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Lego Education's Newest Spike Prime Programmable Robots Aim For the Classroom (cnet.com)
Lego Education, the education-focused arm of the veteran Denmark company, is making its biggest product debut in three years, unveiling Spike Prime, a new kit that aims to mix the company's familiar bricks with motors, sensors and introductory coding lessons. The company is targeting kids aged between 11 to 14. From a report: Lego Mindstorms have been around for years. The Mindstorms EV3 robotics kit remains a staple of many learning centers and robotics classrooms. Lego's newest kit looks more like Lego Boost, a programmable kit that aimed to win over families in 2017 and was compatible with regular Lego bricks. It's compatible with Lego Boost, Lego Technic sets and classic Lego pieces, but not with Lego's previous Mindstorms accessories. Lego Mindstorms EV3 is remaining alongside Lego Spike Prime in Lego Education's lineup, and looks like it's aiming more at the high school crowd, while Lego Spike Prime could bridge to that higher-end projects.
The Spike Prime set is created specifically for grades six to eight. It uses an app that uses visual Scratch programming and aims to adopt the Python programming language by the end of the year, according to Lego Education executives. The robots made by Spike Prime look cute, and Lego Boost-like, but not necessarily as complicated as some Mindstorm kits. The central processing hub that drives the Lego Spike Prime robotics creations has six input and output ports, and connects with sensors including an RGB color and light sensor, a force-sensitive touch sensor, and an ultrasonic distance sensor for measurement and navigation.
The Spike Prime set is created specifically for grades six to eight. It uses an app that uses visual Scratch programming and aims to adopt the Python programming language by the end of the year, according to Lego Education executives. The robots made by Spike Prime look cute, and Lego Boost-like, but not necessarily as complicated as some Mindstorm kits. The central processing hub that drives the Lego Spike Prime robotics creations has six input and output ports, and connects with sensors including an RGB color and light sensor, a force-sensitive touch sensor, and an ultrasonic distance sensor for measurement and navigation.
and I will never understand how grown ass men get obsessed with either of them.
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I guess some people like Lego because it's an easy way to build simple things. You can snap something together in a couple hours. They plan to add Python to the Lego set, because Python is also easy, suitable for kids.
People like to snap something together in a couple hours with Lego. Same reason they like Python and PHP.
Oddly, nobody makes the mistake of thinking Lego, being easy, are a good way to build mission critical systems that your company relies on.
Then they seem to think that it's impossible to prevent production systems crashing, occasional data corruption, etc. Yeah it's pretty tough to prevent problems if you build enterprise applications using the same tools and techniques that children use in their play.
I might get this new Lego set for my daughter. She really enjoys Lego and is good at it - building things well beyond what most people would call "age appropriate". Might should wait a year, though. She breezes through second grade (age 7) schoolwork - and she's four.
Yes, I realize she's probably smarter than me.
No, I'm never gonna pay over $400 for a bunch of plastic bits that altogether cost less than $5 to make!
Especially when most of those pieces are one-purpose ones that you can't even use for being creative and building your own stuff. (You know: The whole point of LEGO.)
If I want *that* expensive one-use models, I buy them pre-assembled!
Or, for next year's prices I can probably just get a real kit car for me!
Simple Robots... but I'd still find a way to brick them.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
That is why most of the Legos' I buy are knock-off brands, such as LOZ and Lepin. As a teacher, I can not really afford to buy Lego Brand for my students to play with, yet I can, and do afford the knock-offs'.
Recently the "when you are done with your work, you can build with the Legos'" project was the big Hogwarts Castle. Before that was the Arcos truck, that one took over a year of off and on student work. We then put an EV3 controller in the truck and we are currently working on getting it to drive well. That involved researching specifications and soldering connectors to make the lights and motor work with the EV3.
As far as the article, seeing as I teach Robotics using the EV3, I did look at the article. It looks like this new controller is a step down from the EV3 in student lesson complexity. What I would like to see is a step up, some form of more advanced EV3/Mindstorms type of controller. However, the EV3 seems to hit a sweet spot for my 7th and 8th-grade classes.
The adjective for Denmark is Danish...
I think you're absolutely right. I'm a nerd and I was bored to tears in school.
Fortunately, here in Garland (a suburb of Dallas), we have a lot of choices in public schools. Several good magnet programs, flexible options which let the student learn at their own accelerated pace. At least, that's the sales pitch. The Academy for Excellence program LOOKS like it will be pretty good for her.
We'll see. The typical track with Academy for Excellence is that they graduate high school with a associate's degree, so they are two years ahead - after twelve yeara. We'll, she's already two years ahead, so if she continues to learn faster than average, she's going to need to something more accelerated than the "standard accelerated" track.
Fortunately, being in preschool she's had the opportunity to practice social skills, and she's tall, so she'd fit in okay if she akips a grade soon, then maybe a few years later another grade.
I'm curious to get the test results back because to me it seems like she is probably in the top 1%, but I'm a tad biased. :) Actually her cousin is something like 99.9 percentile and she just might be smarter than him, so this could be a challenge.
It was funny when she was two or three years old and we'd have a conversation like this:
3yo: Can we go to the playground?
Dad: I'm sorry, I'm too tired to go to the park.
3yo: Okay, I'll be quiet so you can nap, then we can go to the park.
Hard to argue with that. :)
If she keeps getting better, though, Mom is going to have a heck of a time.
How hard is it to spell LEGO in all caps like it's supposed to be?
Well, I would very much like to know why they're making it incompatible with Mindstorms. My son has a Mindstorm set that he got two years ago -- he wanted it instead of a phone. It was $300+. Since then we've purchased additional sensors and motors. Smells like a pure LEGO money-grab to me.