On a related note, Lego is cancelling Mindstorms. So if you were dreaming up an advanced train city with Mindstorms as the brain you'd better stock up now.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428766/lego-discontinu...
Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
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Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#12Is it weird to post the fake question and your own answer to the question at the same time? I havent had much luck in the overflow communities so I am unsure how common this is. Is it what most people do?
No, it's not weird.
At least on Stack Overflow it's a common way of sharing knowledge.
Source: been using SO quite intensely, have many reps.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#13On a related note, Lego is cancelling Mindstorms. So if you were dreaming up an advanced train city with Mindstorms as the brain you'd better stock up now. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428766/lego-discontinu...
To be clear: Mindstorms the coding platform, but not the parts. You'll still be able to build Lego robots, just using Scratch.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#14On a related note, Lego is cancelling Mindstorms. So if you were dreaming up an advanced train city with Mindstorms as the brain you'd better stock up now. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428766/lego-discontinu...
Isn't it being replaced with something newer and better?
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#15As someone who likes lego and programming, I love this answer. But I hate how hard lego has made it. Yes, with some work you can make your train stop and go. But I don't think there's a good track switching solution that's lego only and automated. There's an aftermarket motor thing that connects with USB. The lego only attempts end up unwieldy and usually lacking in reliability (e.g. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-…
I remember in middle school doing some programming on the Apple 2 in the logo language and using a lego motor to essentially schedule moving the car to the park and then making a motorized lego swing spin around.
I think this is the first time i saw the wonder of programming, sad that its harder to do this now.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#16I used to make all kinds of cool projects with lejos (https://lejos.sourceforge.io/) and am now a bit tempted to get the new toys and test out the Python interface. Would be nice if Lego actually invested more time into making a standard programming interface for advanced users.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#17As someone who likes lego and programming, I love this answer. But I hate how hard lego has made it. Yes, with some work you can make your train stop and go. But I don't think there's a good track switching solution that's lego only and automated. There's an aftermarket motor thing that connects with USB. The lego only attempts end up unwieldy and usually lacking in reliability (e.g. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-…
So, while this is uhhh, off track, Legolands and such have some kind of automation, though, presumably, those are bespoke solutions and are not available to regular consumers.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#18As someone who likes lego and programming, I love this answer. But I hate how hard lego has made it. Yes, with some work you can make your train stop and go. But I don't think there's a good track switching solution that's lego only and automated. There's an aftermarket motor thing that connects with USB. The lego only attempts end up unwieldy and usually lacking in reliability (e.g. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-…
So, while this is uhhh, off track, Legolands and such have some kind of automation, though, presumably, those are bespoke solutions and are not available to regular consumers.
The Legoland trains are basically model trains wearing a Lego skin. They're also a different "scale" than the "Lego toy" trains.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#19It's a shame they got rid of metal tracks and went to batteries. If you're rich you can buy new replacements: https://shop.fxbricks.com/pages/fx-track Or try to buy old stock on ebay etc.
Metal tracks had some advantages, but plastic have, too.
The "best" model railroads have electric track at a constant voltage and DCC or other controlled locomotives, so that you're not "driving" the train with the voltage on the track.
Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing "fake" about self-answered questions, and Stack Exchange even includes UI specifically for posting an answer at the same time as your question.
I suppose the part where the writing structure is "question written as if by someone who does not know the answer themselves, answer written as if it's a different person" , even when explicitly posting to share knowledge, is what throws people off. I assume this is part of the SO guidelines but I can't blame anyone for being confused by that.
SO allows multiple answers per question. I have on occasion asked something and given a crappy/hacky self-answer as a stopgap, with somebody else eventually chiming in with a much better one later.