Skip to main content

LEGO MINDSTORMS 20th ANNIVERSARY

Image
By


Fan created logo designed by Marina Stamboli, Greece


In honor of LEGO® MINDSTORMS 20th ANNIVERSARY the LEGO HOUSE in Billund, Denmark held an exhibition from Sept 1st to 16th 2018. Of course there was also the traditional celebration cake for all the employees that have been involved with MINDSTORMS throughout the years. 

#MINDSTORMS20 Celebration cake, Billund, Denmark
The large MINDSTORMS family
The exhibit featuring 20 years of creations from fan around the world
In September 2018, LEGO® MINDSTORMS celebrates it’s 20th anniversary.
The journey began in September 1998. That year, the LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX Robotics Invention System was launched after nearly a decade of collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop an “intelligent brick” that would bring LEGO creations to life via computer programming, motors, and sensors. The late Seymour Papert developed the ideas behind the “intelligent brick”. Together with MIT’s Media Lab, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, and LEGO, Papert helped to develop MINDSTORMS.

Shortly after the launch in 1998, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and inventor Dean Kamen, founded FIRST* LEGO League – a robotics competition for middle school students. Today, the competition has grown to 35.000 teams with over 250.000 children in 88 countries.
What started with LEGO MINDSTORMS in 1998, sparked the expansion of new offerings for children and playful adults to explore robotics and coding. LEGO now has an entire spectrum of products for children to learn coding: LEGO MINDSTORMS and WeDo were created by the educational division LEGO Education, LEGO BOOST was developed for younger children, and the newly launched LEGO DUPLO Train gives preschoolers a great way to start coding.
Since the launch of MINDSTORMS a large and very passionate community of robotics and LEGO fans have played a vital role in inspiring children, future engineers, and software developers, by pushing the limits for what you can do with LEGO MINDSTORMS. This exhibition in front of you is a tribute to all the inspiration the fans have given to the robot builders of tomorrow. The community is organized through www.robotmak3rs.com 
* For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
 

Below is a video edited by robotmak3rs' Ahmad Sahar featuring every robot that was presented at the exhibit.



LEGO MINDSTORMS Milestones:
  • September 1998: The Robotics Invention System is launched simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom. Two expansion sets, RoboSports and Extreme Creatures, are also made available.


  • September 1999: The Robotics Discovery Set, Ultimate Accessory Set, Droid Developer Kit and the Robotics Invention System 1.5 are released in the United States.
  • February 2000: The Robotics Invention System 2.0, Dark Side Developer Kit™ (a pre-programmed, remote controlled robot kit), Vision Command System™ (a PC camera expansion kit for the RIS), and Exploration Mars™ (themed robot challenges, building instructions and games for the RIS) expansion set are unveiled at the American International Toy Fair in New York.


  • August 2006: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT is launched


  • April 2007: FIRST LEGO League exceeds 100,000 participants for the first time.


  • May 2008: LEGO MINDSTORMS is inducted to the Carnegie Mellon University Robot Hall of Fame.


  • August 2009: The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 platform iteration is released.


  • January 2013: The 15th anniversary of LEGO MINDSTORMS is celebrated and the next generation platform, LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, is unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).


  • September 2013: The third incarnation of LEGO robotics, LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, is launched worldwide.
www.robotmak3rs.com
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

ROBOTMAK3RS Review: LEGO River Steamboat

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
I thought the LEGO River Steamboat would be an interesting set for a ROBOTMAK3R review for a few reasons. First, the LEGO designer of the model is Marina Stampoli, a long-time collaborator of the late ROBOTMAK3R Vassilis Chryssanthakopoulo s. From earlier collaborations with Vassilis, I  knew Marina was incredibly talented, with an eye for aesthetics and functionality. Her background in architecture is particularly useful for her relatively new position at LEGO. Her other sets include the Magic of Disney (21352), Message Board (41839), and Red London Telephone Box (21347). Second, watching Marina's reveal video  and reading her designer interview made this set even more tempting to build. The gearing mechanisms running through the model gave way to many opportunities for automation using LEGO robotics elements. Since ROBOTMAK3RS is all about adding interactivity and automation to LEGO brick, I thought it would be fun to see where and how LEGO robotics could be added to this s...
Read more

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by  Coder Shah  in our  MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity.  1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT...
Read more

Ghostbusters R.T.V Remix

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
Nino Guba is from Torrance, California, USA. He played with LEGO as a kid, but growing up in the Philippines, it wasn’t something he had easy access to. He only got reintroduced to LEGO when he moved to the US and had kids of his own. When his sons were younger, they received LEGO sets as gifts, but as they grew older, the sets got put into storage as their interest faded. Fast forward a few years, he started coming up with his own product ideas and thought about how he could quickly prototype them. That’s when he discovered LEGO MINDSTORMS—and was hooked! He raided his kids’ old collection, got everything organized, and now he's designing and building his own creations, blending his coding skills with LEGO robotics to bring ideas to life. Tell us about your Ghostbusters Remote Trap Vehicle (R.T.V) project. This project is a LEGO Technic adaptation of the Ghostbusters R.T.V.—a ghost trap converted into a remote-controlled vehicle. Its companion build is a prop replica of the Futaba...
Read more