Lego to Stop Producing Mindstorms 615
nick58b writes "Lego, in response to the worst financial loss in its history, has announced they will stop making the electronics and movie tie-in products. This would include Mindstorms, one of the greatest educational toys ever produced." It saddens me greatly to see the toy that was such a mainstay of my childhood to be in such dire financial straits. If I were a more qualified sociologist, I'd think it may have inspired by the way that our children play today versus how they played twenty years ago.
Mindstorm no more! (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO must be behind this somehow!
sad... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't feel much sympathy for them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mindstorms was awesome (Score:2, Interesting)
What really impresses me more than just the base set is the amount of hacking towards making the programming of these little toys simpler with stuff like Mindstorms VB and Python.
It's sad to see this stuff just pass away. How cool would it be to have a way to pitch in and get Lego to keep the Mindstorm factories open.
Don't forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus Lego is Danish for "play well"
Just a few Lego facts.
Go out and buy them before their gone! (Score:5, Interesting)
MindStorms (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What happened? (Score:3, Interesting)
As the father of a young child, I also wonder how much the lego clones have killed the market. Out of the many "lego" sets we have been givenas gifts, the majority of them are not official "lego" legos.
Davak
Never, ever upgraded the platform (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mindstorm no more! (Score:5, Interesting)
Since it reported its first loss of $47.8 million in 1998, Lego has been hit hard by increasing competition from the makers of electronic toys.
It is GBA fault. It is the fault of the game consoles, the computers, and the leap-pad-ish products.
Plastic legos and tinker-toys and cabin logs rocked when I was a child. This year Christmas for my two year old required more batteries than gifts for the rest of my family.
Pure electronic gifts are winning...
All of our kids are going to grow to be bigger geeks than we are.
AC
Of course they lost money... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't feel much sympathy for them. (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's the fatwallet thread describing the deal. [fatwallet.com]
$9 instead of $49 is pretty sweet!
AC
Too specialized (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was a kid, there were very few specialized blocks. Even the railroad kit didn't have any except for the lego motor modules (I have always had a soft heart for the 70's-era motor modules) and the railroad tracks. Even the railroad track ties were standard 8x2 thin blocks.
In those days the vast majority of legos were sold in generic kits. You could even get small boxes of 50 or 100 generic blocks, up through the large 400 and 600 and 1000 block kits. All generic. They'd come with a little booklet of suggestions but the possibilities were endless.
The 70's-era house kits had doors, windows, and roof blocks all of which tied in with standard blocks. You could build a wall of doors or use an architectural door in your Moon Rover. You could use your roof blocks to make an Aztec pyramid.
Now you buy a little kit for, say, a TIE fighter and it costs $20 and there's not much you can build with it except things that look a hell of a lot like TIE fighters. The big generic kits aren't even sold any more; if they were they'd probably cost $1,000 and nobody would buy them.
Lego should go back to making the generic kits, price them reasonably, and let the kids think of stuff to build themselves again.
showing their age (Score:5, Interesting)
wireless (802.11x or cell)
a linux based os (of course)
more sophisticated moving parts
cooler ai modules...
I definitely think that there is a market out there for such a product.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why in my day... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure Mindstorm Lego people must have some similar tails to tell, and await a few replies.
Re:Inspiration (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the main point of the lego mindstorms was to change the way kids learned... to make learning and playing the same.
The prototype for the mindstorms toy was built at the MIT media lab by roboticist Fred Martin [uml.edu]. (who teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell at a budding robotics lab). Fred really wanted to know about how to use computing to educate kids, and lego offered a sum of money to the media lab in order to foster a new type of marketable toy that had "engaging computing" potential. So he built a lego brick with a computer inside, which was the base of the toy.
Interesting enough, Fred Martin also built the handyboard, which is a great way to get into amateur robotics. As shameless self-promotion, the work I did in Fred Martin's class can be found here [edgiardina.com].
Re:Of course they lost money... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's being discontinued once and for all now too. LEGO, at least with respect to the retail sector, is choosing to put its focus back on the original core product, the building brick.
LEGO Dacta has been the educational division of LEGO for a very long time now, and there are distributers of LEGO Dacta in many countries throughout the world. Pitsco is the major distributor of it in the USA. Any browsing through a LEGO Dacta catalog will show that a lot of their line is Technic sets and parts and fair selection of Mindstorms sets (although the educational sector had something called Robolab, rather than the retail Robotic Invention System).Schools don't spend money with companies that walk away from their products, so I doubt that LEGO is axing these product lines with regards to their educational division. Most educational suppliers will sell to anyone who has a credit card (although you may find you have to pay a little more in the way of taxes or duty than a teacher or school might).
Re:Can't feel much sympathy for them. (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Wars did it (Score:2, Interesting)
While the MindStorms series was cool and all, Lego did themselves in by marrying themselves to the idiotic first trilogy of Star Wars. I haven't met an eight year old yet who thinks Episodes I and II are anything but crap. So now we're supposed to go and plunk down $20 for a Lego kit that can build... this stupid, doberman-headed droid thing that fought the frog people in Episode I... and nothing else. Great. And that's ALL they make now - MindStorms and THIS. If you scour the aisles at a Toys R Us, you might be lucky to find an old school castle kit or something, but for the most part, you're getting Star Wars, dammit. We paid millions for this license, and damned if we aren't ramming it up your butt until we make it back.
Pass.
Re:Has the copyright on Lego expired? (Score:5, Interesting)
It did, however, have a patent.
And yes, LEGO's patent has expired... at least with regards to the building brick. The patents on the Technic parts are still alive and well afaik.
Megabloks, a company that makes a building brick that is essentially compatible with LEGO, opened up shop almost to the day that LEGO's patent expired on the brick and has been slowly and steadily improving the quality of their own product ever since. They aren't half bad right now.
Re:What happened? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course one of the Lego sets was missing several pieces, so they aren't without their problems.
Me too... (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, NQC and LegOS really rock. Many thanks to you who developed and maintained them!
Re:Mindstorm no more! (Score:5, Interesting)
3 things (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Price - wow. Am I stunned when I see legos in the store now. Multiple hundreds of dollars. The most expensive kit I owned as a kid was 60 bucks for the lastest and bestest. Which leads me to...
2. The kits themselves. I got Technics as a kid and made *everything* with them. The manuals were thick, had many different things you could make with them. Now - the kits are one project. There's no imagination to them. My 60 dollar kit was a red dump truck. It had the frame of a windshield - imagination filled in the rest. Now the windshield comes with the set. Who needs to stretch their thinking? I liked it when *I* made the choice of what the pieces were for.
3. Bionicles. Ironically, that brought legos to my attention (free toy at Burger World), but when I investigated, it was lousy. Hey look, I put this part here and *nowhere* else. Isn't the reason behind legos being able to place a piece wherever you want it? Gahh.
Put all these together, and what do you have? Someone who would like to buy legos, but the kits I want aren't around. I'd love to use legos in a more industrial manner (say building a case for something) but the basic sets are few and far between.
Three things that keep me from busting out my legos:
1. Cats.
2. Cat hair. (I can just imagine it sticking out of the seams and it makes me freak :)
3. Not enough room/time to mess with them. House is too small after the holidays and time is always short. Not like the halcyon days of my youth.
LEGO! Go back to the basics! Give us the old Technic sets, the massive 'generic' kits. Fire the Bionicle guy. You are digging your own grave. The more specialized you make your toys, the more people will just buy toys that are already 'done'. And that was never the point in the first place.
BTW - No. I won't sell any of my extensive collection of Technics or my wonderful zillion piece basic set. If ever there was something to be buried with, its my legos. You can try and pry them out of my cold, dead hands, but look out for the transforming watchdog I just made. His mouth moves and he's looking at you.
Re:showing their age (Score:4, Interesting)
* wireless (802.11x or cell)
* a linux based os (of course)
* more sophisticated moving parts
* cooler ai modules..."
Or more specifically:
* Lots more outputs, lots more motors (solenoids, electromagnets, lights, LEDs) in the box.
* Li-ion rechargeable batteries
* Radio-control, possibly from your PC.
* Webcam (after all, who will buy it if it can't be used to make a climbing or flying spy-device?)
Re:MindStorms (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope. Plastic blocks cannot cost much more than a few cents. It's simple injection molding, the same way they make CDs. Not much material in each block. The only reason lego charges such outrageous prices for them is because they can.
Actually, with injection moulding the costs of making complicated moulds is very high compared to the cost of the actual plastic. So the fewer kits Lego makes from a certain mould the higher the price. And since expensive kits tend to sell less, well that just makes it even more expensive. It also explains why the price range of Lego kits is so wide.
Official Word From LEGO (Score:5, Interesting)
The other reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got a mass of lego that's 20 years old hidden away in a box. It's still perfectly servicable. SOME of that set is a generation older. Why would I bug a new set for my kids, when I have them? The product is too durable, I think, for it's own good.
Or Rokenbok (Score:3, Interesting)
Rokenbok [rokenbok.com] is pretty cool too. My son (and I) get very creative with it.
It's like an Erector set, combined with wireless remote control vehicles, and chutes and hoppers for moving little plastic balls around. It's hard to explain until you've seen [rokenbok.com] it. Some people really take it to extremes. [rokenbok.com]
It's pretty expensive, though. We have spent over $1000 on all our sets and vehicles.
-ccm
Cunning plan (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Snap up LEGO discontinued lines.
2) Sell on e-bay at hyper-inflated price.
3) Profit.
Seriously tho.
LEGO Mindstorms is/was a great introduction to mechatronics and it would be a
pity to see it bite the dust. All is not lost though, it's relativly easy to
build your own RCX controller thingy using PICs or a Basic Stamp etc...
LEGO has always been a useful source of parts for hombrew bot makers. Come to
think of it hasn't the Scout Mars rover got some LEGO incorporated into it?
Now if only the Beagle engineers had used
Presumably the Technics and Mindstorm stuff will still be available via
LEGOs educational division. (I hope)
NOT too specialized (Score:3, Interesting)
License LegOS (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing that Lego could do is to license the LegOS spec to other interested companies. Such companies could then build Mindstrom-like hardware around their own implementation of the OS spec, with their own compilers and IDE's. This might also bring the price down if enough companies get into the act.
The actual toy built around a LegOS need not even be a brick kit like Mindstorms. Instead smaller toy companies could just use the OS to create pre-built sophisticated toys. They needn't go to the trouble of creating their own OS.
End result ==> Another revenue stream for Lego.
Re:Too specialized (Score:3, Interesting)
For some reason, my mother never got me new batteries when the original set died.
Re:Lego cost (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I've seen other packages mention other countries, though, including Mexico, but from my quick, admittedly unscientific survey it definitely appears the majority of bricks come from just three countries, none of which is one I'd guess is particularly cheap to manufacture stuff in. Might the company do well to move some of its production to other countries that can make it for lower cost (without sacrificing quality, of course)? I can't believe they'd ever completely abandon Denmark as a main production locale, but do they need to manufacture everything in expensive countries? Could they not do some of their manufacturing to their standards elsewhere?
Check out the Parallax line. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've worked with a number of their products and have found them to be well-designed and accompanied by clear, easy-to-comprehend instructions. And if you do get into a bind, their tech support is both informed and responsive. All-in-all, they're a top-notch company!
Re:Can't feel much sympathy for them. (Score:3, Interesting)
We must be talking about two different kinds of lego.
I could hit up the Toy store and get a "box o' lego", consisting of about 250 pieces for about 14.95 (ballpark). No harry potter, no special pieces, just good ol dimpled rectangular fun.
BoldAC nailed it. This isn't because lego "turned it's back" on anyone, this is because a product such as mindstorms was expensive to produce, and couldn't compete with a gameboy advance, or those leap-pads.
Seeing as how these will soon be in short supply, I'll have to pick a set up for my nephew after work, and hold onto it for a few years till he's ready.
Re:What happened? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mindstorm no more! (Score:1, Interesting)
If you don't want your kid to have a certain kind of toy, don't buy it for them. And if someone else gives it to them, feel free to donate it to a local charity or family shelter.
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, the A64 3000 runs at 2Ghz with 512K cache.
But those little controlers, if you dont need 512K rom, you can get controllers for a few cent that could do the job. All you need are a few 10000 transistors, in a time where every gpu has 50 million+
Re:Vid Games (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend gets weekend visits with his 7-year old, and they usually end up over at my place on sundays. I have 2 giant boxes of Legos (some new, some vintage) and after playing monopoly or whatever, the kid always plays with the Legos, sometimes for hours.
Well, daddy bought the kid a PS2 for X-Mas, and guess what? No more interest in Legos. Hell, no more interest in Monopoly, for that matter. He just wants to play Tony Hawk or Simpsons Hit and Run. [shrug]
Re:What happened? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What happened? (Score:2, Interesting)
I finally tried some Mega Blocks sets this year and they are really great sets! They seem to have a lot of imagination over at Mega Blocks. There is a quality control problem at Mega Blocks however. Sometimes the blocks don't stick together very well whereas Lego always sticks together well. Meg Blocks they are MUCH less expensive and Lego doesn't seem to have had a new idea in a long time. The sets they have out today look just like the sets that were out 20 years ago when I was a kid.
The only Lego sets lately that have caught my eye are the Star Wars ones and if they're eliminating them I think they really need new leadership at the top to come out with some more innovative designs.
Re:What happened? (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely. The quality of Megablocks is really piss-poor when compared to Lego. They have some excellent looking models, but the things won't stay together unless you use glue!
I can see how parents with no experience with Lego might look at the Megablocks and Lego side by side, and question why the Lego were so much more expensive, but after buying one set of the Megablocks, I can definitely say that I'd never do that again.
I think the big mistake Lego made was with the Bionicle and sports sets. Lego is for building models, and expanding your imagination, not for playing mini-basketball and hockey. The basketball sets also brought in something previously unseen to the Lego universe - racial minifigs. From what I understand, prior to the basketball sets being introduced, all minifigs were yellow. They weren't white, black, asian, indian or whatever. They were just yellow. I liked that.
I really like some of th newer larger models, which are probably going to be cut back a bit if the article in question is correct. The Tie Interceptor is a really cool model, but it cost so much that it would be hard to buy the set and just integrate the pieces into the rest of your collection after building it and checking it out.
I guess I'd better shell out the $300 for the Star Destroyer before it is dropped.
Not a new complaint... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's clear that having lots of special pieces encourages "collecting" lego sets, whereas once you have a big bag of the older simple bricks you don't crave more of them.
I think the early eighties were the first era of cheap, heavily marketed, "collectible" toys. I've heard that manufacturers actually designed the toys to be not that much fun to play with, so that once you get the toy, you just want more, because the fun is in the acquisition of the latest toy when watching the spinoff cartoon with embedded comercials, not the use.
Also, did anyone else feel really old when the original poster referred to Mindstorm as the toy that was such a mainstay of my childhood? Is he 14 years old or something?
Legoland and the technic lego car (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition to that, another friend had the Technic lego car, with big wheels, cylinders, rack & pinion steering, suspension, etc. It ruled!
Where are those kits now? Relegated in favour of crappy Bionicles and Harry Potter themed kits. What can a child build with them? Bugger all, that's what!
Perhaps if they want their fortunes to improve, Lego should bring back the originals.
Re:Never, ever upgraded the platform (Score:2, Interesting)
Do specialised sets discourage creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I grew up, I had meccano to burn. Well, being metal it wouldn't burn, of course. When I was in my teens, I was the friendly neighbourhood babysitter, and by then ('70s) Lego was all the rage. I used to build large constructions from the sets at some of my charges houses that they wouldn't pull apart until next time I came to babysit them.
When I saw the rise of sets like "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter" and so on I thought "Oh, yeah. Boring. No creativity need be applied here.".
Now, though, I have my own children. I have bought them basic boxes of blocks, and that's fine, and I've bought them specialised sets like Harry Potter (Hogwart's Castle) and SpiderMan (my wife is a spiderman nut, so my kids are too).
The interesting thing is, is that they sat right down and built it "like on the box" then immediately pulled it all apart and made amazingly creative stuff out of them. We now have pyramids, temples in the jungle (complete with mazes) secret laboratories (with traps, computers and mad scientists). We have Spiderman rescuing X, Y, or Z from some scenario that never happened in any comic. We have marble races, and endless things that fly and drive.
Most of the parts that allow all this wierd stuff to happen are actually the special ones. All of the neat secret panels and traps in Harry Potter are wonderfully repurposed in making a "Temple of Doom" (with a few Orient Expedition pieces, and a quick pyramid out of basic blocks...).
Creativity is pretty hard to hide, really. If you give a creative kid some toys to play with then he will be creative with it.
It is a shame to see MindStorms discontinued. I'm halfway tempted to go out and get one for my sons before they disappear. On the other hand the oldest (and most creative) one has just turned six, and I won't trust him not to destroy it for a couple of years yet. In those couple of years the landscape will change enough that I full expect something better will be available.