Mia laughed, a real one. She reached over and offered a fist bump.
Leo grinned, and Little Samson’s single red EV3 eye blinked once—like it had been waiting for that answer all along.
Instead, Leo had spent two sleepless nights in his basement, surrounded by bins of Technic beams, friction pins, and three mismatched EV3 large motors. He’d built something weird. Little Samson had no bulldozer blade. No active arm. Just a low, wide stance, a single infrared sensor pointing down , and a secret: a passive scoop made from a single, curved 3x13 beam, hinged loosely at the front. lego mindstorms ev3 sumo bot building instructions pdf
So he’d closed them all.
The physics was brutal. Crusher , with its high center of gravity and rear-heavy weight, pivoted on one wheel. The tilt became a lean. The lean became a slide. And Little Samson , still calm as a toaster, simply rolled forward. Mia laughed, a real one
Leo shook his head. “I looked at eight of them. Then I broke every rule. Low center of gravity? Mine’s on the front axle. Big wheels? I used the smallest ones I had. Everyone builds a pusher. I built a see-saw .”
Then Samson did the strangest thing. It reversed. Its loose front scoop dipped under Crusher’s lifted front end—just three millimeters of clearance, but enough. Leo’s bot didn’t push Crusher forward. It lifted. Just a tiny tilt. Instead, Leo had spent two sleepless nights in
Leo didn’t answer. Because he had downloaded them. Three weeks ago, he’d opened a dozen tabs searching for . He’d found the classic designs: the bulldozer blade, the vertical arm, the gyro-assisted drivetrain.
Across from him, Mia adjusted her glasses. Her EV3 sumo bot, Crusher , was a brutalist masterpiece of angled beams and massive, spiked wheels. Leo’s bot, Little Samson , looked like a shoebox with treads.
“ Crusher out!” the announcer shouted.