Lego Mindstorms

2008-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

So, what exactly is LEGO Mindstorms? It actually is a line of Lego sets combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces.

Mindstorms originated from the programmable sensor blocks used in the Lego Dacta line of educational toys. The first retail version of Lego Mindstorms was released in 1998 and marketed commercially as the Robotics Invention System (RIS). The current version was released in 2006 as Lego Midstorms NXT, which is a programmable robotics kit released by Lego in July 2006, replacing the first-generation LEGO Mindstorms kit. The kit consists of 519 Technic pieces, 3 servo motors, 4 sensors (ultrasonic, sound, touch, and light), 7 wires, USB cable, and the NXT brick. It also includes NXT-G, a graphical programming environment that enables the creation and downloading of programs to the NXT.

The hardware and software roots of the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System kit go back to the programmable brick created at the MIT Media lab, was programmed in Brick Lego. The first visual programming environment, called LEGOsheets, for this brick was created in 1994 by the University of Colorado.

The original Mindstorms Robotics Invention System kit contained two motors, two touch sensors, and one light sensor. The NXT version has three servo motor and four sensors for touch, light, sound, and distance. Lego Mindstorms may be used to build a model of an embedded system with computer-controlled electromechanical parts. Many kinds of real-life embedded systems, from elevator controllers to industrial robots, may be modelled using Mindstorms.

Mindstorms kits are also sold and used as an educational tool, originally through a partnership between Lego and the MIT media laboratory. educational version of the products is called Lego Mindstorms for Schools, and comes with the ROBOLAB GUI-based programming software, developed at Tufts University using the National Instruments LABVIEW as an engineering.