11 ms·

Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

578 points by dmarinoc 4y ago

lasftew 4y ago
Looks like https://pybricks.com/ https://pybricks.com/ is a usable alternative firmware for the Robot Inventor hub.
WalterBright 4y ago
I always preferred the Gilbert erector sets.
- slimsag 4y ago
  Erector sets were incredible, as a kid I built RC cars out of those with some over-powered motors and such. Super fun times. I would guess Mindstorms gives more of an intro to programming, while Erector is better for mechanical engineering. (also, hey! I was that weird kid at Handmade Seattle last year who asked to shake your hand :) )
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I'd attach Cox engines to them <g>. It was a pleasure to meet you! P.S. My mom told me that I couldn't handle the tiny screws used to put the Erector sets together. She was wrong :-) I spent endless hours building things with it.
- lupire 4y ago
  Erector was discontinued before Mindstorms were launched, and were not programmable. Mecanno brand has programmable robots, but not the range of sensors that Mindstorms had.
  - kragen 4y ago
    You can still buy them secondhand.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I don't know about Mecano, but the Erector sets online are in pretty sad condition, unsurprising since they're >50 years old now. Sometimes I'll get from ebay one of the battered metal boxes they came in. They make nice nostalgic decorations.
      - DalekBaldwin 4y ago
        The most easily available Meccano-compatible system still in production is the Swiss brand Stokys: https://www.stokys.ch/de-ch/home/ https://www.stokys.ch/de-ch/home/ The web site and order system is in German, but I've been able to talk to their friendly customer service in English. Then there's the matter of shipping outside of Europe... but it's still much easier than scraping parts together from vintage Meccano vendors with circa-1995-style web sites. I remember having some Erector sets as a kid in the '90s (they had merged with Meccano long before, and the choice of which brand to appear on which set seems to have been random since then), but these days the official Meccano/Erector selection is almost non-existent -- there are maybe a dozen small self-contained model vehicle kits, and you can't order generic kits or parts in bulk. It is rather sad -- these brands were once used for serious engineering prototyping and scientific work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser#Use_of_Meccano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser#Use_of_M...
        kragen 4y ago
        Here in Argentina, Meccano-branded sets are still being made, but Meknex may be a better option: https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-855738684-meknex-k100-set-construc-metalico-x261-piezas-tipo-meccano-_JM https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-855738684-meknex-k1... The official Meccano-brand sets here in Argentina are indeed very limited.
- dekhn 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure I had this as a kid. It had very memorable stamped steel girders . I think we built some sort of ferris wheel (not sure which exact model) and I was really unhappy with how slow/weak it was. it was a real depressing moment. Never quite forgot it. Took a good three and half decades before I finally learned how to make high torque spinning things (motor torque got better, easier, and cheaper).
- euroderf 4y ago
  I bought three big Meccano kits on closeout years ago. They lie in wait for robotification. If anyone has pointers to how to bring them to life with appropriately-sized motors and batteries and remote control, I'd be grateful.
tomcam 4y ago
Is limited app support a problem anymore? I assume there are complete replacements for the firmware these days?
- dybber 4y ago
  Yes, you can run a debian based distro on them, so they can be programmed in Python or whatever. I guess the question is if they will stop being supported by platforms such as Scratch, which is a very popular way to program them these days
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Far out, thanks
iancmceachern 4y ago
What!! Nooo!
ievans 4y ago
Sad to see this as someone who enjoyed these as a kid and entering robotics competitions based off of them; hopefully the new products will keep the spirit alive. There was even some decent FOSS tooling that developed on top of Mindstorms: I used NXC (Not eXactly C, https://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/welcome.html https://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/welcome.html) which was a C-like language for programming Lego Mindstorms. It looks like the last release of NXC was in 2011.
- mlyle 4y ago
  Pybrick/python runs well on both Mindstorms EV3 and the new thing (Spike Prime).
- teraflop 4y ago
  Similar story here. I remember getting my first exposure to embedded development at a relatively young age through brickOS (https://brickos.sourceforge.net/ https://brickos.sourceforge.net/), which was a complete replacement operating system for the original Mindstorms RCX (predating the NXT). That version of the hardware was so old that it didn't even have non-volatile storage. Every time you changed the batteries, it would boot into a minimal ROM bootloader which was just powerful enough to download the rest of the firmware into RAM, via an infrared connection to your PC. That had the nice side effect of making the RCX very hacker-friendly, because it was almost impossible to permanently "brick" it (ha!).
- sethgrisham 4y ago
  I grew up using mindstorms in FLL and I just began coaching a team this year. I'm pretty impressed with the new Spike Prime, and although it has its quirks, over all I'd say it's a good improvement over the last generation, plus I get to teach the kids python which has honestly been a blast!
- mFixman 4y ago
  My first real programming was NQC (Not Quite C, probably related to NXC?). I owe it my programming abilities. Lego Mindstorms was one of the best creative learning tools you can give a child; my life started the day I stopped using the building manual and started building my own stuff by trial and error. The world would be a better place if everyone grew up with the opportunities that I did. I wish schools would just let children do whatever with Lego instead of filling your day with restrictive lessons in loud classrooms.
jnwatson 4y ago
I wonder what programs like FIRST Lego League will do. That was an amazing experience for my kid.
- dybber 4y ago
  LEGO Spike Prime
  - harikb 4y ago
    School & independent teams have spent $$$ buying lego parts and it is still sad to see things deprecated when they could have easily upgraded the "cpu" and kept things compatible.
    - Nullabillity 4y ago
      Spike Prime and 51515 (the final Mindstorms generation) seem to be basically the same thing (which isn't new, back in the NXT times you had NXT and NXT Education Edition). I'd be very surprised if they weren't compatible with each other.
      - lupire 4y ago
        They aren't compatible. https://www.lego.com/en-in/service/help/spike_prime/spike-essential-with-other-robotics-systems-kA009000001KVc8CAG https://www.lego.com/en-in/service/help/spike_prime/spike-es...
        Nullabillity 4y ago
        That page only mentions the long-discontinued NXT and EV3, not 51515 (the set that the article says is being discontinued now). 51515 wasn't compatible with NXT/EV3 either.
belkinpower 4y ago
This is really sad. NXT-G was my first programming language. Not sure if I’d be the same person I am today without that experience.
fny 4y ago
Can they at least open source all the CAD so we can 3D print these suckers?
- nomel 4y ago
  > 3D print these suckers? Famously, LEGO has an extremely tight manufacturing tolerance that's around 10um [1]. Your 3d printer is much better than mine. :) 1. Page 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego#cite_ref-Companyprofile_35-0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego#cite_ref-Companyprofile_3...
  - stas2k 4y ago
    Currently 3D printinga lot of Lego rail on my FDM printer. Although not perfect, it does snap onto original rail and to its 3D printed peers. Lego pieces do snap to the dimples as well, although too tight. Main use case for me is to lay some track between rooms for kid's trains.
  - AlmostAnyone 4y ago
    SLA printer could do it, they even mention using it for prototyping on the wiki page
    - sbierwagen 4y ago
      With SLA resin at $90 a liter, I don't know much much money you'd actually save.
    - NegativeLatency 4y ago
      Probably not as tough as Lego though
  - freefruit 4y ago
    I have made compatible parts with my at home FDM printer.
    - sleepybrett 4y ago
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freetime2 4y ago
Any alternatives that anyone could suggest for young children looking to get an introduction to robotics?
- stinkytaco 4y ago
  Spike Prime is their new education branding. This article is kind of misleading since they've been sort of phasing out the Mindstorms branding in favor of a broader education initiative for a while. Spike Prime might not be for very young children, but I'd say a precocious 2nd or 3rd grader could definitely program it.
  - mort96 4y ago
    I'm looking at their Spike Prime stuff now, and nothing I'm finding seems that... interesting? I got my start in programming with the Mindstorms NXT set (this thing: http://www.robotreviews.com/reviews/lego-mindstorms-nxt-8527-review http://www.robotreviews.com/reviews/lego-mindstorms-nxt-8527...), where you got all the parts and instructions needed to build a walking, programmable lego robot. The Spike Prime set looks like... some motors, some sensors, the controller brick, and some parts, but nothing to inspire, no instructions for a cool bipedal robot build, or robot arm, or anything to get the imagination flowing. Even the bright colors look like something that's designed to educate small kids? The old sets had a "cool" vibe to them. Maybe that made them too gendered, but as a young boy, it certainly helped avoid the shame of "still" playing with lego. Am I missing something, or does this Spike Prime thing look like less of a replacement and more of a completely different product with a different focus which also just happens to contain programmable lego motors?
    - StillBored 4y ago
      I'm a bit out of touch with FLL (my kids aged out), but its not surprising. Little of winning a FLL competition is related to the robotic performance. The team that wins the robotic portions won't necessarily do well overall. Given that, and the sophistication of many of the teams, and the way the competitions are designed. The best teams are usually just doing some form of preprogrammed dead reckoning sequence and getting a bit lucky and rigorously placing the bot at the beginning. AKA, while the NXT/EV3/etc devices are capable of sensor feedback, few teams made use of it. Its likely all the FLL teams need for most of the competition is three motor forward/reverse. PS: Maybe I sorta failed to respond to the main point, which is that the spike kits aren't there to be "cool" sitting on the shelf and excite kids who get them under the tree. They are mostly purchased by educational/FLL teams where the build instructions and/or goals are provided by a 3rd party.
jer0me 4y ago
What a shame, I loved my set as a kid. Hopefully the software will still work or can be made to work with now-discontinued models.
karlmdavis 4y ago
Man, playing with Mindstorms is some of the most fun I’ve had as an adult. This announcement is a shame. I spent some time going through all of their basic examples in Rust, which was just delightfully silly.
FullyFunctional 4y ago
It’s a shame but I can see how it’s a harder sell than the nth iteration of a scene from say Harry Potter. IMhO, they could do well by combining programmable elements with thematic sets, say add programmable motion to a haunted house. They have already tip-toed down this path, eg. the roller coaster has an optional motor function. However the pure approach of Mindstorm clearly has too narrow a market.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  They aren’t discontinuing it because its hard to sell in that space. They are retiring it in favor of their newer offering in the space (LEGO Education Spike Prime). They also have, for programmable robotics, the younger-kid focussed LEGO Boost. Plus they have at least one DUPLO set aimed at what I think of as the “tactile coding toy” space (where instructions are represented as physical configurations of objects), DUPLO Coding Express.
  - lupire 4y ago
    They are dropping the non-Edu line, as parent was talking about.
    - FullyFunctional 4y ago
      Exactly and it’s a quite obvious that if it sold well it wouldn’t have been dropped. Edu is a completely different market (for better and worse). (We also have Boost but it’s much more limited IMO - my biggest gribe is that LEGO has so many incompatible systems which is ironic)
samwillis 4y ago
I was given a Lego RCX kit for Christmas in about 98 at the age of 12. It was my first exposure to “proper programming” with its visual flowchart based language (I was already playing around with HTML). I spent days building various inventions with that set. It very much set me in the path I’m still on today. I’m sure someone will come out with a new product range that fills that gap. My eldest kid is 8, I was planing to introduce her to Mindstorms in the next year or so…
omnibrain 4y ago
That's somewhat bittersweet. The company I now work for and lead was inspired by mindstorms. Our founder had written a DOS based software for alarm receiving centers. Even back then he and his prime customer were unsatisfied with the restricting logic of managing alarms by only having a few choices how to react to an alarm. Usually show some text, and have a person call someone and then write up a protocol. So he build some sort of programming environment for alarm receiving software. Now they could implement individual alarm workflows for their customers. But that was still nothing his customers could use themselves, because they still would have to know how to program. But then he saw an ad for mindstorms in the Lego catalogue his son brought home from the toy store. That inspired him to write a completely new software. Windows based with a their own graphical programming environment embedded.
- kragen 4y ago
  Bittersweet‽ What's the sweet part of Lego discontinuing Mindstorms?
  - fuckstick 4y ago
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    They're likely shifting focus to a different programmable block product line, namely SPIKE Prime. So it's more of a changing of the guard than the end of robotic educational LEGO.
    - kragen 4y ago
      That might be okay; what's that like?
  - omnibrain 4y ago
    I'm not sure if bittersweet is the right word, english is not my first language. But I think the bitterness of Mindstorms ending reminding me of the beginnings of our company could be considered sweet. So I would say it's a bittersweet moment. I have to admit, though, I never used Mindstorms and as far as I know he never bought mindstorms for his children either. ;)
nearmuse 4y ago
Although they claim to not be abandoning the idea and the trademark altogether, I don't really understand the reasoning behind not using such a seemingly strong brand. Mindstorms appeared pretty popular with hobbyists and in education.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  MBA thinking, probably.
mdtrooper 4y ago
Lego is similar to Nint€ndo and Di$ney, they do not support the free culture, instead their lawers fight agains to free software projects or charity events. Any educational tool/toy must be public domain or free license.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  What if this kind of thinking would lead to no Legos at all?
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    There's always K'Nex.
83457 4y ago
They released a new generation not long ago (last year?). Sounded like it wasn't warmly received initially but later they were sold out. Something to do with that?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
As others have noted, they still have an education focused robotics set, it’s just not called Mindstorms: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-education-spike-prime-set-45678 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-education-spike-prim... As a now-successful robotics engineer, I was the target age when the first Lego mindstorms set came out. Due to the cost it had to be a combined birthday and Christmas present (still obviously very privileged). The simple scratch-like programming system that kit used was great for me as a tween learning robotics. Today I am designing an open source farming robot as a non profit project! (See my profile) The early history of Lego Mindstorms is interesting. I didn’t realize Seymour Papert was involved but that makes a lot of sense! Especially with the name Mindstorms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book)
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  FYI if you want to get beefy on the compute side, they make a raspberry pi HAT for integration with the lego spike stuff: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/
  - relaxing 4y ago
    Now if only they made a Raspberry Pi for purchase...
    - Zolomon 4y ago
      I have 4xRaspberry Pi 4 8 GB for sale from Sweden if you’re interested in buying!
- vba 4y ago
  Yup combined Christmas and birthday presents and additionally forfeit any money I received from relatives back in the year 2000. Had to fight for it and made to feel guilty on how much it cost. Didn’t become a robotics engineer.
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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DanCarvajal 4y ago
Bummer, I remember loving the system when was on the school Botball team in the early 2000s.
jph 4y ago
Mindstorms has a long compelling history before LEGO, that includes cybernetics, the Logo programming language, turtle graphics, Braitenberg vehicles, and the rise of the MIT Media Lab. See the book "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas" by Seymour Papert. Free from MIT. https://mindstorms.media.mit.edu https://mindstorms.media.mit.edu https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert
the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
The robot inventor set is awesome. Such a shame to see it being retired. :(
- sdiupIGPWEfh 4y ago
  Really wanted a 2nd set of Robot Inventor, and now it's both discontinued and sold out everywhere. Ugh.
galoisscobi 4y ago
This is sad. Lego Mindstorms played a huge role in my life trajectory. I discovered RCX and NXT in middle school, absolutely loved building stuff with them and went to robotics competitions. It got me really interested in robotics to the point where I decided I would move halfway across the world for college to get educated further in robotics. I did that and I am now a professional roboticist. None of that would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Lego Mindstorms. Sad to see it go. Their spike prime kit looks way too basic compared to how mature and extensible the mindstorms ecosystem is.
- kypro 4y ago
  I also entered a Mindstorms competition at my school and it had a similar impact on me. To this day I look back on that competition as one of my best childhood memories and I think it was a large part of why I went on to eventually study computer science. I suspect there are many of us out there... A very sad day indeed.
- rockbandit 4y ago
  I’ve always wanted to jump into these, but our family was never in the most financially secure situation back then. I’ve long had this hope of getting a Mindstorms set and working on it with my daughters someday (4 and 6).
zactato 4y ago
RIP My Robotics professor developed ROBOLAB with Lego + LabView. In return, Lego funded part of the robotics department. We had the most amazing Lego lab. Bins of every shape piece you could ask for. It was really a childhood dream come to life.
- 509engr 4y ago
  When they first announced the Mindstorms kit, I was obsessed with the idea, but we were a Mac family. My parents somehow obtained a Robolab kit from the Lego educational catalog, which did run on Mac. I had so many good memories of building with that kit, but there were a number of plans I had found for Mindstorms that uses parts not included with the Robolab kit. When I was in a freshman engineering class that used version 1 mindstorms kits a few years later, my fellow students were amazed at my understanding of how to build with the kits. It also help with another lab used LabVIEW.
- yreg 4y ago
  ROBOLAB was great.
jollyllama 4y ago
Does anybody remember any of the Mindstorms flash games on the old Lego game website? Those were pretty great. I especially liked the game where you tracked the spies in the vaguely Eastern European city of Telgrade.
primitivesuave 4y ago
I got the original Lego Mindstorms 1.0 kit for my 8th birthday - there was no programming interface, just a way to select one of 256 possible sequences of high-level actions the robot would perform in a loop. I paid for my first car by working at summer camps that taught kids how to use the Mindstorms 2.0 and NXT, and built my first 3D printer with Lejos (https://lejos.sourceforge.io/ https://lejos.sourceforge.io/), Lego Technic parts and a tiny spindle router that could sculpt shapes into floral foam. While I'm saddened by this news for nostalgic reasons, I personally believe that today's young learners are better served by the proliferation of hobby robotics platforms like Arduino/Raspberry Pi. Every summer camp I worked at would claim that Lego robotics teaches real-world engineering skills, while in reality the students were just happy to stay within the comfort zone of playing with Legos and using a block-based programming environment (one that has quite frankly gone from bad to worse to absolutely horrible with each product cycle). Also, FIRST Lego League does nothing meaningful to prepare students for FIRST - when I donated supplies and a few weeks of mentorship to my former high school's FIRST team, I was dismayed to see how much dead weight the team was carrying in students who participated in the middle school Lego league, who did not have even the basic coding/engineering skills to make any contribution to the high school team other than paying the membership dues.
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  I also had the original mindstorms set from 1996-98, the compute module was the big yellow brick (i think the RCX), you interface with it via a little serial IO tower. There was absolutely a programming interface. It was visual and very scratch like and it was evolved eventually into the programming environment that came with the ev3. It did require a pc to use I think there was a cdrom in the box that contained the software. Since you mentioned the raspberry pi, you can use one of those with the latest lego spike system as well via a pi HAT: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ To me as a kid and well as someone a bit older who often pulls out legos to mock up mechanical systems before I dig into solidworks the programming of the robot was a bit secondary to getting the mechanics worked out, and legos are a super fast way to prototype a lot of things (though they do have their limitations for sure). While I'm not one for shielding young people from serious tools, a school or a summer camp might for insurance reasons, lego might still be the way to go.
lanman 4y ago
Cue a few hundred nostalgia posts. Mindstorms was an amazing learning experience in the 00s.
XnoiVeX 4y ago
They should open source the software so it will be supported by the community.
- lupire 4y ago
  Community doesn't need a corpo for basic electronics. https://www.ev3dev.org/ https://www.ev3dev.org/
app4soft 4y ago
> That said, SPIKE Prime is effectively LEGO Education’s implementation of MINDSTORMS, so it’s tricky to envision how the two platforms could co-exist under a single banner. And SPIKE web app[0,1] does not work in Firefox: > Browser not supported > Use Google Chrome to access the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ App. [0] https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/spike-app/software https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/spike-app/softwar... [1] https://spike.legoeducation.com/ https://spike.legoeducation.com/
- npteljes 4y ago
  I scoff at this message every time. We're back at "This website requires Netscape Navigator 4.0"
  - echelon 4y ago
    You're not kidding. They've outright blocked Firefox.
klaudioz 4y ago
I'm very sad... I did my engineering thesis with a Lego Mindstorms on 2009
throwaway4837 4y ago
Sad news. My dad got me Lego Mindstorms (the $200 original set) when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It was one of those toys that is so addicting, while also getting you exposed to science, engineering, and computers. I used it for a year and had my fun; I didn't think about it for years after, but it was probably why I ended up joining the Robotics Club in high school. Also probably why I picked up programming classes in college even though my major wasn't programming. I'm grateful to have been exposed to this wonderful, and limitless toy. I really hope the replacement product is as magical as this.
oifjsidjf 4y ago
My very 1st programming experience was on this baby as a ~10yo kid. http://www.technicopedia.com/8479.html http://www.technicopedia.com/8479.html Still remember how instane it felt. I remember that when constructing the truck I forgot to add in some gears so the claws didn't rise properly and I had to dissasemble the entire cabin again: my dad almost had to force me to do it because I was constructing it for so long that I was totaly tired and just wanted to be done with the damn thing.
px43 4y ago
Bummer, I feel like Mindstorms landed right in that gap for me where I was a bit too old for them when they first came out (in high school, already having a blast with web programming), and now I have a two year old who builds giant Duplo castles, has conversations with our household robots, wears robot pajamas, and I'm super excited for them to age into robotics toys. This SPIKE Prime thing seems neat, but as others have mentioned, a bit bland. Hopefully LEGO comes out with some rad space robot themed sets at some point. Does anyone know if LEGO has or is working on some sort of Minecraft style environment where you can build cool stuff, and then develop the programs and run them in the simulated environment? Then maybe you can build the machines IRL and run the same code to get the same behavior? Even a single player simulator would be pretty neat, though multiplayer would be ideal. Maybe what I'm hoping for is something like a MuJoCo for kids, and it seems like LEGO would be a perfect match to have a product like that.
- askiiart 4y ago
  Well there's Arduino simulators, and Minecraft education has multiple options for coding (blocks or JavaScript). I don't know about any Lego robot-style simulations, though.
sitkack 4y ago
Shame on Lego!
brutus1213 4y ago
This is sad news. I hoarded a bunch of lego mindstorms and other robot sets over the news as my kids are still young. I cracked open a littlebits set (the star wars one) and was very dissapointed that the app that goes with it was removed from the app store. My investment in a bunch of these devices will be devalued a lot :(
lacker 4y ago
I have many fond memories of Mindstorms... In college I started out a math major. The first CS class I took was a robotics class based on Mindstorms, as a sophomore. I remember it was restricted to only juniors and seniors, but it sounded cool, and I found a bug in the course registration system that let me sign up anyway. It was a great class. It's fun that in computer science there are so many different ways to solve your problems. Within the year I was getting bored of mathematics, and all I really wanted to do was take more CS classes....
- mwint 4y ago
  > I found a bug in the course registration system that let me sign up anyway. Hah, that’s an awesome filter… if I ever start a college, signing up for any 200+ level CS class will require spoofing a POST request.
  - lacker 4y ago
    The bug here was more mundane, that the registration process went like: 1. Choose your individual classes, which reserves a spot for you 2. Click the overall "Finalize your class selection" 3. All validations run, including both things like "are you taking the right number of credits" and "do you meet the prerequisites for each class" Classes that were restricted to juniors and seniors opened up to everyone if they didn't fill up by the start of the semester. So I chose my classes and didn't finalize until the semester started. Muahaha. In the modern era this is typically solved via these "your cart will only reserve your items for 15 minutes" type warnings, but back in the olden days when I was an undergrad, that level of technology wasn't widespread yet.
jamestimmins 4y ago
Can anyone here recommend the best entry point into robotics for adults? Is Spike a good product, or too kid focused? Background is that I'm a software engineer.
- timst4 4y ago
  Buy an EV3 kit (maybe at a reduced cost) and flash micropython onto the brick.
MegaSec 4y ago
End of an era
warbler73 4y ago
For me the Mindstorms failed at updates and could not work despite heroic customer service that did not include a refund. They are not a tech company and can not do tech. Since then I've proven that things like ESP32 Arduino etc actually work to teach small kids real robotics. Mindstorms was always a gimmick.
Teknoman117 4y ago
I fondly remember the Mindstorms RIS 2.0 set my parents got me for Christmas in 2001. It was the starting point of my fascination with and eventual love of computers. I'm sad to see it go (although it does live on sort of as Spike). -- Remainder of comment is a personal story -- Using this thing my dad gave me access to called "the World Wide Web", I eventually learned that people were making custom sensors for the RCX like distance sensors and proximity sensors. The first website I found is still up 20+ years later and the design is delightfully unchanged (https://www.philohome.com/sensors.htm https://www.philohome.com/sensors.htm, https://www.philohome.com/mindstorms.htm https://www.philohome.com/mindstorms.htm) Trying to follow these projects eventually led me to become frustrated with the block environment and I arrived at something called NQC (Not-Quite-C). It's a C-like language/environment for the RCX stock firmware. Wait, stock, there are other firmwares?? Then I learned about something called "lejos" (a Java VM for Mindstorms) through a MacWorld magazine my dad left laying around, which is how I ended up starting to learn Java. Next thing I picked up was the BASIC Stamp through the Parallax Boebot kit. I eventually started going to a local robotics club (Chibots), which exposed me to even more stuff. One member was trying to start a business making AVR eval boards for hobbyists and gave me a few samples, which is how I picked up AVRs (Arduino was still a few years away). His website went offline a few years ago. Hope he's doing alright. He and most of the club were using an environment for AVR called BASCOM AVR, which feels a lot like VB6, but for AVR. I couldn't afford the $80 it cost as a kid, so I ended up learning C because avr-gcc was free and open source software, which eventually let me to Linux and more. Being a kid was fun, but I always had trouble relating to the other kids :)
cush 4y ago
Hopefully this is simply a rebranding to allow code and robotics into any line of Lego set. The market for simple Lego robots can only grow over time as they continue to drop in cost.
frognumber 4y ago
Part of the problem is Lego is horrible for robotics. It's very hard to build complex mechanical systems in Lego. It's also degenerating; newer kits are less and less creative (kids follow instructions and build models, rather than creative inventing). The kits I use with my child are Engino Discovering STEM. Each kit lets you build a bunch of interesting, complex mechanical systems. It's not just a little better than Lego; it's in a different class for building robotic systems. It's also a lot cheaper. What it needs, though, is a competent software platform. I'd love to have this integrated with something like the BBC Micro:bit. My general feeling is that Lego is in cash cow mode. A lot of money flowing in, but weakening fundamentals.
- euroderf 4y ago
  Lego is horrible for bots cos the stuff comes apart. Go with metal kits with screws.
blobbers 4y ago
I was introduced to Lego Mindstorms while programming on the Apple II in elementary school. It was a fun way to let kids that were a little on the nerdy side get to try some new things. We did things like write security systems (beam cross triggered alarms), or make little cars. It was called "Lego LOGO" at the time, I believe. (confirmed: http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2014/07/lego-legos-first-programmable-product.html http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2014/07/lego-legos-first-programm...) Don't worry hackers. Lego has a long history of integrating with computers. This isn't their first attempt and won't be the last.
teovall 4y ago
The differences between Robot Inventor and SPIKE Prime are pretty minimal and there's nothing stopping consumers from buying SPIKE Prime through LEGO Education other than simply being aware that the option exists.
m0llusk 4y ago
So this means it is only a matter of time before my LEGO Mindstorm sets are bricked?
matheweis 4y ago
In my opinion they tried to hard to make it easy. The scratch-like interface is a nice idea but limited and probably expensive for LEGO to create and maintain. They should have gone the Arduino direction and made it so that you could run Python or C++ directly on the bricks. Kids are smarter than they get credit for, it’d work great!
- hoherd 4y ago
  FWIW you can run Linux on the EV3 and access the sensors and motors using a variety of programming languages. https://www.ev3dev.org/ https://www.ev3dev.org/
blastro 4y ago
Honestly, Lego Mindstorms are the main reason why I love computers and engineering. I owe a tremendous amount to those formative years well spent building away with my legos.
javajosh 4y ago
I had this nightmare vision where children "program" a robot by showing it's electronic eye a schematic representation of it's desired motion and/or reactions, from the manual, and the on-board AI converts the image into a working program. Although now that I write it out, it's perhaps not very nightmarish.
pveierland 4y ago
A fantastic feature of Lego Mindstorms is that they provided developer kits for both hardware and software, including schematics, datasheets, and source code. It was really fun to build a custom motor controller board which interfaced with Mindstorms, just because their open interface and information made it simple. Sad to see it go - hoping that their new offerings keeps the hacking alive. https://education.lego.com/en-us/product-resources/mindstorms-ev3/downloads/developer-kits https://education.lego.com/en-us/product-resources/mindstorm...
matrix_overload 4y ago
In case anyone cares, there is an open-source Python library for interfacing with Lego Boost/Mindstorms [0]. Last time I checked, it worked quite well with the Boost and needed some minor work with the actual Mindstorms hub. [0] https://github.com/undera/pylgbst https://github.com/undera/pylgbst
tanepiper 4y ago
They are currently hiring engineers to build their new API services and event-based systems. Sure, they are ending a particular line - but not the concept. It's just moving more to the cloud I guess.
andreiursan 4y ago
I am wondering if it has to do with chip shortages and supply chain issues, due to that I can imagine that the current offering became unsustainable.
rlkf 4y ago
Well, good riddance, I guess. The software side of this product has been completely mismanaged and community-hostile for a long time, and the hardware has always been overpriced. Hopefully this will make market room for alternatives that give better value for money for STEM kids.
kurtoid 4y ago
I love that LEGO made both the schematics and firmware source code downloadable for Mindstorms 2 and EV3

578 points by dmarinoc 4y ago

lasftew 4y ago

Looks like https://pybricks.com/ https://pybricks.com/ is a usable alternative firmware for the Robot Inventor hub.

WalterBright 4y ago

I always preferred the Gilbert erector sets.

slimsag 4y ago
Erector sets were incredible, as a kid I built RC cars out of those with some over-powered motors and such. Super fun times. I would guess Mindstorms gives more of an intro to programming, while Erector is better for mechanical engineering. (also, hey! I was that weird kid at Handmade Seattle last year who asked to shake your hand :) )
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I'd attach Cox engines to them <g>. It was a pleasure to meet you! P.S. My mom told me that I couldn't handle the tiny screws used to put the Erector sets together. She was wrong :-) I spent endless hours building things with it.
lupire 4y ago
Erector was discontinued before Mindstorms were launched, and were not programmable. Mecanno brand has programmable robots, but not the range of sensors that Mindstorms had.
- kragen 4y ago
  You can still buy them secondhand.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I don't know about Mecano, but the Erector sets online are in pretty sad condition, unsurprising since they're >50 years old now. Sometimes I'll get from ebay one of the battered metal boxes they came in. They make nice nostalgic decorations.
    - DalekBaldwin 4y ago
      The most easily available Meccano-compatible system still in production is the Swiss brand Stokys: https://www.stokys.ch/de-ch/home/ https://www.stokys.ch/de-ch/home/ The web site and order system is in German, but I've been able to talk to their friendly customer service in English. Then there's the matter of shipping outside of Europe... but it's still much easier than scraping parts together from vintage Meccano vendors with circa-1995-style web sites. I remember having some Erector sets as a kid in the '90s (they had merged with Meccano long before, and the choice of which brand to appear on which set seems to have been random since then), but these days the official Meccano/Erector selection is almost non-existent -- there are maybe a dozen small self-contained model vehicle kits, and you can't order generic kits or parts in bulk. It is rather sad -- these brands were once used for serious engineering prototyping and scientific work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser#Use_of_Meccano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser#Use_of_M...
      - kragen 4y ago
        Here in Argentina, Meccano-branded sets are still being made, but Meknex may be a better option: https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-855738684-meknex-k100-set-construc-metalico-x261-piezas-tipo-meccano-_JM https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-855738684-meknex-k1... The official Meccano-brand sets here in Argentina are indeed very limited.
dekhn 4y ago
I'm pretty sure I had this as a kid. It had very memorable stamped steel girders . I think we built some sort of ferris wheel (not sure which exact model) and I was really unhappy with how slow/weak it was. it was a real depressing moment. Never quite forgot it. Took a good three and half decades before I finally learned how to make high torque spinning things (motor torque got better, easier, and cheaper).
euroderf 4y ago
I bought three big Meccano kits on closeout years ago. They lie in wait for robotification. If anyone has pointers to how to bring them to life with appropriately-sized motors and batteries and remote control, I'd be grateful.

tomcam 4y ago

Is limited app support a problem anymore? I assume there are complete replacements for the firmware these days?

dybber 4y ago
Yes, you can run a debian based distro on them, so they can be programmed in Python or whatever. I guess the question is if they will stop being supported by platforms such as Scratch, which is a very popular way to program them these days
- tomcam 4y ago
  Far out, thanks

iancmceachern 4y ago

What!! Nooo!

ievans 4y ago

Sad to see this as someone who enjoyed these as a kid and entering robotics competitions based off of them; hopefully the new products will keep the spirit alive. There was even some decent FOSS tooling that developed on top of Mindstorms: I used NXC (Not eXactly C, https://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/welcome.html https://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/welcome.html) which was a C-like language for programming Lego Mindstorms. It looks like the last release of NXC was in 2011.

mlyle 4y ago
Pybrick/python runs well on both Mindstorms EV3 and the new thing (Spike Prime).
teraflop 4y ago
Similar story here. I remember getting my first exposure to embedded development at a relatively young age through brickOS (https://brickos.sourceforge.net/ https://brickos.sourceforge.net/), which was a complete replacement operating system for the original Mindstorms RCX (predating the NXT). That version of the hardware was so old that it didn't even have non-volatile storage. Every time you changed the batteries, it would boot into a minimal ROM bootloader which was just powerful enough to download the rest of the firmware into RAM, via an infrared connection to your PC. That had the nice side effect of making the RCX very hacker-friendly, because it was almost impossible to permanently "brick" it (ha!).
sethgrisham 4y ago
I grew up using mindstorms in FLL and I just began coaching a team this year. I'm pretty impressed with the new Spike Prime, and although it has its quirks, over all I'd say it's a good improvement over the last generation, plus I get to teach the kids python which has honestly been a blast!
mFixman 4y ago
My first real programming was NQC (Not Quite C, probably related to NXC?). I owe it my programming abilities. Lego Mindstorms was one of the best creative learning tools you can give a child; my life started the day I stopped using the building manual and started building my own stuff by trial and error. The world would be a better place if everyone grew up with the opportunities that I did. I wish schools would just let children do whatever with Lego instead of filling your day with restrictive lessons in loud classrooms.

jnwatson 4y ago

I wonder what programs like FIRST Lego League will do. That was an amazing experience for my kid.

dybber 4y ago
LEGO Spike Prime
- harikb 4y ago
  School & independent teams have spent $$$ buying lego parts and it is still sad to see things deprecated when they could have easily upgraded the "cpu" and kept things compatible.
  - Nullabillity 4y ago
    Spike Prime and 51515 (the final Mindstorms generation) seem to be basically the same thing (which isn't new, back in the NXT times you had NXT and NXT Education Edition). I'd be very surprised if they weren't compatible with each other.
    - lupire 4y ago
      They aren't compatible. https://www.lego.com/en-in/service/help/spike_prime/spike-essential-with-other-robotics-systems-kA009000001KVc8CAG https://www.lego.com/en-in/service/help/spike_prime/spike-es...
      - Nullabillity 4y ago
        That page only mentions the long-discontinued NXT and EV3, not 51515 (the set that the article says is being discontinued now). 51515 wasn't compatible with NXT/EV3 either.

belkinpower 4y ago

This is really sad. NXT-G was my first programming language. Not sure if I’d be the same person I am today without that experience.

fny 4y ago

Can they at least open source all the CAD so we can 3D print these suckers?

nomel 4y ago
> 3D print these suckers? Famously, LEGO has an extremely tight manufacturing tolerance that's around 10um [1]. Your 3d printer is much better than mine. :) 1. Page 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego#cite_ref-Companyprofile_35-0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego#cite_ref-Companyprofile_3...
- stas2k 4y ago
  Currently 3D printinga lot of Lego rail on my FDM printer. Although not perfect, it does snap onto original rail and to its 3D printed peers. Lego pieces do snap to the dimples as well, although too tight. Main use case for me is to lay some track between rooms for kid's trains.
- AlmostAnyone 4y ago
  SLA printer could do it, they even mention using it for prototyping on the wiki page
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    With SLA resin at $90 a liter, I don't know much much money you'd actually save.
  - NegativeLatency 4y ago
    Probably not as tough as Lego though
- freefruit 4y ago
  I have made compatible parts with my at home FDM printer.
  - sleepybrett 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

freetime2 4y ago

Any alternatives that anyone could suggest for young children looking to get an introduction to robotics?

stinkytaco 4y ago
Spike Prime is their new education branding. This article is kind of misleading since they've been sort of phasing out the Mindstorms branding in favor of a broader education initiative for a while. Spike Prime might not be for very young children, but I'd say a precocious 2nd or 3rd grader could definitely program it.
- mort96 4y ago
  I'm looking at their Spike Prime stuff now, and nothing I'm finding seems that... interesting? I got my start in programming with the Mindstorms NXT set (this thing: http://www.robotreviews.com/reviews/lego-mindstorms-nxt-8527-review http://www.robotreviews.com/reviews/lego-mindstorms-nxt-8527...), where you got all the parts and instructions needed to build a walking, programmable lego robot. The Spike Prime set looks like... some motors, some sensors, the controller brick, and some parts, but nothing to inspire, no instructions for a cool bipedal robot build, or robot arm, or anything to get the imagination flowing. Even the bright colors look like something that's designed to educate small kids? The old sets had a "cool" vibe to them. Maybe that made them too gendered, but as a young boy, it certainly helped avoid the shame of "still" playing with lego. Am I missing something, or does this Spike Prime thing look like less of a replacement and more of a completely different product with a different focus which also just happens to contain programmable lego motors?
  - StillBored 4y ago
    I'm a bit out of touch with FLL (my kids aged out), but its not surprising. Little of winning a FLL competition is related to the robotic performance. The team that wins the robotic portions won't necessarily do well overall. Given that, and the sophistication of many of the teams, and the way the competitions are designed. The best teams are usually just doing some form of preprogrammed dead reckoning sequence and getting a bit lucky and rigorously placing the bot at the beginning. AKA, while the NXT/EV3/etc devices are capable of sensor feedback, few teams made use of it. Its likely all the FLL teams need for most of the competition is three motor forward/reverse. PS: Maybe I sorta failed to respond to the main point, which is that the spike kits aren't there to be "cool" sitting on the shelf and excite kids who get them under the tree. They are mostly purchased by educational/FLL teams where the build instructions and/or goals are provided by a 3rd party.

jer0me 4y ago

What a shame, I loved my set as a kid. Hopefully the software will still work or can be made to work with now-discontinued models.

karlmdavis 4y ago

Man, playing with Mindstorms is some of the most fun I’ve had as an adult. This announcement is a shame. I spent some time going through all of their basic examples in Rust, which was just delightfully silly.

FullyFunctional 4y ago

It’s a shame but I can see how it’s a harder sell than the nth iteration of a scene from say Harry Potter. IMhO, they could do well by combining programmable elements with thematic sets, say add programmable motion to a haunted house. They have already tip-toed down this path, eg. the roller coaster has an optional motor function. However the pure approach of Mindstorm clearly has too narrow a market.

dragonwriter 4y ago
They aren’t discontinuing it because its hard to sell in that space. They are retiring it in favor of their newer offering in the space (LEGO Education Spike Prime). They also have, for programmable robotics, the younger-kid focussed LEGO Boost. Plus they have at least one DUPLO set aimed at what I think of as the “tactile coding toy” space (where instructions are represented as physical configurations of objects), DUPLO Coding Express.
- lupire 4y ago
  They are dropping the non-Edu line, as parent was talking about.
  - FullyFunctional 4y ago
    Exactly and it’s a quite obvious that if it sold well it wouldn’t have been dropped. Edu is a completely different market (for better and worse). (We also have Boost but it’s much more limited IMO - my biggest gribe is that LEGO has so many incompatible systems which is ironic)

samwillis 4y ago

I was given a Lego RCX kit for Christmas in about 98 at the age of 12. It was my first exposure to “proper programming” with its visual flowchart based language (I was already playing around with HTML). I spent days building various inventions with that set. It very much set me in the path I’m still on today. I’m sure someone will come out with a new product range that fills that gap. My eldest kid is 8, I was planing to introduce her to Mindstorms in the next year or so…

omnibrain 4y ago

That's somewhat bittersweet. The company I now work for and lead was inspired by mindstorms. Our founder had written a DOS based software for alarm receiving centers. Even back then he and his prime customer were unsatisfied with the restricting logic of managing alarms by only having a few choices how to react to an alarm. Usually show some text, and have a person call someone and then write up a protocol. So he build some sort of programming environment for alarm receiving software. Now they could implement individual alarm workflows for their customers. But that was still nothing his customers could use themselves, because they still would have to know how to program. But then he saw an ad for mindstorms in the Lego catalogue his son brought home from the toy store. That inspired him to write a completely new software. Windows based with a their own graphical programming environment embedded.

kragen 4y ago
Bittersweet‽ What's the sweet part of Lego discontinuing Mindstorms?
- fuckstick 4y ago
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  They're likely shifting focus to a different programmable block product line, namely SPIKE Prime. So it's more of a changing of the guard than the end of robotic educational LEGO.
  - kragen 4y ago
    That might be okay; what's that like?
- omnibrain 4y ago
  I'm not sure if bittersweet is the right word, english is not my first language. But I think the bitterness of Mindstorms ending reminding me of the beginnings of our company could be considered sweet. So I would say it's a bittersweet moment. I have to admit, though, I never used Mindstorms and as far as I know he never bought mindstorms for his children either. ;)

nearmuse 4y ago

Although they claim to not be abandoning the idea and the trademark altogether, I don't really understand the reasoning behind not using such a seemingly strong brand. Mindstorms appeared pretty popular with hobbyists and in education.

elzbardico 4y ago
MBA thinking, probably.

mdtrooper 4y ago

Lego is similar to Nint€ndo and Di$ney, they do not support the free culture, instead their lawers fight agains to free software projects or charity events. Any educational tool/toy must be public domain or free license.

systemvoltage 4y ago
What if this kind of thinking would lead to no Legos at all?
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  There's always K'Nex.

83457 4y ago

They released a new generation not long ago (last year?). Sounded like it wasn't warmly received initially but later they were sold out. Something to do with that?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

As others have noted, they still have an education focused robotics set, it’s just not called Mindstorms: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-education-spike-prime-set-45678 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-education-spike-prim... As a now-successful robotics engineer, I was the target age when the first Lego mindstorms set came out. Due to the cost it had to be a combined birthday and Christmas present (still obviously very privileged). The simple scratch-like programming system that kit used was great for me as a tween learning robotics. Today I am designing an open source farming robot as a non profit project! (See my profile) The early history of Lego Mindstorms is interesting. I didn’t realize Seymour Papert was involved but that makes a lot of sense! Especially with the name Mindstorms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book)

sleepybrett 4y ago
FYI if you want to get beefy on the compute side, they make a raspberry pi HAT for integration with the lego spike stuff: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/
- relaxing 4y ago
  Now if only they made a Raspberry Pi for purchase...
  - Zolomon 4y ago
    I have 4xRaspberry Pi 4 8 GB for sale from Sweden if you’re interested in buying!
vba 4y ago
Yup combined Christmas and birthday presents and additionally forfeit any money I received from relatives back in the year 2000. Had to fight for it and made to feel guilty on how much it cost. Didn’t become a robotics engineer.
4y ago

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DanCarvajal 4y ago

Bummer, I remember loving the system when was on the school Botball team in the early 2000s.

jph 4y ago

Mindstorms has a long compelling history before LEGO, that includes cybernetics, the Logo programming language, turtle graphics, Braitenberg vehicles, and the rise of the MIT Media Lab. See the book "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas" by Seymour Papert. Free from MIT. https://mindstorms.media.mit.edu https://mindstorms.media.mit.edu https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago

The robot inventor set is awesome. Such a shame to see it being retired. :(

sdiupIGPWEfh 4y ago
Really wanted a 2nd set of Robot Inventor, and now it's both discontinued and sold out everywhere. Ugh.

galoisscobi 4y ago

This is sad. Lego Mindstorms played a huge role in my life trajectory. I discovered RCX and NXT in middle school, absolutely loved building stuff with them and went to robotics competitions. It got me really interested in robotics to the point where I decided I would move halfway across the world for college to get educated further in robotics. I did that and I am now a professional roboticist. None of that would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Lego Mindstorms. Sad to see it go. Their spike prime kit looks way too basic compared to how mature and extensible the mindstorms ecosystem is.

kypro 4y ago
I also entered a Mindstorms competition at my school and it had a similar impact on me. To this day I look back on that competition as one of my best childhood memories and I think it was a large part of why I went on to eventually study computer science. I suspect there are many of us out there... A very sad day indeed.
rockbandit 4y ago
I’ve always wanted to jump into these, but our family was never in the most financially secure situation back then. I’ve long had this hope of getting a Mindstorms set and working on it with my daughters someday (4 and 6).

zactato 4y ago

RIP My Robotics professor developed ROBOLAB with Lego + LabView. In return, Lego funded part of the robotics department. We had the most amazing Lego lab. Bins of every shape piece you could ask for. It was really a childhood dream come to life.

509engr 4y ago
When they first announced the Mindstorms kit, I was obsessed with the idea, but we were a Mac family. My parents somehow obtained a Robolab kit from the Lego educational catalog, which did run on Mac. I had so many good memories of building with that kit, but there were a number of plans I had found for Mindstorms that uses parts not included with the Robolab kit. When I was in a freshman engineering class that used version 1 mindstorms kits a few years later, my fellow students were amazed at my understanding of how to build with the kits. It also help with another lab used LabVIEW.
yreg 4y ago
ROBOLAB was great.

jollyllama 4y ago

Does anybody remember any of the Mindstorms flash games on the old Lego game website? Those were pretty great. I especially liked the game where you tracked the spies in the vaguely Eastern European city of Telgrade.

primitivesuave 4y ago

I got the original Lego Mindstorms 1.0 kit for my 8th birthday - there was no programming interface, just a way to select one of 256 possible sequences of high-level actions the robot would perform in a loop. I paid for my first car by working at summer camps that taught kids how to use the Mindstorms 2.0 and NXT, and built my first 3D printer with Lejos (https://lejos.sourceforge.io/ https://lejos.sourceforge.io/), Lego Technic parts and a tiny spindle router that could sculpt shapes into floral foam. While I'm saddened by this news for nostalgic reasons, I personally believe that today's young learners are better served by the proliferation of hobby robotics platforms like Arduino/Raspberry Pi. Every summer camp I worked at would claim that Lego robotics teaches real-world engineering skills, while in reality the students were just happy to stay within the comfort zone of playing with Legos and using a block-based programming environment (one that has quite frankly gone from bad to worse to absolutely horrible with each product cycle). Also, FIRST Lego League does nothing meaningful to prepare students for FIRST - when I donated supplies and a few weeks of mentorship to my former high school's FIRST team, I was dismayed to see how much dead weight the team was carrying in students who participated in the middle school Lego league, who did not have even the basic coding/engineering skills to make any contribution to the high school team other than paying the membership dues.

sleepybrett 4y ago
I also had the original mindstorms set from 1996-98, the compute module was the big yellow brick (i think the RCX), you interface with it via a little serial IO tower. There was absolutely a programming interface. It was visual and very scratch like and it was evolved eventually into the programming environment that came with the ev3. It did require a pc to use I think there was a cdrom in the box that contained the software. Since you mentioned the raspberry pi, you can use one of those with the latest lego spike system as well via a pi HAT: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/build-hat/ To me as a kid and well as someone a bit older who often pulls out legos to mock up mechanical systems before I dig into solidworks the programming of the robot was a bit secondary to getting the mechanics worked out, and legos are a super fast way to prototype a lot of things (though they do have their limitations for sure). While I'm not one for shielding young people from serious tools, a school or a summer camp might for insurance reasons, lego might still be the way to go.

lanman 4y ago

Cue a few hundred nostalgia posts. Mindstorms was an amazing learning experience in the 00s.

XnoiVeX 4y ago

They should open source the software so it will be supported by the community.

lupire 4y ago
Community doesn't need a corpo for basic electronics. https://www.ev3dev.org/ https://www.ev3dev.org/

app4soft 4y ago

> That said, SPIKE Prime is effectively LEGO Education’s implementation of MINDSTORMS, so it’s tricky to envision how the two platforms could co-exist under a single banner. And SPIKE web app[0,1] does not work in Firefox: > Browser not supported > Use Google Chrome to access the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ App. [0] https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/spike-app/software https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/spike-app/softwar... [1] https://spike.legoeducation.com/ https://spike.legoeducation.com/

npteljes 4y ago
I scoff at this message every time. We're back at "This website requires Netscape Navigator 4.0"
- echelon 4y ago
  You're not kidding. They've outright blocked Firefox.

klaudioz 4y ago

I'm very sad... I did my engineering thesis with a Lego Mindstorms on 2009

throwaway4837 4y ago

Sad news. My dad got me Lego Mindstorms (the $200 original set) when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It was one of those toys that is so addicting, while also getting you exposed to science, engineering, and computers. I used it for a year and had my fun; I didn't think about it for years after, but it was probably why I ended up joining the Robotics Club in high school. Also probably why I picked up programming classes in college even though my major wasn't programming. I'm grateful to have been exposed to this wonderful, and limitless toy. I really hope the replacement product is as magical as this.

oifjsidjf 4y ago

My very 1st programming experience was on this baby as a ~10yo kid. http://www.technicopedia.com/8479.html http://www.technicopedia.com/8479.html Still remember how instane it felt. I remember that when constructing the truck I forgot to add in some gears so the claws didn't rise properly and I had to dissasemble the entire cabin again: my dad almost had to force me to do it because I was constructing it for so long that I was totaly tired and just wanted to be done with the damn thing.

px43 4y ago

Bummer, I feel like Mindstorms landed right in that gap for me where I was a bit too old for them when they first came out (in high school, already having a blast with web programming), and now I have a two year old who builds giant Duplo castles, has conversations with our household robots, wears robot pajamas, and I'm super excited for them to age into robotics toys. This SPIKE Prime thing seems neat, but as others have mentioned, a bit bland. Hopefully LEGO comes out with some rad space robot themed sets at some point. Does anyone know if LEGO has or is working on some sort of Minecraft style environment where you can build cool stuff, and then develop the programs and run them in the simulated environment? Then maybe you can build the machines IRL and run the same code to get the same behavior? Even a single player simulator would be pretty neat, though multiplayer would be ideal. Maybe what I'm hoping for is something like a MuJoCo for kids, and it seems like LEGO would be a perfect match to have a product like that.

askiiart 4y ago
Well there's Arduino simulators, and Minecraft education has multiple options for coding (blocks or JavaScript). I don't know about any Lego robot-style simulations, though.

sitkack 4y ago

Shame on Lego!

brutus1213 4y ago

This is sad news. I hoarded a bunch of lego mindstorms and other robot sets over the news as my kids are still young. I cracked open a littlebits set (the star wars one) and was very dissapointed that the app that goes with it was removed from the app store. My investment in a bunch of these devices will be devalued a lot :(

lacker 4y ago

I have many fond memories of Mindstorms... In college I started out a math major. The first CS class I took was a robotics class based on Mindstorms, as a sophomore. I remember it was restricted to only juniors and seniors, but it sounded cool, and I found a bug in the course registration system that let me sign up anyway. It was a great class. It's fun that in computer science there are so many different ways to solve your problems. Within the year I was getting bored of mathematics, and all I really wanted to do was take more CS classes....

mwint 4y ago
> I found a bug in the course registration system that let me sign up anyway. Hah, that’s an awesome filter… if I ever start a college, signing up for any 200+ level CS class will require spoofing a POST request.
- lacker 4y ago
  The bug here was more mundane, that the registration process went like: 1. Choose your individual classes, which reserves a spot for you 2. Click the overall "Finalize your class selection" 3. All validations run, including both things like "are you taking the right number of credits" and "do you meet the prerequisites for each class" Classes that were restricted to juniors and seniors opened up to everyone if they didn't fill up by the start of the semester. So I chose my classes and didn't finalize until the semester started. Muahaha. In the modern era this is typically solved via these "your cart will only reserve your items for 15 minutes" type warnings, but back in the olden days when I was an undergrad, that level of technology wasn't widespread yet.

jamestimmins 4y ago

Can anyone here recommend the best entry point into robotics for adults? Is Spike a good product, or too kid focused? Background is that I'm a software engineer.

timst4 4y ago
Buy an EV3 kit (maybe at a reduced cost) and flash micropython onto the brick.

MegaSec 4y ago

End of an era

warbler73 4y ago

For me the Mindstorms failed at updates and could not work despite heroic customer service that did not include a refund. They are not a tech company and can not do tech. Since then I've proven that things like ESP32 Arduino etc actually work to teach small kids real robotics. Mindstorms was always a gimmick.

Teknoman117 4y ago

I fondly remember the Mindstorms RIS 2.0 set my parents got me for Christmas in 2001. It was the starting point of my fascination with and eventual love of computers. I'm sad to see it go (although it does live on sort of as Spike). -- Remainder of comment is a personal story -- Using this thing my dad gave me access to called "the World Wide Web", I eventually learned that people were making custom sensors for the RCX like distance sensors and proximity sensors. The first website I found is still up 20+ years later and the design is delightfully unchanged (https://www.philohome.com/sensors.htm https://www.philohome.com/sensors.htm, https://www.philohome.com/mindstorms.htm https://www.philohome.com/mindstorms.htm) Trying to follow these projects eventually led me to become frustrated with the block environment and I arrived at something called NQC (Not-Quite-C). It's a C-like language/environment for the RCX stock firmware. Wait, stock, there are other firmwares?? Then I learned about something called "lejos" (a Java VM for Mindstorms) through a MacWorld magazine my dad left laying around, which is how I ended up starting to learn Java. Next thing I picked up was the BASIC Stamp through the Parallax Boebot kit. I eventually started going to a local robotics club (Chibots), which exposed me to even more stuff. One member was trying to start a business making AVR eval boards for hobbyists and gave me a few samples, which is how I picked up AVRs (Arduino was still a few years away). His website went offline a few years ago. Hope he's doing alright. He and most of the club were using an environment for AVR called BASCOM AVR, which feels a lot like VB6, but for AVR. I couldn't afford the $80 it cost as a kid, so I ended up learning C because avr-gcc was free and open source software, which eventually let me to Linux and more. Being a kid was fun, but I always had trouble relating to the other kids :)

cush 4y ago

Hopefully this is simply a rebranding to allow code and robotics into any line of Lego set. The market for simple Lego robots can only grow over time as they continue to drop in cost.

frognumber 4y ago

Part of the problem is Lego is horrible for robotics. It's very hard to build complex mechanical systems in Lego. It's also degenerating; newer kits are less and less creative (kids follow instructions and build models, rather than creative inventing). The kits I use with my child are Engino Discovering STEM. Each kit lets you build a bunch of interesting, complex mechanical systems. It's not just a little better than Lego; it's in a different class for building robotic systems. It's also a lot cheaper. What it needs, though, is a competent software platform. I'd love to have this integrated with something like the BBC Micro:bit. My general feeling is that Lego is in cash cow mode. A lot of money flowing in, but weakening fundamentals.

euroderf 4y ago
Lego is horrible for bots cos the stuff comes apart. Go with metal kits with screws.

blobbers 4y ago

I was introduced to Lego Mindstorms while programming on the Apple II in elementary school. It was a fun way to let kids that were a little on the nerdy side get to try some new things. We did things like write security systems (beam cross triggered alarms), or make little cars. It was called "Lego LOGO" at the time, I believe. (confirmed: http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2014/07/lego-legos-first-programmable-product.html http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2014/07/lego-legos-first-programm...) Don't worry hackers. Lego has a long history of integrating with computers. This isn't their first attempt and won't be the last.

teovall 4y ago

The differences between Robot Inventor and SPIKE Prime are pretty minimal and there's nothing stopping consumers from buying SPIKE Prime through LEGO Education other than simply being aware that the option exists.

m0llusk 4y ago

So this means it is only a matter of time before my LEGO Mindstorm sets are bricked?

matheweis 4y ago

In my opinion they tried to hard to make it easy. The scratch-like interface is a nice idea but limited and probably expensive for LEGO to create and maintain. They should have gone the Arduino direction and made it so that you could run Python or C++ directly on the bricks. Kids are smarter than they get credit for, it’d work great!

hoherd 4y ago
FWIW you can run Linux on the EV3 and access the sensors and motors using a variety of programming languages. https://www.ev3dev.org/ https://www.ev3dev.org/

blastro 4y ago

Honestly, Lego Mindstorms are the main reason why I love computers and engineering. I owe a tremendous amount to those formative years well spent building away with my legos.

javajosh 4y ago

I had this nightmare vision where children "program" a robot by showing it's electronic eye a schematic representation of it's desired motion and/or reactions, from the manual, and the on-board AI converts the image into a working program. Although now that I write it out, it's perhaps not very nightmarish.

pveierland 4y ago

A fantastic feature of Lego Mindstorms is that they provided developer kits for both hardware and software, including schematics, datasheets, and source code. It was really fun to build a custom motor controller board which interfaced with Mindstorms, just because their open interface and information made it simple. Sad to see it go - hoping that their new offerings keeps the hacking alive. https://education.lego.com/en-us/product-resources/mindstorms-ev3/downloads/developer-kits https://education.lego.com/en-us/product-resources/mindstorm...

matrix_overload 4y ago

In case anyone cares, there is an open-source Python library for interfacing with Lego Boost/Mindstorms [0]. Last time I checked, it worked quite well with the Boost and needed some minor work with the actual Mindstorms hub. [0] https://github.com/undera/pylgbst https://github.com/undera/pylgbst

tanepiper 4y ago

They are currently hiring engineers to build their new API services and event-based systems. Sure, they are ending a particular line - but not the concept. It's just moving more to the cloud I guess.

andreiursan 4y ago

I am wondering if it has to do with chip shortages and supply chain issues, due to that I can imagine that the current offering became unsustainable.

rlkf 4y ago

Well, good riddance, I guess. The software side of this product has been completely mismanaged and community-hostile for a long time, and the hardware has always been overpriced. Hopefully this will make market room for alternatives that give better value for money for STEM kids.

kurtoid 4y ago

I love that LEGO made both the schematics and firmware source code downloadable for Mindstorms 2 and EV3