Lego is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that accompany an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Its pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Assembled Lego models can be taken apart, and their pieces can be reused to create new constructions.
Lego Mindstorms is a discontinued line of educational kits for building programmable robots based on Lego bricks.
leJOS is a firmware replacement for Lego Mindstorms programmable bricks. Different variants of the software support the original Robotics Invention System, the NXT, and the EV3. It includes a Java virtual machine, which allows Lego Mindstorms robots to be programmed in the Java programming language. It also includes 'iCommand.jar' which allows you to communicate via bluetooth with the original firmware of the Mindstorm. It is often used for teaching Java to first-year computer science students. The leJOS-based robot Jitter flew around on the International Space Station in December 2001.
BrickOS is an open-source operating system created by Markus Noga as firmware to operate as an alternative software environment for the Lego Mindstorms Robotic Invention System. BrickOS is the first open-source software made for Lego Mindstorms robots. It allows development using the C, C++, and Java programming languages. Programs are cross compiled using the g++ and Jack compilers, with the toolchain targeting the Hitachi H8 architecture used in Mindstorms devices.
Constructionist learning is the creation by learners of mental models to understand the world around them. Constructionism advocates student-centered, discovery learning where students use what they already know to acquire more knowledge. Students learn through participation in project-based learning where they make connections between different ideas and areas of knowledge facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than using lectures or step-by-step guidance. Further, constructionism holds that learning can happen most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects in the real world. In this sense, constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on Jean Piaget's epistemological theory of constructivism.
A robot kit is a special construction kit for building robots, especially autonomous mobile robots.
Lego Spybotics was a Mindstorms robotics sub-series by Lego. There are four different sets, each of which includes a Spybot, a controller, a cable, and a software disc. The Spybots are color-coded, and each one has a different set of equipment attached. The software disc allows the user to program the robots and set up simulated missions for them.
MicroWorlds is a family of computer programs developed by Logo Computer Systems Inc. (LCSI) that uses the Logo programming language and a turtle-shaped object to teach language, mathematics, programming, and robotics concepts in primary and secondary education. The program was part of a larger set of dialects and implementations created by Seymour Papert aimed at triggering the development of abstract ideas by children through experimentation.
Lego Mindstorms NXT is a programmable robotics kit released by Lego on August 2, 2006. It replaced the Robotics Invention System, the first-generation Lego Mindstorms kit. The base kit ships in two versions: the retail version and the education base set. It comes with the NXT-G programming software or the optional LabVIEW for Lego Mindstorms. A variety of unofficial languages exist, such as NXC, NBC, leJOS NXJ, and RobotC. A second-generation set, Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0, was released on August 1, 2009, with a color sensor and other upgrades. The third-generation EV3 was released in September 2013.
Scratch is a high-level, block-based visual programming language and website aimed primarily at children as an educational tool, with a target audience of ages 8 to 16. Users on the site can create projects on the website using a block-like interface. Scratch was conceived and designed through collaborative National Science Foundation grants awarded to Mitchel Resnick and Yasmin Kafai. Scratch is developed by the MIT Media Lab and has been translated into 70+ languages, being used in most parts of the world. Scratch is taught and used in after-school centers, schools, and colleges, as well as other public knowledge institutions. As of 15 February 2023, community statistics on the language's official website show more than 123 million projects shared by over 103 million users, over 804 million total projects ever created, and more than 95 million monthly website visits.
Actor-Lab is a program that visualizes the Lego Mindstorms internal logic through visual flowcharts. The ideas underlying actor-lab are derived from the event-driven, message-passing computer languages that began with the actor based languages devised by Hewit. Actor-lab requires constant communication with a programmable brick via an infra-red link. This means that the user has to mount the programmable brick vertically for models that move about, and hold the tower in some form of gantry crane. Actor-lab shows the user in real-time what is happening on the programmable brick, including simulation of motors, sensors, lights, and sounds. One can also add controls at the bottom of the screen to give oneself real-time control of your program/model. There is a similar program from Lego called Robolab, where one can actually download programs to the Lego programmable brick.
Lego Education is a Lego theme designed specifically for schools that concentrates sets that can be used by education institutions and includes sets that focus on Duplo and Technic themes and contain larger amounts of pieces. The theme was first introduced in 1999.
Dexter Industries is a company that designs robots for education, research, and personal use. The company makes several products that expand the LEGO Mindstorms, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino prototype systems.
TETRIX Robotics consists of two robotic kits by Pitsco Education. The two sets are the TETRIX MAX building system and the TETRIX PRIME building system. They are intended to be used as educational robotics and for competitions such as the FIRST Tech Challenge.
The Sitara Arm Processor family, developed by Texas Instruments, features ARM9, ARM Cortex-A8, ARM Cortex-A9, ARM Cortex-A15, and ARM Cortex-A53 application cores, C66x DSP cores, imaging and multimedia acceleration cores, industrial communication IP, and other technology to serve a broad base of applications. Development using Sitara processors is supported by the open source Beagle community as well as Texas Instruments' open source development community.
LEGO Mindstorms EV3 is the third generation robotics kit in LEGO's Mindstorms line. It is the successor to the second generation LEGO Mindstorms NXT kit. The "EV" designation refers to the "evolution" of the Mindstorms product line. "3" refers to the fact that it is the third generation of computer modules - first was the RCX and the second is the NXT. It was officially announced on January 4, 2013, and was released in stores on September 1, 2013. The education edition was released on August 1, 2013. There are many competitions using this set, including the FIRST LEGO League Challenge and the World Robot Olympiad, sponsored by LEGO.
Enchanting is a free and open-source cross-platform educational programming language designed to program Lego Mindstorms NXT robots. It is primarily developed by Southern Alberta Robotics Enthusiasts group in the province of Alberta, Canada, and runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and experimentally on Linux devices. Since 2013, the Enchanting version 0.2 has been available.
Open Roberta is a project within the German education initiative "Roberta – Learning with robots", initiated by Fraunhofer IAIS, which is an institute belonging to the Fraunhofer Society. With Open Roberta Fraunhofer IAIS is looking to encourage children to code by using robots such as Lego Mindstorms, and other programmable hardware systems such as Arduino, BBC micro:bit, and the Calliope mini. The Cloud-approach of the Open Roberta Lab is intended to simplify programming concepts and make it easier for teachers and schools to teach how to code. Open Roberta is free and does not require any installation. The project was initially founded with €1m by Google.org. Users from up to 120 countries now access the platform.
