mindstorms

We've seen all manner of jaw-dropping Lego creations, but some of the best are creations that create. This machine fashioned from the fantastic plastic creates and launches paper airplanes.

Created by Mindstorms user hknssn13, this mini factory was made from 6,000-7,000 Lego bricks and measures 59 inches long by 15 inches wide. Not exactly portable, but it works. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, start your programming engines: Lego Mindstorms EV3 is here.

The third full generation of Lego's programmable robotics platform, EV3 is aimed at both enthusiasts -- young and old -- and educators, and blows past the previous generation with a long list of new features that add speed and power, intelligent programmability, and more ways to communicate with the robots. Lego expects to begin selling the product, which includes 594 Technic pieces that can be used to make five different robots, this summer at a retail cost of $350. It will also release … Read more

Few of our past Lego stories compare to this elaborate device, which sends hundreds of small toy balls through a series of 17 challenging Lego Mindstorm contraptions including zigzag stairs, spiral lifts, and even a basket shooter.

The mesmerizing machine took a 21-year-old Japanese brick artist nicknamed "akiyuky" more than 600 hours to build and stretches beyond imagination at 4.9 feet by 21.3 feet. While we could spend several paragraphs describing the many intricacies of this doodad, the embedded seven-minute video below shows in better detail than we could tell the full 101.7-foot path each ball travels through. … Read more

We've seen some impressive Lego creations recently, including a robotic arm and a giant jet engine. We can now add a working motorized wheelchair to the list.

The Lego wheelchair is a prototype capable of moving a nearly 200-pound person around. The wheelchair uses quite a few bits from the Lego Mindstorms line. There are 12 Rotacaster multi-directional wheels providing the rolling.… Read more

First personal computers crept into the classroom, followed by smart phones and tablets. Now, it's robots.

Media research company Latitude finds that robots have great potential as education tools. A study published today, which was done in collaboration with Lego Learning Institute, said robotics open up new ways of learning by blurring the line between play and work. Robots can also help students work at their own pace and enhance their ability to be self-directed, according to the study.

"Education and learning are moving, at least in many children's eyes, beyond acts of knowledge transmission toward acts … Read more

File this one under "I wish we had this stuff when I was kid." Lego has just announced a new app for the Android Marketplace that lets people who create robots with the Mindstorm NXT platform control their creations using Android handsets--much like the BlackBerry robot controller app we reported on a while back).

The free MindDroid app connects to the NXT device's "brain," the NXT module, via Bluetooth. Once the connection is established, the app uses the phone's accelerometer to control the up/down and left/right directional controls. There's an action … Read more

Robots--even toy robots--are sometimes frighteningly adept at specific intelligence tasks. A new machine built out of toy parts is nearly as fast as the fastest human at solving Rubik's Cube puzzles.

CubeStormer is a cube-solving device built by British engineer Mike Dobson out of Lego Mindstorms parts hooked up to a computer.

Lego machines have also been programmed to solve sudoku puzzles, but the speed at which CubeStormer takes on a scrambled cube is pretty awesome.

As the video shows, Dobson's device solves a 3x3x3-inch cube in less than 12 seconds with a blinding display of automatic scanning … Read more