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Fan-Designed Mindstorms Release Next Tuesday
EaglesNest writes "The Washington Post has a story describing Lego's new Mindstorms. Two years ago, Lego formed their own 'star chamber' to decide what the next iteration of Mindstorms would look like. Eventually reaching 14 people, the Mindstorm users panel had a huge impact on what will be released commercially next week." From the article: "One member was even able to pressure the company into building a part that makes its debut in the new Mindstorms set -- a rare event at Lego, which treats every individual piece with reverence. The new part is a connector that allows two long pieces to be joined at a 90-degree angle. The resulting toy has much more up-to-date technology than the original set, including a USB 2.0 port for fast downloads and Bluetooth for wireless connections. With the right parts and programming, a Mindstorms robot can dance in response to sounds or follow the beam of a flashlight."
With the right parts and programming, a Mindstorms robot can dance in response to sounds or follow the beam of a flashlight."
You can do the same thing with teenagers and some ecstasy pills....
Monstar L
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The new mindstorms set sounds great, but the article contained rather disturbing news about the financial state of LEGO. How does a company that makes plastic bricks loose over 200 million in one year? Im sure that the new mindstorms will help boost the bottom line but I cant help but think LEGO's biggest problem was when they went away from generic build kits to licensed sets with highly proprietary (i.e. unusable for much else) pieces. Is it that kids arent as creative today or does LEGO just keep them from being able to be creative? Part of what made LEGO's col in my day was that you could create just about anything you could think up. When I was a kid UI was able to build an entire rebel base for my star wars figures with a blanket and lego bricks but today I have to buy a $75 kit. Todays sets appear to be more of a model kit than a creative toy.
The Lego company just kept doing business as it always had... which was fine when the bricks were selling, but once the video game crowd eroded their sales - they tanked. Since, they have laid off a number of employees - not making the town they reside in happy but the alternative was much worse. They have also moved production off to eastern european countries where labor costs are reasonable and they can compete in the global market. The new CEO means business and I am optimistic they will survive and maybe thrive.
Covered more thoroughly in Wired last February.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Excuse me if I'm mistaken, but isn't a Star Chamber a secret tribunal used for attacking political enemies of the state? If this is correct, somehow I don't think that Lego used a Star Chamber of fans to design the new Mindstorms.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
When activated, the robot stood up and yelled "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all."
Huh.
I just have to say that a company that isn't afraid of letting thier consumers in on the R&D of a new prodect is really amazing, even if it is just a select few. I used the original mindstorms kit to build a robot in first year engineering, and from what I saw it was a really interesting kit. We ran linux on our computers so we used the LegOS using some NQC stuff. If Lego will open source their code from the get go then people like me, who preffer to code in C (or something close to it) than with Lego's crazy graphical method, will greatly appreciate it! I can see the new kit to be a big hit on budding roboticists who don't want to spend thousands on building a simple 'battlebot' style robot (here I mean building a car style bot, nothing fancy) only to not be able to re-use all the parts on another bot.
Har?
Also... have specs on the NXT hardware been published (either by lego or somebody else) so that people can build their own sensors like they did with the RCX? Lego has been very hacker-friendly in the past, I hope this new Mindstorms set doesn't change that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They must be talking about building a robot according to the plans they provide. Seeing how those plans will act as a tutorial for most people, a decrease from 2 hours to 30 minutes would be welcome.
One of my favorite LEGO books as a kid was one that had page after page of different elaborate scenes but the instructions only showed you how to make a few (typically minor) items in each scene. If you wanted to replicate some of the more cool stuff in a scene, you were pretty much on your own as how to build it.
I've had the set for a while now. I signed up for their Developer Program, but wasn't picked, however they were nice and gave everyone who wasn't chosen the chance to order it a month early. So I was able to play with it and build my robot. The only bad thing is that it's been sitting here next to my linux box while I wait for LEGO to release their SDKs for the bluetooth interface, which is supposed to be in August.
I must note: the bluetooth connectivity to the LEGO NXT is much easier to establish with a Linux box using BlueZ, than it is with a Windows box running MCE2005/SP2 or even Vista. It's just hit or miss with the Windows stuff, depending on whether the driver likes you, the temperature, the time of day, what color shirt you're wearing -- but one rfcomm line and pin confirmation in Linux and it's done.
That is, after all, how I'm going to let you darn slashdotters control it over the 'net, video included, when I finish programming the new protocol into my robot server.
One of the first things lego needs to do is allow Gumstix to make a lego casing for their little computers to control a NTX robot. There's already a great hacker community around the Gumstix platform just like the Lego platform.. It's a match made in OSS heaven. Short synopsis of Gumstix is a stripped out sharp Zaraus motherboard (like a slightly large stick of gum) with various attachments and running Linux.
a rare event at Lego, which treats every individual piece with reverence
Bullshit. Just look at all the special pieces in the Star Wars kits. Lego has been on a binge of making special pieces for the past 10+ years.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I've always felt the same way. It seems to me that people are complaining about 'specific' pieces that came with certain sets and complaining that there's no imagination room. Eh, I call BS on that. There were always plenty of uses for anything I found to be 'specific' as a kid. Even flower stems could be used for antennas and such. You just need to use imagination again, and forget what you've been told.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM