
New Lego Mindstorms Robot Inventor - Tomte
https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2020/june/lego-mindstorms-robot-inventor/
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A4ET8a8uTh0
I genuinely can't wait for the kids in my family to be old enough to expose
them to this ( I will admit that it will be a great excuse for me to play with
it as well ).

~~~
noir_lord
That was my thought with my step-son.

Nope. He wants to play fortnite and football and nothing else matters - can't
get him interested in it - thought I had him with a remote control plane but
nope.

The worst part is he is very bright but very lazy - he kills his homework and
then has no intellectual curiosity at all and I've tried lots of things to see
if he likes any of them.

Now I just play fortnite with him and let him do his own thing til he shows an
interest in anything.

~~~
anon4242
Hehe, I have a son like that too, he'll be 13 this year and I'm happy to say
there has been a small increase in intellectual curiosity in the last six
months or so. OTOH I also have a daughter who'll soon be 10 and she has the
_opposite_ problem, she's curious about _everything_ (for instance she self-
studies Japanese because she loves robots and sushi and wants to go to Japan
and just the other day she learned the location of all 50 US states, just
because, and we're not even Americans) but it also means she never really
dives deeply into anything. So intellectual curiosity is good but it's not
enough. These days I try to teach her grit, so she will stick to something
even when it becomes a bit boring...

Anyway, with my son I've found that when I include him and let him help with
things I do around the house, like carpentering, he's much more interested
than if I try something more "artificial" for lack of a better word. It's as
he wants to do "real" things, because nothing beats a computer game when it
comes to not being real.

~~~
lsaferite
Be ecstatic with the curiosity and self-learning. Those are the skills that
have served me well in life. Having a wide range of interests and never being
a master in one is fine. The ability to teach herself a wide range of topics
will open many doors.

~~~
davee5
More to the point, I believe the ability to foster _connections_ between a
wide variety of topics & ways of knowing will open many doors. Singular focus
is not the unique path to success, aggregating knowledge and wielding it
coherently (even if tenuously) is also quite potent.

Consider every stereotypical intellectual TED talk you've seen, chances are it
either goes deep on one idea or develops its uniqueness by combining ideas
that create a new adjacency.

Granted the "jack of all trades, master of none" phenomenon is real but it's
still predicated on mastery of singular topics being the target. Breadth
combined with sufficient depth to be dangerous, as well as the ability to
communicate clearly, enables people to organize and align disparate ideas that
people can rally behind. Every skilled product manager, marketer, and
executive needs to be able to cross over from their core expertise, and
general curiosity and the ability to dive into many things at once is
fundamental to those sorts of successes.

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mFixman
I have great memories of building and programming things in my OG Lego
Mindstorms. I consider the day when I started building things from my
imagination rather than from the instructions book to be the start of my
career as a programmer.

It's expensive, but if you have children with interests in technical things
this set is one of the most fun and productive things you can buy.

~~~
xur17
That definitely piqued my interest as well - I distinctly remember getting
comfortable with the drag and drop programming interface, and wanting to write
real "code" for it, but struggling to figure out how.

~~~
mFixman
It's not just the programming. You also get hands-on experience with gears,
including unintuitive ones like the one-way spirally thing.

I was never taught these kind of things anywhere else.

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sneeuwpopsneeuw
The scratch and python support are very welcome additions. my father still has
the EV2 laying around here in the house even tho no one has played with it in
the past 2 years.

~~~
ericol
I have 2 "robots" I bought last year to try to get my daughter (7) into
coding.

One of them is Dash, from Wonder Workshop. The other is a Jimu BuzzBot from
UBTECH.

It's incredible how fast the novelty of these wears off.

The BuzzBox we used it exactly once. Dash has seen a lot more action, but only
because there are several apps with different ways of using them (One of them
is a Scratch based app) and my daughter likes to use it as an RC car, plus
some other fun things like sound recording.

Anything that doesn't have an open way to program them, in my opinion, are not
more than rather complex toys, that do not give more entertaining that a box
of Legos (As a matter of fact, I think there are not that many toys that can
give as much fun and entertainment as a box of Legos - unless there's fire
involved).

~~~
ImaCake
You can, theoretically, attach any lego block you want to a lego mindstorms
robot since they have the usual connectors you would see on lego blocks or
bionics.

While the mindstorms block coding is different to scratch or makecode, I find
it pretty easy to do anything I want with it. And there is plenty of example
code on the internet for those looking for something useful.

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fenwick67
I'd be curious to know how this will stack up against the EV3 system. It's
also interesting that they include 4 motors, ultrasonic and color sensors, but
no touch sensor.

EDIT: other interesting notes: the motors have absolute positioning, and the
stuff uses new connectors.

~~~
tspike
> No force sensor?

> Dan: Yep that's correct. We had it early on in our product exploration, we
> found we used it very little in the play. It was something we were weighing
> up; should we have an extra motor or should we have a fourth sensor? And
> very very quickly we said we'd much rather have four motors in the set, than
> a fourth sensor, because we could use the tap of the hub or the buttons on
> the hub. We often use the color sensor as a button as well, because it's
> very good at detecting a finger and a touch.

There's an interesting interview with the product designers over at New
Elementary: [http://www.newelementary.com/2020/06/lego-
mindstorms-51515-r...](http://www.newelementary.com/2020/06/lego-
mindstorms-51515-robot-inventor.html)

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vturner
Does anyone else find the studless beams and associated pieces much more
difficult to build with than the old (very old as in Robotics Invention
System) beams and pieces with studs? This was my second year coaching an FLL
team. The kids seem to have difficulty building the things they need, and I
don't blame them. One has to think in multiple dimensions at once. With the
studs, you think vertically up or horizontal at once.

~~~
dbcurtis
The design grammar is different. But I find it easier, because you don’t have
to deal with the 4-4-5 assymetrc geometry.

That said, finding the connector that re-orients holes the way you need can ne
a challenge. I have a collection of all the technic connectors and spend a
fair amount of time trying multiple prototypes.

So I guess overall it is much easier to get a robust structure, but it can
take some time to get there.

~~~
vturner
The assymetric geometry brings back memories. Trying to tie a stack of bricks
together with a "girder" vertical across connected with the pegs!

I guess there's upsides and down. I think what bugs me is each brick before
was more variable. You could build a corner if you needed to. Agreed not
nearly as structurally sound thoughm

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2sk21
When I used to coach my daughters' FIRST Lego League team, I think I had more
fun than the kids in my team. This new version of the brick and electronics
promises to be really interesting.

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yardie
We have the EV3 (31313) and this is a very interesting development. The
PoweredUp vs EV3 connectors is not reassuring. At the moment I have PoweredUp,
PowerFunctions, and EV3 motors. None are interchangeable. But if it looks like
they are retiring PF and EV3, RJ11, for PoweredUp across the entire brand that
is reassuring.

~~~
lsaferite
The choice to switch to a permanent wire with a propriety connector bothers me
a lot though.

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luhn
It's awesome that they have Python as an option out of the box. Kids bringing
their lego creations to life is a great way to introduce programming.

I remember using LeJOS to run Java applications on my RCX back in the day. Had
to figure out how to install and use Cygwin on the family computer. Kids these
days have it so easy ;)

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danvoell
This is awesome. We are big fans of WeDo and First Lego League. We might need
to ask Santa to bring this early. For the kids, of course.

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Lunchrion
I don't have kids and I still want this!

~~~
mrfusion
Do it!

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maweki
The EV3 can run Linux which allows interesting stuff. I've written a Prolog
API which we used in University AI teaching (interleaving planning and
action). I was hoping to write a purescript API but we lost funding.

I wonder how limited or versatile the new system will be.

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ImaCake
I have helped run one-off workshops for children to use EV3 mindstorms robots.
Having also run similar workshops with other robots, the EV3's seem to
generate the best response from the children. One simply needs to make a maze
out of tape show some basic instructions for how to program the EV3 motors and
the children will enthusiastically go about getting the EV3 to run the maze. I
have also helped students build some more complicated robots for a robotic
musical orchestra which was really fun, and a task the EV3 robots are well
suited for. These are great robots, I only wish they were a little more
affordable for poorer schools.

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fenwick67
I can't understate how much I love the Mindstorms sets. It's almost a perfect
learning toy - it's straightforward to get started (following the instructions
and building the robots) and you can easily graduate to getting creative and
building other robots and programming them to do whatever.

I still remember discovering how gear reductions work while playing with the
original mindstorms set at age ~11. I had to explain this to high-school kids
in FIRST Tech Challenge a couple years ago, they had never worked with gears
before.

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jansan
The IMO most amazing EV3 project (that you could even build with one set) was
the Mindcuber, a Rubik's Cube solver. The robot would first scan the colors
and then start solving.

On a birthday party there was an 8 year old who could solve 3x3 Rubik's Cube,
so the other kids wanted to see him compete against the robot. You can only
imagine the cheer when the kid won by a slight margin.

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saboot
Motors with absolute positioning .. wondering if you could make a 2D pen
plotter with this setup, guess I'll have to buy one and find out.

~~~
bootloop
If you need some inspiration from 30 years ago :-)
[http://www.technicopedia.com/8094.html](http://www.technicopedia.com/8094.html)

Edit: My brother owns that set, I am a few years younger and got to play with
all his LEGO. Great times.

~~~
alasdair_
I hqve one of these sets too (plus other technic from the same era) it’s still
functional. Fond memories.

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andrepd
Lego Technic in general and Mindstorms in particular are outstanding ways to
introduce kids (and grownups) to engineering.

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qrybam
We bought an Anki Cozmo when they were heavily discounted following the
announcement that the company was stopping operations. It's been great. This
looks like a step up!

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belval
The first generation of Lego Mindstorms were such a game changer for me,
introduced me to programming while keeping it simple enough that I could
figure it out by myself.

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amelius
A great way to teach kids that inventing things is expensive!

~~~
ImaCake
If you want something cheap you can check out the Edison robots [0] or the
micro:bit plus accessories [1]. I have played with both, and they are quite
easy to use and make things with. The micro:bit is probably the better option
since it is cheaper to start with and can be extended in more directions.
There is a large ecosystem of first and third-party add-ons one can buy for
the micro:bit to do pretty much anything a child might be interested in.

0\. [https://meetedison.com/](https://meetedison.com/) 1\.
[https://www.microbit.org/](https://www.microbit.org/)

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amiga_500
My first thought is this might decrease the resale value of the prior version!
Does anything hold value like these things? Incredible.

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baxtr
Nice set! Lego seems to be a company that truly has undergone a successful
"digital transformation"

~~~
dbcurtis
Well, as far as digital transformation— you sre seeing the result of twenty
years of experiments and false starts, with the occasional winner. I think The
Lego Group recognizes the importance, and is likely frustrated by how little
traction they have gotten for the effort expended. That said, they keep
trying.

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neves
Any idea about the price?

~~~
tspike
US $359.99 | UK £329.99 | EU €359.99

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kuu
Would you recommend this over the EV3?

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bhouston
Where to buy?

~~~
extesy
From the article: "...the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor will be available in
Autumn 2020 from LEGO.com, LEGO Retail Stores and retailers globally."

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tpmx
I found a detailed article, published a few days ago:

[https://www.hispabrickmagazine.com/content/2020/06/12/the-
ne...](https://www.hispabrickmagazine.com/content/2020/06/12/the-new-
mindstorms-is-here/)

For people invested in the Mindstorms EV3 platform this iteration is probably
a bit of a disappointment. For targetting parents desperate to get their kids
into STEM so that they won't be poor (I jest), this is probably good
positioning/design/branding by the Lego Group.

~~~
Tomte
> Although the use of Powered Up connectors on the new MINDSTORMS was to be
> expected, this means a break with previous platforms and NXT/EV3 hardware
> cannot be used directly together with this new version of MINDSTORMS.

Yes, it's not surprising, but still a pity. Lots of Mindstorms EV3 sensors are
going to collect dust now (the Technic bricks will still be used, of course).

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artemonster
I always thought these were rediculously overpriced for what they do. LEGO
certainly aims at state-sponsored educational institutes to pay huge $ for
their plastic crap with few motors and microcontrollers, not private people
trying to buy an interesting and educational toy for their kids. Pehaps there
are people here from this industry - why there are no affordable robotics kits
these days? Are there any patents involved? Or the market is just too small
for anyone to care? I always thought that some sorts of meccano based kit with
an MCU board & unified sensor/motor fixtures (preferrably even 3d-printable!)
would be a total massive success.

~~~
ponker
There are TONS of cheaper robotics kits. None of them are as durable/reliable
as LEGO.

~~~
artemonster
they are not versatile and universal (i.e. a kit to build one particular
hexapod or line-follower, not a kit for do it anything). Are all universal kit
systems (meccano, lego) patented?

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ponker
Lego's robotics stuff might be patented but their core brick isn't anymore.
However the generic replacements like Mega Bloks just don't snap together
nearly as well as LEGO. For a toddler making a little garden out of a few
blocks it's fine, but you can easily make a vertical Duplo stack that's 3
times taller than the maximum stack you can make with Mega Bloks, and that
kind of structural integrity becomes very important in robotics.

~~~
xchaotic
You should look into Chinese brands such as Lepin. Their quality is so good
that they get fakes of their own!

~~~
jshc
[https://geekspin.co/lego-lepin-fake-toys/](https://geekspin.co/lego-lepin-
fake-toys/)

