My *thing* for robots (holy gopod, is it a *fetish*?) goes back to when I was about six years old and told my first big lie. During a visit to an out-of-town cousin's house, I told him I'd built this awesome robot out of an Erector Set that could walk, talk and do my chores. When cousin Leslie responded with: "Great, I'm coming to your house next week, I'll get to see it!," I knew I was toast. It was the first thing he asked about as he stumbled out of the Studebaker that following Friday. He burst out crying when I told him the truth and I got a whuppin' from my father. After my behind had cooled down, I re-dedicated myself to building a bot to prove to my parents and cousin that I hadn't really *lied*, I'd just gotten a little ahead of myself. I tried making bots out of Tinker Toys, Erector Sets, Quaker Oats boxes and dead transistor radios. I read too much sci-fi, watched too many episodes of Creature Feature. I couldn't wait for no stinkin' future, I wanted a robot and I wanted it now!

Now, thirty-four years later, my wait is finally over. The first affordable consumer-grade robot lab is on the shelves of your local toy store. University students and garage gearheads have been making autonomous miniature robots (including LEGO-based ones) for years, but they've had to put together their own microcomputers from a kits (or buy expensive assembled ones) and use surly little languages like Interactive C that are not for the squeamish. For the more casual robot tinkerer, there really wasn't much available (autonomous *and* affordable, anyway).

The beauty of LEGO's new MindStorms Robotics Invention System (RIS) is that it's easy enough for any budding high dome to comprehend, but powerful enough that high school and university-level students, researchers and deep geeks can make impressive use of it.

The RIS is incredibly well put together. Everything has been thought out, from the packaging to the computer interface to the versatility of the physical components to the companion website (purchasers even get their own page on the site). The "out of box experience" is immediate and thrilling. My 11-year-old son Blake was beside himself with excitement. As an actual grown-up and responsible parent, I acted slightly more reserved.

The huge RIS box contains 727 LEGO parts, including the RCX 1.0 "programmable brick," a nifty infrared transmitter (for sending programs to your bots), the MindStorms software CD-ROM, a builder's guide, a user guide and an overwhelming assortment of LEGO bricks, connectors, wheels, motors (2, 9 volt), light and touch sensors, gears, etc.

The heart of the RIS is the RCX 1.0 programmable brick, an 8-bit Hitachi H8/3297 microcontroller with 16K of ROM, 512 bytes of SRAM (for firmware) and 32K of external SRAM for user code and other apps. Programs are created on a PC and then beamed to the RCX using the transmitter. Using RCX Code, a simple graphical programming language, you build "stacks" by attaching icon blocks representing various commands to construct your program. The process is not unlike the physical act of assembling LEGO bricks.

The MindStorms CD-ROM has an excellent tutorial that's geared towards kids, but I enjoyed it as well. The narrator has this affected radio announcer voice that's very funny. At the end of each lesson, he says things like "You're brilliant!," "Now you're cool" and other goofy praises. The deep lilting way he says "programmable brick" just kills me. Between the tutorial and the builder's guide (called the "Constructopedia"), even the most technophobic youngster should be up and running quickly. The box says "ages 12 and up," but I think much younger kids could be self-sufficient too.

Screen capture of the RCX Code
programming environment.

The RCX Code is fun for kids to work in, and offers a great entree into the world of computer programming (sort of how conventional LEGOs got us started in real-world designing/building). For more serious hobbyists, RCX Code is far too limited and has already prompted a bunch of LEGO bot enthusiasts to begin work on communicating with the RCX from other programming environments (see Resources). LEGO is allegedly working on a set of APIs for talking to the RCX from other programming environments.

My son and I found the RCX Code to be the weakest link in the RIS. If your program becomes large, the screen gets cramped and you cannot re-size the window. Blake was also shocked to discover that you can't (apparently) cut and paste pieces of your code. We created a sub-string of commands for one touch sensor and wanted to use the same string for the other sensor. We had to start from scratch. Dumb.

Blake's and my first bot project. It can avoid walls,
sense when it's on the edge of a table and move away.

Bot construction is like putting together regular LEGOs; everything snaps together and everything is festooned with little connector nubs (each nub bearing the hypnotically repetitive LEGO logo). Also like the LEGOs of your youth, things can fall apart easily if you don't construct them well. Even if you do, and your bot runs into a wall, or you're taking a sub-assembly apart for troubleshooting, your creation can easily disintegrate. This can become frustrating, but it just strengthens your resolve to build a better bot the next time. Another thing we discovered last night is that you're in trouble if the 6 AA batteries in the RCX go dead. The battery bay is under the unit, so you have to take your entire robot apart to change them. It's also sometimes hard to get some of the components apart. A little wedge tool is provided to help.

The Constructopedia is full-color and beautifully-designed. Some people complain that LEGO instructions are hard to follow because they're almost entirely graphical. I like this approach because it forces the builder to understand what s/he is doing, not just slavishly follow a recipe. We did find the Constructopedia rather skimpy and immediately wished for more challenging projects. Some of these can be found on the MindStorms' website. The project currently featured there is a photobot that carries a disposable camera on it for remote picture taking. In a very bold (and likely controversial) move, one of the first MindStorms' ads shows a photobot taking a picture of a woman in the shower. I admire their daring, but I can't imagine this won't raise a few eyebrows.

MindStorms is one of the most potent educational products I've ever seen. LEGO computer and mechanical products (under the names LEGO Dacta and LEGO Technics) have been in schools for over ten years and have proven a huge success in giving kids a hands-on, challenging way of learning about engineering, computer science, robotics, creative problem-solving, teamwork, etc. Now that same educational LEGO technology is available to Toys R Us kids of all ages, at a very reasonable price.

The other aspect of LEGO MindStorms that I think is very significant is the distributed developed afforded by the MindStorms website (and other MindStorms sites) which lets users upload/download programs and share project ideas. Like the super-active Creatures and A-Life networks, this type of distributed idea/design networking is, in my opinion, one of the more exciting aspects of the Internet. Even though MindStorms has only been out for a few weeks, there's already a webring.

The evolution toward more wired LEGOs comes partially through a long-standing partnership between MIT's Media Lab, e.g. Seymour Papert and Fred Martin, and the LEGO Group. Martin is a research scientist at the Lab and co-designer of the MIT programmable brick (an inspiration for the RCX). Papert is a pioneer in AI and the creator of the LOGO programming language (popular in schools). He worked with developmental psychologist Jean Piaget in the late '50s/early '60s and believes that kids learn best when they're hands on; when they can work problems out for themselves and build on their previous knowledge. In the Piagetian view, child development is a progression of embedded logical systems, each one building on the previous, transforming it into a more complex system. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? LEGOS!

Whatever the theoretical underpinnings, LEGO MindStorms offers an incredibly powerful example of how this type of hands-on learning can work. While my son and I played with the RIS, I was reminded of something Brian Eno once said about computers. What they can do is wonderful, he acknowledges, but "they don't have enough Africa in them." He's referring to the fact that we're bound to static machines, there's little movement, no physical component. Using mobile robots in education changes that. Kids get to manipulate different types of both physical and digital components. They get to move around on the floor, work more actively with other kids, take stuff apart and put it back together.

The future of computers is embedded in the fabric of our lives, not in some beige pizza box on our desktops. LEGO MindStorms is a lesson for kids in that direction. I can't help wondering what amazing things will come from the minds and hands of kids who cut their teeth on LEGO robots, rather than ones made out of Quaker Oats boxes, Erector Sets and popsicle sticks.

Oh, and I've finally been vindicated. The *other* MindStorms ad that will begin airing soon shows a bot doing a kid's chores. It's a little dozer that pushes all of the dirty dishes onto the floor while another bot places a little vase in the center of the table when its co-bot is done. OK, they don't talk yet, but just give LEGO (and their distributed network of pee-wee engineers) a little time.

- Gareth Branwyn [10/30/98]