Hack Your LEGO Bricks with the ESP32-Powered Quarky Intellio

LEGO building blocks may be the greatest toy ever conceived by humanity, but they have been missing something for the past few years. Since the discontinuation of the Mindstorms robotics kits, people who want to program their LEGO creations so they can do more than sit on a shelf to be admired have been out of luck. The recently unveiled SMART Brick will help to fill this gap, but this new offering does not have the capabilities most hobbyists are looking for.

What we want is total hackability, and some substantial computing power to run AI or other powerful algorithms on LEGO bricks. A Kickstarter campaign created by STEMpedia seeks to give us exactly that. They have created Quarky Intellio, which is a LEGO- and Arduino-compatible kit for adding AI, AR, and more to your LEGO creations. It is a special block with LEGO mounts that contains an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, sensors, and interfaces for integrating with motors and other electronic components.

The Quarky Intellio module integrates an ESP32-S3, 5-megapixel autofocus camera, microphone, speaker, SD card slot, TFT display interface, GPIOs, servo ports, and a 1,000 mAh rechargeable battery into a single, compact unit. This makes it possible to build self-contained, mobile projects without a tangle of external boards or power supplies. Because it is based on the ESP32-S3, Intellio is capable of running edge AI workloads locally, avoiding the need for constant cloud connectivity.

On the software side, Intellio is designed to grow with the user. Beginners can start with block-based programming in PictoBlox, while more advanced users can switch to Python or C++ through the Arduino IDE, ESP-IDF, or MicroPython. Machine learning models can be trained using PictoBlox’s ML environment or deployed with TensorFlow Lite. This flexibility enables projects such as autonomous POV cars, AR-enabled robots that recognize AprilTags, object-tracking soccer bots, and interactive desk companions that combine face recognition with speech input.

The module can interface with popular platforms like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ESP32-based boards, as well as a wide range of servos, sensors, and displays to enable more complex functions. Two main kits are offered: the Discovery Kit, which introduces AI and AR concepts, and the more advanced Rover Kit, which adds motors and hardware for building fully autonomous robots.

This campaign closes in just a few days, so if you want to get in on the rewards that start at $49, don’t wait too much longer. Full details are available at Kickstarter.