Lego Boost is going to turn all your Lego toys into programmable robots CES is full of robots, but Lego robots... well, that doesn't happen every year.Educational codable robot toys have been a mega-trend in kid tech over the last year, from Jimu to Cozmo. Lego has had its own Mindstorm educational robotics kit for years, but its pieces come from the older-skewed Technics sets, as opposed to the piles of multicolored bricks everyone's basements are full of.Lego Boost is the idea that Lego was overdue to debut. It's a set of motors and programmable bricks that can work with existing Lego kits and turn them into motorized or motion-sensitive toys. And the app can record voice effects... so, yes, you can make your robot Lego-cat speak.The $160 set, coming in the second half of 2017, comes with instructions to build five different things out of the box: "Vernie the Robot, Frankie the Cat, the Guitar 4000, the Multi-Tool Rover 4 (M.T.R.4), and the Autobuilder." After that, any existing Legos can be glommed onto new creations, according to Lego: "a walking base for making animals like a dragon or a pony, a driving base for building vehicles like a dune buggy or rover, and an entrance base so that children can make their own castle, fort, or even a futuristic space station."
The kit is targeted at kids 7 and older.A companion Android and iOS app will handle the programming parts, using what Lego claims are basic coding instructions. Similar ideas live in most toy robot kits made over the last couple of years. Lego's advantage is, clearly, that you could potentially make a dancing dinosaur, a DIY Batmobile or a robotic Star Wars base. Or something of the sort.The Lego Boost comes with three Boost bricks that do most of the robotic heavy lifting, including a tilt sensor, a color and distance sensor and a motor. The set also comes with 843 pieces and a special playmate that the robots can move on.Stay tuned for hands-on impressions at CES, but this sounds like the Lego holiday gift to beat all Lego gifts. The first great smartphone of 2015 Beautiful and bold...with complications Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2015) The new no-compromise MacBook A stellar on-ear headphone Visit manufacturer site for details. Scott Stein is a senior editor covering iOS and laptop reviews, mobile computing, video games, and tech culture.
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On board is Andreas Mogensen, Denmark's first person in space.As part of a recent "Ask Me Anything" session on website Reddit, Mogensen said: "[The European Space Agency] and Lego have partnered for this mission and among other things, we are running a competition for Danish school children to tell a story about my mission using Legos and making a video of their story."The 20 Lego figurines have Iriss-adorned logos on them. The ESA mission has been dubbed Iriss after the Greek goddess Iris who linked humanity with the cosmos, according to website CollectSpace.As well as outreach with Lego toys, Mogensen's tasks will also include testing new equipment on Danish-made exercise bikes at the International Space Station.Dubbed "Denmark's Gagarin" by European Space Agency officials after the first man in space, Andreas Mogensen lifted off at 0437 Greenwich Mean Time (2.37pm, AEST) accompanied by mission commander Russian Sergei Volkov and Kazakh astronaut Aidyn Aimbetov on ESA's 10-day "sprint" mission.
The aim is to test equipment in areas of telerobotics and communications as well as monitoring the impact of space travel on Mogensen himself as his short voyage is unique in missions that normally last several months, according to ESA.But he will also test out a new heart rate monitor and force-measuring pedals on exercise bikes built by the Danish Aerospace Company, according to the company's website.Mogensen said on Reddit: "I am allowed to bring 1.5 kilograms of personal items with me on Soyuz. I will bring pictures of family and friends, mission patches stickers, Danish flags, Lego figures, some parachute material with signatures from skydivers around the world, a baseball cap from the University of Texas at Austin, a t-shirt and a few other small items".At a pre-flight news conference at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from where the Russian Soyuz space craft will launch, the upbeat Mogensen said he had specially shaved his right leg to allow Volkov to better apply electrodes to the limb for the experiments in space.