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Lego, NI Team up on Robotic Toy
Graphical software allows kids to program robots
Charles J. Murray, Senior Technical Editor -- Design News, August 6, 2008
Lego Education announced at NIWeek yesterday it teamed with National Instruments on the creation of a new product designed to draw children into engineering and science.
Known as Lego WeDo, the new product uses robotics hardware and simple graphical programming software to help children learn creative thinking they can apply to subjects ranging from math to art to literature. Lego representatives described WeDo as a cousin to Lego's well-known Mindstorms robotics toy, but said its use of simpler hardware and software is geared toward a younger audience ranging from 7 to 11 years of age.
"The significance of this is that it brings robotics to a younger age," said Lego spokeswoman Helle Winding. "At that age, the children don't know they're learning math and science. They just know that they're playing."
WeDo enables children to build a robotic crocodile, monkey or soccer player. When the hardware is ready, kids can program their robot to walk or kick a ball using a simple graphical interface made up of so-called "action blocks." The colorful blocks, which reside on a "canvas" on a computer screen, incorporate software that enables the children to direct the robots. Kids can construct their software models by dragging and dropping the blocks on the canvas.
"We give them an interactive method," said Leshia Hoot, K-12 marketing manager for National Instruments. "It's essentially programming, but it's so visual that the kids don't realize they're doing some basic programming."
National Instruments said they used their own LabView graphical programming software as a basis for Lego's new toy. The key was to make the software useable for young children, said NI engineers.
"When you're dealing with that age group, you need to be very clear about your focus and what you want to accomplish," Hoot said. "You don't want to add unneeded complexity."
Both companies see the new toy as a way to attract kids toward science, math and ultimately engineering. "We lose some children along the way, especially the girls," Winding said. "But we know we will need them to understand science and math later on."
Although the toy is oriented toward robotics, Lego said the creative lessons learned from it apply to a wide variety of academic areas. Children who play with the toy, however, only know they're having fun.
"It's cool to see how excited the kids get about it," Hoot said. "And it's fun for the adults, too."
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Lego, NI Team Up On Kids' Toy
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I would have read your article. But, a pop up advertisement got in the way. As a general rule. If a website hits me with pop ups. I leave the site and never return.
Todd - 2008-7-8 04:29:05 EDT -
I would have read your article. But, a pop up advertisement got in the way. As a general rule. If a website hits me with pop ups. I leave the site and never return.
Todd - 2008-7-8 04:28:50 EDT
