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Toys that think
(by BBC.CO.UK - 10/27/99)

But will you ever let your kids have a turn with them?

Anthony Fudd loves his Legos. Among the Somerville, Mass., student's oddball creations is a robot, which sits inside a refrigerator and confirms that the light really does go out when the door shuts. Another machine deals poker cards (though from the bottom of the deck) to four players. Fudd constructed a Lego copy machine, including a light sensor that detects writing, and a felt-tip marker that duplicates it. Fudd would be considered quite a prodigy--if he weren't 27 and a student at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Clearly, Legos aren't just for kids anymore. Though he enjoys doing it, Fudd gets paid by Lego to build its new $200 high-tech toy called the MindStorms Robotics Invention System. The 727-piece Lego kit lets users (age 12 and up, says the Danish company) make robots. Along with the familiar Lego blocks, the set contains gears, wheels, axles, drive belts, and other parts needed to complete moving creations.

The MindStorms set, which went on sale in September in toy and electronics stores, is part of a trend toward toys that think, says Chris Byrne, editor of Playthings MarketWatch, a toy industry newsletter. "As the price of technology drops, it's showing up in toys," he says. "Kids expect their toys to beep and talk back to them and have an attitude." Other "smart" toys to watch for, says Byrne, include the Furby from Hasbro's Tiger Electronics (story, Page 73) and Amazing Amy ($70 from Playmates Toys), an interactive, talking baby doll.

High-tech Legos aren't totally new. They were available in product lines sold principally to educators for up to $700. Those sets and the new mass-market MindStorms spring from a collaboration between Lego and the MIT Media Lab. There, Fred Martin, an MIT research scientist, helped develop much of the microprocessor technology ultimately used in MindStorms sets. He got involved because he thinks that good toys should lead kids to constructive play. Lego, he says, is "a toy for making other toys. It puts kids in the driver's seat."

Technological toys can also keep adults interested. Some, in fact, use Legos in their work. Rick Lazzarini, a creator of animatronic creatures for films (like the horror movie Mimic) and commercials (such as the Budweiser frog ads), works out creature concepts with them.

Since late July, Fudd has crisscrossed the United States, demonstrating the possibilities of the new set to school children and adults. Fudd has built his creations at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and at research labs and universities. In Las Vegas, his card-dealing robot took an impromptu, and uninvited, turn on a casino gaming table, much to the pit boss's chagrin. In Cawker City, Kan., another of Fudd's robots added a strand to what is purported to be the world's largest ball (at more than 17,000 pounds) of pure sisal twine. The little Lego vehicle held a spool of twine and did a lap around the ball.

What makes the MindStorms system work is its brain, the RCX (the name doesn't stand for anything). It's a microprocessor about the size of two decks of playing cards that is usually built into a robot's body. The RCX sends electronic orders to up to three motors (a set comes with two), and to sensors that respond to light or touch. The RCX uses programming instructions sent by a personal computer to its infrared receiver. (An infrared transmitter, which connects to a computer's serial port, is included in the set.)  

Iconic. Software, also included, but for Windows 95 only, lets you create custom instruction programs and send them to your robot's RCX. You simply assemble a string of icons that represent commands, such as left and right turns, reverse, sound effects, pauses, sensor settings, motor speed, or custom-designed functions. Drag the icons together into a row and send the sequence off to the toy. Touch a button labeled "run" on the RCX, and your creation goes to work. One of the simplest programs causes a vehicle to move forward when it's hit by a flashlight beam and stops it when the light goes out.

Of course, you're not going to be a master builder from the start, but in an hour or two you can be making machines that appear to think. The instruction book lays out step-by-step plans for seven robots. One of the most interesting is the Torbot, a vehicle that moves around on bulldozerlike treads. On its front are two prongs, connected to touch sensors to make feelers. If the Torbot reaches the edge of a table, a feeler senses it, the robot reverses course, away from the precipice. It's really a brainy wind-up toy, but you are the engineer.

Point and shoot. If robotic basics get boring or you just don't have an inventor's mind, there's a Web site ( www.legomindstorms.com ) full of ideas. You can sample from a rotating group of missions, like the Photobot, a robot that carries and snaps a point- and-shoot camera (you provide the camera). Each MindStorms buyer also gets a page on the site, a spot to post robot designs and pictures. There are also three expansion sets ($50 each), called Extreme Creatures, Robo-Sports, and Exploration Mars.

Fudd's most impressive creation (made with parts from several MindStorms sets) is a mechanical arm that mimics the movements of a human arm. Fudd wears sensors in his hand, wrist, and elbow, which send commands to the foot-long arm. It has a wrist that pivots, an elbow that bends, and pincers made of rubber tires. The ultimate Fudd Lego creation, though still only a concept, is a 3-foot-tall machine that walks.

After wrapping up the 8,500-mile promotional tour last week, Fudd returned to the grind of MIT, several weeks late for the start of his senior year, as a visual design and mechanical engineering major. He hit campus, knowing that someone will ask, and not for the first time, whether all that expensive education has been squandered on toys.
Invariably, he says, the questionner will steal a glance at one of the robots and then gush, "But that's so cool."

by BBC.CO.UK

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