Renaming the EV3 brick (2024)

Renaming the EV3 is not required, because they are connected to the computers withmicro USB cables and there is no possibility of mistaking your brick with another in the classroom.

Renaming EV3 bricks is recommended if you are using Bluetooth connections.

Renaming the bricks can be done through an SSH connection in Visual studio code.

What you will need:

1. A Windows 10 PC;
2. Visual Studio Code installed;
3. "LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 MicroPython" extension installed;
4. An SD Card with MicroPython installed that you will rename;
5. An EV3 Brick;
6. USB to Micro USB cable, similar to the ones available in the LEGO sets;

The renaming process:

Insert the SD Card in the proper slot on the EV3 brick and turn it on. Give it a few minutes to boot and connect it to your PC with the USB cable. Start up Visual Studio Code and follow these steps:

1. Creating a project:

• To create a project for an EV3 robot, click on the icon of its extension. If for some reason the icon does not appear, follow theseinstructions to add it.
• Click on the "Create a new project" button.
• Enter the name of the new project. We will be creating new projects every time so it's a good habit to name them with names that hint their functionality.
• You have to show VS-Code where you want it to create your project. We recommend you keep your programs in the "LEGO Projects" folderwhich can be found in the "Documents" folder. If you don't have such a folder, create it.
• Every project is comprised of several elements, but you don't need to learn all of them today. What you need to know is that "main.py"is the program of your project. You can add more programs to your project, but for now, we will be sticking to programming in "main.py".

2. Connecting to the robot

In order to upload programs to the robot, it needs to beturned on and connected to the computerwith a USB cable.

• After you have connected the robot to the brick, click"EV3DEV DEVICE BROWSER".
• When you click on it, it will show you the "Click here to connect to device" button. This button starts searching for robots connected to the computer and displays the names of the ones that were found ( if you don't connect more than one brick, it will only display one name).
• Select your robot and wait for the dot next to its name to become green

3. Renaming the robot

• If you have connected the robot, you need to find the name of the robot next to a green circle that indicates a stable connection. Right-click on the name of the robot and you will see an option "Open SSH Terminal", which will allow you to enter commands directly into the robots terminal:
• Enter the following command in the robots terminal:

sudo nano /etc/hostname

• Enter the word "maker" and press Enter.
• Delete the "ev3dev" text andenter the nameyou want your robot to have when you connect to it.
• PressCTRL + Xwhen you are ready and nano will ask you if you wish to save your changes.
• Press "Y" to confirm the changes and press Enter.
• Reboot the EV3 Brick