance sensor to the front of your vehicle and connect it to the hub.

Now you can program this:

If distance < 15 cm
  → Stop!
  → Turn left
  → Keep driving

Your robot now avoids obstacles! How cool is that?

Ideas to keep going

There’s so much you can do with LEGO Spike! Here are a few ideas:

• Build a claw arm: a robot that can pick up objects
• Colour sorter: the robot recognises colours and sorts LEGO bricks
• Dance mode: program a cool dance routine with different movements
• Course driver: your robot drives through an obstacle course