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Product: LEGO Robotic Discovery Set
LEGO Droid Developer Kit |
Company:
The LEGO Group |
| Web: www.legomindstorms.com |
Phone: 800-453-4652 |
| Platform: Your floor (you need a PC to run the Droid Dev animated instructions) |
SRP: RDS:$150
DDK: US$100
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating:
RDS:  DDK:  | Special Award:
Object Value |
Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of LEGOS. What? LEGOS are for kids, you say? Not any more! Welcome to Robotic LEGOLAND, a place where LEGOS move, make noise, seek light, and as most LEGOS do, come apart when you don't want them to.
Last year, the LEGO Mindstorms Robotic Invention System, with the programmable RCX computer, rolled into LEGOLAND, bringing the old bricks to life. This attracted a large adult audience to the former kid's building sets. Mindstorms had lots of cool parts, from light and touch sensors, to motors, to temperature sensors (optional), and maybe most important of all, the RCX microcomputer that you can link to your Windows PC (or a Mac with a special adapter and different program) to create complex programs for your robot creations.
Now, LEGO Mindstorms has expanded with two new members of the LEGO robotics family.
The first product, the Robotics Discovery Set, features the Scout, a sort of little brother to the RCX. It is a LEGO microcomputer designed for kids nine and above and doesn't require an external computer to create and download programs (like the RCX). How do you make programs then, you ask? You simply turn it on, select the movement type you want ("go forward"), how its sensors will react ("seek light") and off it goes!
The LEGO Scout Microcomputer
This is all really fun at first, but after building a few bots, you realize that not being able to program them in a more complex fashion is too limiting. The Scout does have some nifty things, like its built-in light sensor and infrared communicator! The other thing I like -- being a kid -- is that the kit comes with projectile weapons -- a rubber dart and foam ball -- so you can have your robotic creations shoot at intruders who try to enter your room and take your stuff. Okay, so this might be a drawback to parents trying to tuck their kids in at night, but I bet the kids'll get a kick out of it! [I guess we've been warned! -Ed., a.k.a. dad]
The Robotics Discovery Set has over 400 pieces, around 300 less pieces than the Mindstorms Robotic Invention System, but it's also US$50 less. The Discovery Set is a really neat toy and building system, and is great for little geek offspring who might be too young for programming with the RCX. This inability to program will make it less exciting to older users, except that it has so many awesome parts you can use with other Mindstorms kits. It will be interesting to see how the inventive Mindstorms users (both young and old) make the most use of the Scout.
Blake's AstroMech Droid nears completion. Photo by Blake.
The second product is one that Anakin Skywalker would love. It's called the Droid Developer Kit, where LEGO robotics and Star Wars collide (and shatter into millions of tiny pieces). The idea for this kit is so cool, the design software is so cool, but the computer brick, the Micro-Scout...well...to use a technical definition: it applies an inward pulling force to the inside of the mouth. The Micro-Scout is just too cheapo and limited to be very useful. It's a computer brick with one motor and one light sensor. The motor spins forwards and backwards, and that's it. If the Micro-Scout had some input ports for sensors, it would rock, but without them, it pretty limited.
The rest of the kit is amazing (with over 650 parts!) and is really well done. The manual is in full-color and has beautiful graphics. The design CD-ROM is even more intense, with a main menu that looks like a LEGO version of Watto's junkyard and three levels of gorgeous animated instructions. It's the same projects and instructions that are available in the print manual, but the animation makes it much easier and more fun to use.
The CD-ROM is divided into project sections. In Jedi Apprentice, you build L-3GO (get it? Ugh!) and R2-D2. Jedi Knight is where you solve greater challenges by learning how to put together different sub-assembles. Jedi Master is where you take these sub-assembles and add on special features to build Star Wars robots like the battle droids and a Gungan ship. The other good thing about this LEGO set is that it's cheaper than the others, with a suggested retail price of $99. Besides the fact that the Micro-Scout smells like a rotting Gungan carcass, the Droid Developer Kit is an awesome idea. My dad and I did notice a space in the main body piece used in many of the designs that looks like it can fit an RCX unit. If you could get the RCX to talk to the Micro-Scout, you could use it as an additional motor and light sensor (and maybe some other things).
LEGOS are looking pretty good these days, aren't they?. Okay, so they could still use a little work here and there, but hey, SimRome wasn't built in a nanosecond!
- Blake Branwyn Maloof [9/1/99]
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