The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto!

Okay,that’s not really a greeting, but it does introduce this week’s topic pretty well.

Two weeks ago I said that there wouldn’t be a specific topic every week, but this week we have a topic and we are getting specific about LEGO Mindstorms.

If you read this blog at all you know that I usually don’t get my hands on any of the LEGO products that I talk about because I don't have any budget to buy them. And you can be very certain that I am not getting near anything LEGO Mindstorms related. Holy crap those sets are EXPENSIVE. Understandably so of course. You’re basically buying a working robot. I wouldn’t expect to buy one of those for $20.

I first heard about LEGO Mindstorms when I watched A LEGO Brickumentary. That was only a few weeks ago so I guess it’s obvious that I still have a lot to learn about LEGO and their product lines. Fortunately, that is the whole purpose of this blog.

Let’s have a little history lesson, shall we?

Mindstorms is actually a subtheme of LEGO Technics. (LEGO Technics, another thing I didn’t know about.)

Mindstorms was introduced in 1998. Its purpose: to turn LEGO creations into interactive robots. This idea was developed in collaboration with MIT. The robot is created using an intelligent brick computer that controls the system along with a set of modular sensors and motors. The robot itself is built with parts from the Technic line. The intelligent brick is programmed using software provided by LEGO in the kit. This is what allows you to “teach” your robot to do different things outside of the basic forward and backward movements.

When LEGO first released Mindstorms they ran into an unforeseen problem, which wasn’t actually a problem. LEGO has always targeted children when selling their product lines. Even to this day, LEGO doesn’t do anything that’s not kid friendly.

BUT, as we all know, there is an ever-growing community of AFOLs out there. In fact, half of the original sales of Mindstorms in 1998 were to adults for adult use. (That sounds dirty. It's not.) And when the AFOLs of the late 90’s got their hands on Mindstorms they weren’t all content to stick with the software programming that LEGO’s kits provided.

Someone at Stanford decided to hack the intelligent brick and reverse engineer it. And they weren’t the only one with that idea. Lots of people started writing new software for the brick. Within three months, a thousand hackers were working on it.

LEGO’s leadership was uncertain about how to respond to this situation. Normally companies are very protective of their products and don’t want the average Joe to think that they can take over a product they didn’t create and change it.

There was a lot of internal discussion that included top management at LEGO and some lawyers. LEGO could have taken a very aggressive and protective approach to the situation. Ultimately the CEO and president of LEGO at the time, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (grandson of the founder of LEGO) decided that it was a positive situation for the company. He wanted this. LEGO makes products people can create with. Why would they want to stop their customers from doing exactly that?

This was a good lesson for LEGO, especially when a few years later they almost went out of business. It’s because they weren’t respecting the creativity of the fans. They had to realize that they weren’t supposed to out-think and out-create their fans, they were supposed to think and create right alongside them. Instead of shutting out AFOLs, they could embrace them. And it would be a mutually beneficial relationship. AFOLs wanted LEGO, LEGO wanted AFOLs.

This interestingly seems to have been the first time LEGO acknowledged their adult fans. They still don’t directly market to them, but they are receptive of them. This may have been what led to LEGO Ideas, formally CUUSOO, being started. This is where individuals can submit ideas for potential LEGO sets, and based on community support, LEGO might make the ideas become reality.

Now let’s talk about an actual Mindstorms set.

The most recent Mindstorms set came out in 2013: Mindstorms EV3 (the box pictured above)

It’s $350 but that actually seems very reasonable for LEGO. You get over 550 LEGO Technic pieces. Obviously that doesn’t sound like a lot for the price you pay, but there are 17 different robots that can be made out of those pieces and maybe even more if you’re smart enough to build your own robot. Plus you get all the technology stuff to make the robots work. As you can tell, I really know what I’m talking about when I say “technology stuff.”

This one set will provide hours and hours and hours and even more hours of fun and learning. Which is another reason why the $350 price tag seems very reasonable. You get a lot of bang for the major buck that you are spending.

Let’s check out some of the robots you can build with this set. 

DUDE!

That is totally rad bro! 

Alright, you get it. These things are cool. It seems like the programming of the robot is not overly complicated. Particularly for the last generation or two of kids that have grown-up with some hi-tech toys.

The set comes with a remote control, but you can also download an app on your tablet or phone to control the robot too. You can also program your robots on your phone with the EV3 Programmer App.

It’s pretty amazing how LEGO has been able to connect modern technology with a toy that was first created in 1949.

Since these are working robots, I had to see these things in action. Yay for YouTube!

Here is The Brick Show reviewing the EV3 set. They are showing off the TRACK3R robot. They even get a non-LEGO fan to come in and use the remote control on the spot to show how easy it is to figure out.

Here is a playlist of speed build videos from Brick Builder for all 5 of the main robots you can build. Skip to the end of each video to see the robots in action.

LEGO has been great at inspiring kids to use their minds in all sorts of ways. They use their imagination to dream up ideas for LEGO builds and then they use their logical skills to figure out which LEGO bricks they need and in what formation to get the build just the way they visualized it.

Mindstorms is just another more advanced way kids will use their imagination and their logic while playing with toys. And they get to learn more about computers and programming in the process. This is an excellent way to trick kids into learning.

Suckers!

The more I learn about LEGO and their product lines, the more there is to like. Thank goodness LEGO got its head out of its….brick, and remembered what made LEGO popular to begin with. They already have the only tool they need, a standard LEGO brick. From there it’s just figuring out a new way to use it and being open to everyone’s ways of using it. Everyone, meaning not just those on the LEGO payroll. 

If we have programmable LEGO robots now, I can only imagine the kind of LEGO technology we will be given in the next decade or two.

I know I’m late to this Mindstorms thing, but props to LEGO and their fans for making it to this point in their innovation and ingenuity.

Keep doing what you’re doing LEGO!

With kids growing up with toys that can cultivate their creativity and their thirst for knowledge, there just may be some hope for the future of civilization.

So are any of you fortunate enough to own a Mindstorms set? Was it difficult to figure out the programming stuff? Can I borrow your set?

I’m going to assume you all said yes and I will wait patiently for you to deliver those Mindstorms sets to me. Which I will of course return to you...eventually.

In the meantime I will be checking out LEGO’s Mindstorms website that includes a lot of great content about different robots you can build, learning to program, and more.

Dōmo arigatō, readers!

Until next time….think about the fact that Mindstorms EV3 was the 4^th best selling set for LEGO in 2015 (which we talked about last week) even though in came out in 2013. Talk about staying power!

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*