During our Erasmus+ project period, Lego launched its new programming environment named EV3 Classroom. This new software development tool “Lego EV3 Classroom” was released gradually, first for MacOS in November 2019, then for Windows10, Android and Chromebook a year later in 2020. This is to replace the older Lego software called “EV3 Lab Teacher/Student Edition”.

The new software logo is shown on the left side and the older at the right.

In the following pictures the Programming Canvas for each editor is shown.

the newer EV3 Classroom

 
the older EV3 Lab

The new EV3 Classroom software gives equal opportunities to all devices, so some students can use laptops, while their classmates work with tablets. 

Firstly, there’s a very good chance that students interested in advanced robotics with MINDSTORMS® will find this new programming method more intuitive, because they probably already have some experience with Scratch (or Lego SPIKE that is the newer robotics kit that replaces Lego Mindstorms EV3). Secondly, since all blocks are small and color-coded, assembling complex programs and revising them later is really convenient.

To have an idea of the differences in the appearance of the blocks we prepared some examples of identical code, for comparison.

Medium motor moving with checks - Older EV3

Medium motor moving with checks - The New EV3

It is obvious that the newer Scratch like environment is neater and the code more compact.

This difference escalates when more checks and switch blocks come into play, as in the following example.

Medium motor moving with checks - Older EV3

Medium motor moving with checks - The New EV3

In general the older EV3 Lab has more programming possibilities but the interface and coding approach is more demanding and takes time to get used to it. The newer EV3 Classroom software is simpler to use and is based on the popular Scratch block programming with which the students are more familiar with. Overall, the older EV3 Lab requires more effort from the user.