Code Pilot
A programmable Technic brick from the Barcode Multi-Set 8479 of 1997: six AA cells, two buttons, one motor output, two passive inputs, and a single light sensor that doubles as a barcode reader. It hears one optical code set delivered two ways, as light blinked in time or as bars swept past that sensor.
Reach
| Capability | State | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Printed barcode cards | works, untested here | Sweep a strip past the sensor and it loads an action; the set's laminated A3 sheet is part 8479bar01. |
| The same codes as flashed light | works, untested here | Same bit encoding, blinked in place instead of drawn on paper. |
| Motor speed, motor on a sensor trigger, sounds | works, untested here | The programmable actions a strip loads. |
| Codes of its own | works, untested here | Its instruction set is wider than the Micro Scout's; the values are in VLL opcode table. |
| Flash Force through the bridge | works, untested here | Sends the same frames it sends to a Micro Scout. |
| Flash Force with a phone torch | works, untested here | The torch is confirmed on a Micro Scout, never on this brick. |
What it hears
VLL: no carrier, plain light on and off, one way. The frame and the checksum are in that note, the values in VLL opcode table, and the paper form, plus why bars and flashes are one protocol and not two, in Barcodes (Code Pilot). The low-level protocol matches the Micro Scout's, which arrived two years later, so an emitter built for one addresses the other; only the instruction set on top is the Code Pilot's own. Every link a LEGO brick can hear, on one page: How the links work.
Reaching it today
- Print the original barcode sheet and sweep the strips past the sensor. No emitter at all.
- A phone torch. Nothing to build.
- The bridge, or an infrared LED on it for a light the sensor reads and you cannot see.
- lego-blockly, for a diode driven off a serial control line.
Links
- Set 8479 Barcode Multi-Set — Rebrickable · Technicopedia · Sets & bricks index.
- Barcode sheet 8479bar01 (Rebrickable · Bricker).
- Community: LUGNET — Code Pilot.
- The code set, Code Pilot beside Micro Scout: Scout SDK, VLL Command Set table, November 1999.
- Projects that name the Code Pilot as a target: adriansieber · lego-blockly.