A Little About LEGO and the LEGO Mindstorms Robot

10 Sep

A Little About LEGO and the LEGO Mindstorms Robot

Lego is probably the most recognized brand in the toy industry. What my not be so recognizable is the history of this amazing corporation.

Old Kirk Christiansen was a carpenter in Billund, Denmark who opened a woodworking shop in 1916. He and his team of apprentices built furniture for people in the area.

This was how Lego began, from the mind of a simple carpenter in the small country of Denmark. In 1932, business was not good enough for Kirk Christiansen so he expanded his product line from just furniture to ironing boards, stepladders, and wooden toys. As business grew, he renamed his company Lego from the Danish phrase "leg godt" which means to "play well". Many years later, the Lego Group officially stated that the name Lego comes from the Latin word "Lego" which means "I assemble" or "I put together".

For many years Christiansen ran his family business out of this old building. The problem with wood is that it is highly flammable as Christiansen knew all too well when a fire destroyed his wooden toy warehouse in 1960.

By 1954, Christiansen's son Godtfred had worked hard and moved up in the company to the position of managing director. Godtfred had to travel to England to meet with a purchasing agent. While they sat on a ferry, they began an in depth discussion about the toy market in both Denmark and England and where the toy market was heading.

Neither man would have guessed in his wildest dreams that their talk would lead to the greatest toy ever invented and ultimately be responsible for thousands of jobs in later generations: the Lego plastic block.

For some 30 years, Lego continued to grown as its toy section became a bigger and bigger component of the company. Finally, in 1968, Lego became profitable enough to open the equivalent of Disney Land in Billund, Denmark named appropriately "Lego Land".

In the 1980's, LEGO began secret work on combining computer chips with their LEGO building blocks. Combining the LEGO building bricks with a computer, the Robotics Invention System 1.5 is currently the most advanced set in the LEGO company's line of technology-based products. Called the Lego Mindstorms, this robot is targeted at users ages twelve and above, and that includes any moms, dads, and grandparents that want to join in.

The latest generation of Lego Mindstorms called the Lego Mindstorms NXT is a fully programmable robot kit that has over 500 pieces that can be snapped together to build everything from a humanoid robot to a roboraptor, four sensors (touch, light, sound, and ultrasonic), 3 servo motors, and the NXT brick which is the CPU of the robot.

Lego even has different snap together computer chips you can buy for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot such as cameras, gears, motors, lights, and more.

Some people do not like Lego because of its size. They have been known to over price toys simply because they have a monopoly in that toy. Lego has been losing money and market share in recent years but still controls a dominating portion of the toy industry. In fact, Lego has been criticized by many of having a monopoly on certain segments of the toy industry and over charging consumers.

Whether Lego charges too much for its toys or not, people obviously are willing to pay for the best quality toys. I know that anything I've ever bought from Lego has lasted many years. You know you are getting quality when you buy Lego plus, who does not have found memories of putting together Lego toys as a child?