Editing Lego Mindstorms (section)

==Lego Mindstorms and Robotics Invention System (1998)==
{{See also|Lego Education}}
[[File:Lego Roverbot.JPG|thumb|A robot created using Robotics Invention System parts]] 
The Robotics Invention System (RIS) was the flagship product of the first generation of the Lego Mindstorms line. It is a commercialization of technology produced by the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with the LEGO group. The RIS featured the programmable Robotic Command eXplorer (RCX) microcontroller, as well as 9V Lego-compatible motors and sensors and a selection of Lego parts. The original RIS was launched fall of 1998. It was replaced by a second version, RIS 1.5, in the summer of 1999; and a third version, RIS 2.0, in 2001.

===Development of Mindstorms Brand===

The Lego Mindstorms product line was the first project of "Home Education", a division of [[Lego Education]] established by employee Tormod Askildsen in 1995. Askildsen, who had previously spent ten years working for Lego Education, had grown frustrated working with teaching professionals and wanted to create an improved educational experience that was delivered directly towards children. Home Education decided to incorporate technology into their products based on [[market research]] that concluded that children found learning that involved technology interesting.<ref name="39years">{{cite web |last1=Heiseldal |first1=Are |title=Tormod Askildsen: One Last Chat with LEGO's AFOL Advocate |url=https://bricknerd.com/home/tormod-askildsen-one-last-chat-with-legos-afol-advocate-11-16-22 |website=brickner.com |date=16 November 2022 |publisher=Brick Nerd |access-date=5 November 2023}}</ref> Lego Mindstorms started development in April 1996.<ref name=Oliver>{{cite journal |last1=Oliver |first1=David |last2=Roos |first2=Johnathan |date=2003 |title=Dealing with the unexpected: Critical incidents in the Lego Mindstorms team |journal=Human Relations |volume=56 |issue=9 |pages=1057–1082 |doi=10.1177/0018726703569002 |s2cid=145417935 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717649 |access-date=26 March 2019 |archive-date=27 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127130821/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717649_Dealing_with_the_Unexpected_Critical_Incidents_in_the_LEGO_Mindstorms_team |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|1061}} The concept for the set was based on technology created in partnership with the MIT Media Lab. MIT Media Lab had been experimenting with combining Lego and programming since the early 1980s, and Lego had previously commercialized some of this technology as classroom products in the [[Lego Education|Lego Dacta]] line. The programmable brick (or pbrick<ref name=GoldenRCX/>) was a refinement of these early concepts, which had limited range because they had to be tethered to a computer to run.<ref name=Beland>{{cite thesis |last=Beland |first=Cristopher |date=15 December 2000 |title=Lego Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evolution |type=conference paper |docket=6.399J Structure of Engineering Revolutions |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221436867 |access-date=25 March 2019 |archive-date=27 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127130858/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221436867_LEGO_Mindstorms |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|24}}

Lego had been interested in mass-producing the pbrick since its creation in the 1980s, but at the time it was considered unfeasible due to the lack of computers in schools and households and the relative expense of electrical components.<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|25}} in the early 1990s Technology began to become more of a child's life, and the toy market accordingly began shifting more towards computerized toys.<ref name=Robertson/>{{rp|37}} Many of Lego's attempts at producing electronic toys had languished at the point that Lego began developing MIT's programmable brick into a consumer product.<ref name=Oliver/>{{rp|1061}} MIT continued developing the pbrick concept, creating a "Red Brick" version between 1994 and 1996 that improved the previous version. 
By the mid-1990s personal computers were relatively common in households and the components required to produce the pbrick went down in price, making mass production feasible.<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|25}} Development on what would later be known as the Robotics Invention System started in 1996 as the flagship product of the newly created home-learning division of Lego Education (Lego Dacta). The product line's name "Mindstorms" was intended to express the user experience of the product, it is named after Papert's book [[Mindstorms (book)|Mindstorms]], as the user experience was similar to the [[Constructivism (philosophy of education)|educational constructivism]] concepts described in his book.<ref name=Tormod>{{cite web |url=https://lan.lego.com/news/overview/lego-mindstorms-reflections-%E2%80%93-what-happened-before-the-announcement-in-january-1998-r173/ |title=Lego Mindstorms reflections – What happened before the announcement in January 1998 |last=Askildsen |first=Tormod |date=4 December 2018 |website=lan.Lego.com |publisher=The Lego Group |access-date=26 March 2019 |archive-date=26 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326211452/https://lan.lego.com/news/overview/lego-mindstorms-reflections-%25E2%2580%2593-what-happened-before-the-announcement-in-january-1998-r173/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

The project's at-first low profile allowed the Mindstorms team the freedom to develop the product using operating procedures then-unorthodox to the Lego Group.<ref name=Oliver/>{{rp|1062}} Unlike traditional Lego sets, the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System did not come with step-by-step instructions.<ref name=39years/> The kit also did not have a main model, nor was the play driven by storytelling.{{Citation needed|date=August 2021}} To bridge the gap between this new play experience and pre-existing Lego ones, the Mindstorms team created a lot of opportunities for users to engage with each other, such as the creation of Mindstorms.com, Mindstorms Discovery Centers, and the [[FIRST Lego League]].<ref name=Tormod/> The creation of these experiences was done through partnerships with external groups that the Mindstorms team interacted with as equal partners, something that was uncommon for the Lego group at the time.<ref name=Oliver/>{{rp|1063}} To ease tensions between Mindstorms and more conventional products, the project team was given autonomy from Lego's product development process and instead reported directly to the company's senior management.<ref name=Oliver/>{{rp|1064}}

===Development of RCX Brick===
[[File:Lego Mindstorms prototypes 1.jpg|thumb|MIT Media Lab's "Red Brick" served as the prototype for Lego Mindstorms' RCX.]] 
The Lego Mindstorms team used the insights that MIT researchers discovered from testing the 3rd Generation Logo Brick ("Red Brick") in schools as the basis for the development of the mass-produced programmable brick.<ref name=Magical>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/papers/magical-machines.pdf|title=To Mindstorms and Beyond: Evolution of a Construction Kit for Magical Machines|publisher=MIT Media Laboratory|access-date=2017-12-15|archive-date=22 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822041518/http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/papers/magical-machines.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|5}} The physical programmable brick was re-engineered from the ground up, as the experimental programmable bricks were not designed for robustness or cost-effective manufacturing.<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|19,26}} The [[programming language]] of the product was developed with help from members of the MIT Media lab. Lego decided to use a [[visual programming language]] for Mindstorms, inspired by the LOGOBlocks language previously used with programmable brick experiments, in order to make the product accessible to children who might be unfamiliar with programming.<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|29}} While the technology that Mindstorms was based on was aimed towards "all children", the chosen target demographic of Lego Mindstorms was intentionally narrow, in order to garner positive press by outselling expectations. The decision was made to aim the product towards 10 to 14-year-old boys, partly because it was Lego's main target demographic, and partly based on market research (not substantiated by the findings of the MIT Media Lab) which concluded that this demographic would be most attracted to computerized toys. This choice of target demographic directly informed the color of the RCX brick (which was made yellow and black to resemble construction equipment) and the sample uses for the Mindstorms kit (such as making autonomous robots).<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|28}}

===Launch===
Promotion of the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System began 6 months before the product was planned to launch.<ref name=Tormod/> The product was first soft launched with the opening of the Mindstorms Discovery Center at the [[Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)|Museum of Science and Industry]], where children could interact with the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System to complete set tasks, getting them familiar with the product.<ref name=BBpart3>{{cite web |url=https://www.brothers-brick.com/2020/02/03/a-history-of-lego-education-part-3-mindstorms-over-matter-feature/ |title=A History of Lego Education, Part 3: Mindstorms over matter [Feature] |last=Hocker |first=Matt |date=3 February 2020 |website=The Brothers Brick |access-date=15 August 2021}}</ref> The Mindstorms product was launched concurrently with the Cybermaster, another Lego product spun off from the MIT programmable brick technology that was more in line with the traditional product philosophies of the Lego group.<ref name=Oliver/>{{rp|1067}}

The Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System (RIS) was released September 1998<ref>{{cite press release |url=http://www.legomindstorms.com:80/press/releases.html |title=Retailers Brace for Overwhelming Consumer Demand for Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System |location=[[Enfield, Connecticut]] |access-date=3 July 2022 |date=26 August 1998 |publisher=[[The Lego Group]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206001507/http://www.legomindstorms.com:80/press/releases.html |archive-date=6 December 1998 |url-status=dead}}<br>"Lego Mindstorms announced today that the very first units...will arrive...during the first week of September."</ref> at a retail price of $199. Instead of being sold at toy stores, the product was sold at electronics stores like [[BestBuy]] and [[CompUSA]], due to the relatively high cost of the set.<ref name=Tormod/>
The entire production run (of between 60,000 and 100,000 units<ref name=Note01>The exact number of sets in the first production run varies between sources</ref>) sold out within 3 months.<ref name=Robertson>{{cite book |last=Robertson |first=David |date=2013 |title=Brick by Brick: How Lego rewrote the rules of innovation and conquered the global toy industry |url=http://www.RobertsonInnovation.com/books/Brick-by-Brick |location=United States |publisher=Crown Publishing |pages=184–185 |isbn=9780307951618 |access-date=27 January 2021 |archive-date=29 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129005055/https://robertsoninnovation.com/books/Brick-by-Brick |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|181}}<ref name=Beland/>{{rp|30}}

The second edition of the RIS, Robotics Invention System 1.5, was released in the summer of 1999,<ref name=Robertson/>{{rp|187}}<ref name=GoldenRCX>{{cite web
| title = Going for Gold: The Story of the Golden RCX and NXT
| url = https://bricknerd.com/home/going-for-gold-the-story-of-the-golden-lego-rcx-and-nxt-9-9-21
| website = Bricknerd.com
| date = 9 September 2021
| access-date = 23 October 2023}}</ref> with a third edition, RIS 2.0, launched in 2001.<ref>{{cite web
| title = 3804: Robotics Invention System V2.0
| url = https://brickset.com/sets/3804-1/Robotics-Invention-System-V2-0
| website = Brickset.com
| date = n.d.
| access-date = 23 October 2023}}</ref>

===Fanbase and "Right-to-Hack"===
Despite being aimed towards children, the Robotics Invention System quickly found an audience with adults and hackers of all ages; Lego company surveys conducted a few months after launch determined that seventy percent of Lego Mindstorms Hobbyists were adults. Shortly following the product's launch, adult hobbyists began sharing reverse-engineered versions of the RCX brick's [[Microcode]] and [[Firmware]] on the internet, leading to the development of alternative programming languages for the RCX such as "Not Quite C" (NQC) and alternative operating systems for the brick like lejOS. The Lego Group briefly considered sending cease-and-desist letters to websites sharing the RCX's proprietary code.<ref name=Robertson/>{{rp|183}} However, The Mindstorms team successfully argued that the embrace of the product by the hacking community proved that the product was worth developing. In order to foster this burgeoning community, an official forum was established on the Lego website and a "right to hack" clause was added to end user license agreement of the Lego Mindstorms software. An official software developers kit for the RCX would later be released on the Mindstorms website. A number of products focusing on the RIS were released by adult hobbyists, including how-to books, and unofficial sensors and hardware. A convention for Lego Mindstorms hobbyists, named Mindfest, started in 1999.<ref name=Robertson/>{{rp|181–184}}

Despite strong sales, the Mindstorms development team was neglected by upper management. As a [[Cost reduction|cost-cutting]] measure, the Mindstorms office was shut down in 2001, and team members were laid-off or assigned to other projects.<ref name=GoldenRCX/> The Lego Group continued to produce the Robotics Invention System 2.0, selling around 40,000 units per year without advertising <ref name=Robertson/>{{rp|189}} until the set was discontinued in 2006.<ref>{{cite web
| title = 3804: Robotics Invention System V2.0
| url = https://brickset.com/sets/8527-1/Mindstorms-NXT
| website = Brickset.com
| date = n.d.
| access-date = 23 October 2023}}</ref>