New Lego smart-play system

[spankalee]

I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does. With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?

[redkoala]

It’s a 2 x 4 Lego brick with a speaker/lightsand custom ASIC built-in, with light and sound sensors, reacting to IOT beacons that allow different sounds or light sequences. And it’s rechargeable like an electric toothbrush. It also has accelerometers that change the sounds as you twist and turn them around. The sounds themselves are generated, with the speaker driven by an onboard synthesiser.

[card_zero]

Just like the Light & Sound sets from the 80s.

https://www.les-archives-de-joe.net/article-108-lego-espace-...

Except now it has an accelerometer too, and the sounds are more than just a siren, so your spaceship can make a swoosh noise when you fly it around. This is what we wanted.

[fwip]

As far as I can tell, it's Amiibo, but Lego. The 'smart brick' has a couple sensors, speakers, and lights, including an NFC-ish reader. The minifigs and 'smart cards' are your amiibos that tell the brick what to do.

It definitely doesn't look like it's aspiring to be the programmable environment that Mindstorms was. There may be a way for a tech enthusiast to make custom smart cards and logic, but I wouldn't count on it. Would be happy to be proven wrong.

[dmonitor]

Looks like it has an IMU built in, so if it has wireless it could easily integrate with some kind of software system like those. Seems like right now it's just so your space ship can make vroom sounds

[j2kun]

Doesn't it have sensors too? I recall reading about proximity sensors to other smart bricks, as well as accelerometer and orientation sensors.

[Larrikin]

All of their replacements for Mindstorms just come across as pieces that should have been added to the line. It's really disappointing that the discontinued it with no real replacement.

[philips]

Its not mindstorms but Edison is LEGO compatible and is a nice platform. https://meetedison.com/

[bombcar]

It's disappointing that the company famous for making toys today that work with 50 year old bricks couldn't have kept things in the Mindstorms "ecosystem" even if replacing/new - so that those in the know could keep building on it.

[crtasm]

More info from Lego: https://brickset.com/article/128822/smart-play-fact-sheet

Hoping there will be an alternative to using a phone app for:

>Firmware updates and diagnostics are handled via the LEGO SMART Assist app.

[mattetti]

> Series of modular synthesisers produce real-time audio, minimising memory load. > Miniature speaker is acoustically tuned through internal air spacing to amplify and clarify sound within the LEGO SMART Brick’s enclosure. > Responsive audio effects are tied to live play actions; there are no pre-recorded clips.

Very interesting!

[A_Duck]

Programmable logic toys like this formed the way I see the world — a system of states, conditional flow between states and the chance to design, understand and debug the system.

I had Lego Mindstorms and Gen X had Logo/Turtle.

With AI perhaps programmable logic will go the way of toy steam engines and crystal radios, and with it the worldview of those who grew up seeing the world as logic flows

[pphysch]

To be clear, the SMART brick is not much of a "programmable logic toy", topping out at "if near X, play U sound".

Your last paragraph is spot on though.

[whywhywhywhy]

It looks like this works without a phone now I'm reading more into it, when I saw the announcement on social media I assumed it would just be a brick that can signal to or be tracked by a phone which is far less interesting.

Good to see a move away from trying to bring a tablet/phone into this kind of play.

[crtasm]

Yes, they made this explicit in the "fact sheet"

>... LEGO SMART Bricks can talk to each other directly - no app, central hub, or external controller required.

[ChrisArchitect]

The linked behind-the-scenes story gives a few more interesting insights https://www.lego.com/en-us/smart-play/article/innovation

[qingcharles]

BTS/Making Of article:

https://www.lego.com/en-us/smart-play/article/innovation

[everyday7732]

I wonder how it responds to being chewed.

[afavour]

This reads like an unbranded version of Lego Mario. Which is absolutely fine by me.

[jmarcher]

Yes, I thought the same thing.

My son loves Lego Mario and the app. He'll even go through the building instructions of kits he doesn't have just to see how they are built. The instructions in the app are super clear, animated, and the model can be rotated at any step to check whether the real-life model is correctly built.

Going back to paper instructions after using the app is a pain.

[newsclues]

Is this going to be augmented reality?

Like physical bricks that can be moved IRL and then you have it synchronized with a virtual environment.

Lego used to have kits with electronics and motors but were always too expensive for me to afford…

[alanjay]

+1 for the "why not extend the existing range" brigade

Also, another chance to post this old school version:

https://youtu.be/oPqRwCILbmU

[jordanpg]

I'm guessing this is post-patent expiration innovation happening at LEGO these days to counteract the growing number of generics.

[stravant]

Desperately lacking a sound elevator pitch, eh?

[orloffm]

The whole Mario figures seem to provide the same level of interactivity. Not something new for the kids.

[xg15]

Someone watched Small Soldiers and mistook it for an instruction manual.

[kasane_teto]

Watch this be like, $40 for a single brick thing.

[gherkinnn]

I like this and can't wait to see what loopy things people will come up with.

Of all the ways "smart" could have been injected in to Lego these days, this is as robust as it gets.

[gwbas1c]

I hate to be negative, but this just seems reminiscent of consumer video game hype in the 1990s; where things never lived up to the hype.

[mg]

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing.

It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms.

I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own.

Would there be any downside to this approach?

[weli]

> It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together

I have some news for you. Lego piece tolerance is nuts. I think it is down to 2 micrometers. You can't achieve that in consumer 3d printers.

Now, you can make something that kinda works like lego but it wont have the structural integrity for advanced builds.

[everyday7732]

Printed pieces typically only have a single purpose, and lego-like snap together tolerances are hard to get working right with a 3d printer. Hell, they're hard to get right for the mass produced lego no-name duplicates. It can be fun to design shapes in tinkercad, but not as accessible for small children as just putting plastic bricks together.

[fsloth]

I actually think what you suggest _would_ be brilliant if there was a printer that printed as nice and detailed parts as Lego does from ABS. The digital ecosystem for that would be crazy.

But.

Modern consumer printers are way better than decade ago but they still sort of suck if you want any fine details.

"It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together."

It's actually quite hard to print pieces that are functional and look nice.

Modern consumer 3D printers sort of suck for small details still. If all you print are Lego Dublo sized parts. And print them from ABS. You might succeed _sometimes_.

PLA the cheapest default plastic for filaments for extruders loses fit quite fast (I've tried). So ball joints etc will get loose pretty soon.

"Would there be any downside to this approach?"

Well, the adventure currently is the printing part and it's mostly not fun but one of those activities masochistic engineers (like myself) take up as a hobby.

The consumer 3D printers are improving! Maybe one day. But the material physics are not that comforting there.

[woah]

Not to discourage you, but it sounds like you'd be getting into a nerdy programmer dad hobby instead of just giving your kids toys. I doubt your children would be interested in watching you for hundreds of hours while you learn to use 3d modeling software and debug printer feed speeds. And once they were old enough (10-13+) to appreciate technical slogs, why wouldn't they do something cooler like make actual robots instead of reproducing a toy that you can buy a much better version of for $10?

[dmonitor]

3D printing would be good at making figurines and such, but you can't easily replicate the Lego system's modularity without their high tolerances.

That being said, it should be feasible to make something that allows easily programming Arduino and raspberry pi to interact with legos, similar to how their Mindstorms line worked. That would be the best of both worlds.

[afavour]

There are off-brand budget Lego blocks available and they're (in my experience) all awful. Legos are very precisely manufactured to fit together smoothly, if the off-brand ones made in a factory can't replicate that then I don't have much hope for small-scale 3D printing.