New Lego smart-play system (lego.com)

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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?

I wonder how it responds to being chewed.

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.

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.

Desperately lacking a sound elevator pitch, eh?

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…

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

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

Also, another chance to post this old school version:

https://youtu.be/oPqRwCILbmU

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

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.

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

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

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BTS/Making Of article:

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

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