Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

brickfanatics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 199 posts

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#21

Post by mlyle »

ievans wrote: post #4

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 ) which was a C-like language for programming Lego Mindstorms. It looks like the last release of NXC was…

Pybrick/python runs well on both Mindstorms EV3 and the new thing (Spike Prime).

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#22

Post by teraflop »

ievans wrote: post #4

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 ) which was a C-like language for programming Lego Mindstorms. It looks like the last release of NXC was…

Similar story here. I remember getting my first exposure to embedded development at a relatively young age through brickOS (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!).

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#23

Post by nomel »

fny wrote: post #8

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

> 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_3...

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#24

Post by FullyFunctional »

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.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#25

Post by samwillis »

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…

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#26

Post by omnibrain »

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.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#27

Post by nearmuse »

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.

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#28

Post by miniwark »

freetime2 wrote: post #12

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

'Mindstorm' are more suited for over 10 yo children. For younger children the 'Boost' line (17101 set) may be a good choice (there is nothing said about it in the announcement). Also there is plenty of chinese clones of the previous generations of Mindstorm (and maybe the reason for the discontinuation).

Re: Lego Is Discontinuing Mindstorms

#29

Post by kragen »

omnibrain wrote: post #26

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 bui…

Bittersweet‽ What's the sweet part of Lego discontinuing Mindstorms?
Post reply on HN