ELECFREAKS Nezha kit workshop

What appeals to me about this kit:

• It’s much cheaper than the established kits (Spike LEGO costs $670 AUD, Nezha kit costs $212 AUD when you include a micro:bit)
• They have setup a wiki with 72 build cases so you are never going to run out of things to build
• Design for Designers principle: Some, actually quite a few kits are too finished and polished. But with the Nezha kit you can design a wide variety of interesting things, it is not finished or limited to a narrow range of functions
• Their wiki takes you through the building and coding step by step.
• Like other LEGO kits it simplifies the building process because all the things you need to build with come with the kit (although this is both a positive and a downside when you think about it, long story)

There are some problems with the Nezha kit too:

• The LEGO build diagrams in the wiki are too small IMO, although usually very helpful, they are sometimes difficult to decipher clearly. I suppose a good side of this is that you sometimes have to think carefully when building, not just blindly follow. But experience shows that some students become frustrated and spit the dummy
• It doesn’t come with a compartmentalised case so you need to find an old LEGO case or some such to organise the pieces
• Tight fits, I needed pliers to remove some parts when unpacking (can be an issue with all LEGO)

update 7/8/2023 more problem issues:
When you look more closely at the Nezha's 72 cases you realise that quite a few can't be made without purchasing additional sensors from ELECFREAKS

For these cases (29 Dazzling Car, 33 Colour Controlled Lights 35 Colour Recognition Car) you need both the colour sensor and the rainbow LED ring, which don't come with the Nezha kit. For these cases (64 The Intelligent Forklift, 66 The Voice Controlled Car) you need a speech recognition sensor.

There are other cases like this that require other sensors as well.

My reaction has been to buy more sensors namely colour, LED rainbow, OLED display, gesture, speech recogniton. I've also bought another Nezha expansion board so I can build two projects at once and a laser and 8x16 matrix. My new purchases came to $117 USD. This still puts the combined price of the Nezha kit (plus my extensions) below that of a Spike LEGO kit.

Goal: To make an Obstacle Avoidance Car
Materials: Nezha ELECFREAKS kit + micro:bit
One good place to start is Case 12: Obstacle Avoidance Car
Online instructions: here
This LEGO build has 18 steps. It is a good one to start with because the LEGO build is not too hard and the finished car interacts with the user in an interesting way.
/update

Learning: Building with LEGO, Ultrasonic sensor for obstacle detection, MakeCode coding, micro:bit experience
Reference:
Nezha Inventors Kit (described and sold here)
Wiki section for the Nezha kit: the 76 cases are displayed here

Some other things I have built with the Nezha kit:

Case 8: Speed adjustable fan
LEGO build: 12 steps
Adjust the speed of the fan with the potentiometer

Case 11: Line Tracking Car
LEGO build 21 steps
The car follows a black line

Now for a more difficult build for advanced students who are prepared to problem solve and persist:

Case 1: The Mechanical Shrimp online instructions
This LEGO build has 33 steps and some of them are tricky, especially given the small diagrams.
The mechanical shrimp moves forward and waves the princers, it will change direction if there are obstacles being detected.
Learning: Building with LEGO, Ultrasonic sensor for direction change, Servo controls the pincers, MakeCode coding, microbit experience

Case 41: The Forklift, online instructions
This LEGO build has 53 steps. I made a few mistakes along the way and had to do some rebuilding.

There is an error in the suggested code on the site. The A button code lifts the fork but doesn't return it to the ground. The B button code works as it should.

Case 44: Tight rope walker, online instructions

I wanted to build this one because it was different. This LEGO build has 57 steps. I had to do some pulling apart and rebuilding at the end to fit in the rubber band.

The code on the site doesn't work very well. The walker goes too fast and only forward. I improved the code. My code makes the walker move backwards and forwards at a suitable pace.