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Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

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Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#131

Post by primitivesuave »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #126
primitivesuave wrote: post #55

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/ ), Lego Technic parts and a tin…

> 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. Are you sure you're not thinking of the Robotics Discovery Set? The blue brick? It had a bunch of predefined things you could stitch together to make little programs directly via the brick's interface. RIS 1.0…

You're right! It was the blue brick with the pre-defined programs.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#132

Post by hajile »

pavon wrote: post #66
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #36

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-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 sys…

The Spike system seems like an odd side-step to me. There are some minor improvements, but not really enough to justify breaking compatibility and making people repurchase everything from scratch. In contrast, Mindstorms replaced the old LEGO/Logo system (which I was fortunate to use in high school), and was a big step forward in a number of ways most noticeably that you didn't have to be tethered to the computer.

The latest Mindstorms is literally just Spike Prime with slightly different firmware.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#133

Post by blobbers »

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-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.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#134

Post by nicoburns »

lupire wrote: post #106
xrd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Legos and by extension the company that makes them, and I still believe what you are saying, that everyone will have to buy new stuff, is exactly the reason the LEGO company is making this choice. They don't make a penny (unless they are somehow involved in a secondary market which probably has much lower margins and higher costs) unless you buy something new, and migrating to a new ecosystem makes so much sen…

Did you know that today's LEGO bricks are compatible with bricks manufactured in 1975? There is no "migrating" here. LEGO correctly noted that Mindstorms was not very popular with the consumer market, and too complicated for the education market, so Prime is a vastly simpler product that's more accessible from education.

They are, but unlike in 1975, LEGO now makes it very difficult for people to actually buy just bricks. They won't sell plain packs of bricks to shops unless they buy large numbers of the themed sets.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#135

Post by kragen »

DalekBaldwin wrote: post #120
WalterBright wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The most easily available Meccano-compatible system still in production is the Swiss brand Stokys: 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 s…

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-k1...

The official Meccano-brand sets here in Argentina are indeed very limited.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#136

Post by teovall »

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.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#138

Post by primitivesuave »

lupire wrote: post #108
primitivesuave wrote: post #55

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/ ), Lego Technic parts and a tin…

Kids, right? How dare they not know everything before they are taught!

I was there to teach them, the problem was most of them didn't have the intrinsic motivation to learn. Everyone was excited to be assigned some work, but only a handful of students actually went through and finished the tasks they were given, while most were content to simply get on their phone or play an online game.

A decade ago, I was a student on the team, and I remember everyone doing a lot more with a lot less. We had to program microcontrollers with Stamp BASIC, pull reference books off the shelf, and go on epic debugging journeys. The team today was overall far less motivated, although the exceptional programming/technical skills of certain students was unlike anything we had 10 years ago, and it was this handful of students that pulled the entire team forward.

One time a parent of a notoriously lazy student asked me how they were doing, and I answered honestly that their kid doesn't do anything but play games on the Internet, and they would be better off using their after-school hours playing a sport or literally doing anything else. What followed was a vile and vitriolic rant about how their kid was the leader of the Lego robotics team, and maybe it's because you aren't assigning them the right work, and on and on. Just one decade ago, students can and did get kicked off the team for being lazy, but you can't deny anyone an opportunity these days...

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#139

Post by matheweis »

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!

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#140

Post by primitivesuave »

zeven7 wrote: post #105
primitivesuave wrote: post #55

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/ ), Lego Technic parts and a tin…

> 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 That kind of just sound like middle school. The clubs and sports I was involved in were things I was very bad at.

I'm referring to the FIRST robotics competition for high school students - it is normally an afterschool activity, and most high schools in the Bay Area have a team. The team was open for anyone to join, but only the handful of students who were actually interested in participating would join.
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