Lego Mindstorms: What went wrong?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

I could use something along this line to help mentor the FLL team at the nearby middle school. The students I mentor, though young and great thinkers, have a hard time working with the set, because it requires such advanced thinking in order to utilize it correctly. Even I cannot build a robust robot out of that set (which is embarrassing, considering I've had 3 years to tinker with it.) I can build good models, not great.

It is because of its advanced concept that the Mindstorm was doomed, and that is what I think latif was trying to get to with the article.

The Lego Mindstorms line, at least IMHO, was and is not too advanced for its target age category of 9-14. The Lego Mindstorms line was intended to be an "educational" product, in which playing with it was a learning experience. Therefore, it was never meant to "be mastered" by everyone, but rather provide a vehicle for people to learn and become better.

I used to play with Lego Mindstorms kits a lot before the days of Vex, and I made some pretty cool things. One of my favorite was a locking drivetrain robot that I helped to create when I mentored two Lego League teams last year. Inside the uberly robust chassis, there was a rotation sensor and a motor that would physically lock the two different motors for each side of the robot together. That way, they robot would drive perfectly straight, and using a rotation sensor, it could very accurately measure distance and turning. Here are some pictures of it:



The locking motor and rotation sensor:

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

One thing in the slashdot thread that makes some sense is to sell better main units. Adults are using these devices, and adults tire of only being able to use 3 motors and three sensors. Expand, compound, make more appealing units that cost lots of money!

That is where Vex comes in. I think that Vex may steal the adult hobby robotics market from the Lego Mindstorms kits. For many years, people have been hacking the RCX'x to allow for more motor and sensor ports, and to create custom sensors. Now they already have a controller off the shelf that can basically be plug-and-play with any PWM servo, PWM speed controller, or any +5v sensor with the Vex kits.