20060105
       A mildly interesting thing to come out of the International Consumer Electronics Show is the announcement by the LEGO Group of the Fall 2006 release of the newest Mindstorms Lego Robotics kit, called NXT. The $250 kit will allow LEGO builders to construct brick based robots using 4 new digital sensors and a new type of motor connected to a 32-bit controller. Having used LEGO’s Mindstorms 1.5 kit, this is something I personally look forward to as another iteration of robotics as toys and learning tools. We marvel at kids now and their adaptation to the computer age, but with toys like Mindstorms and Radio Shack’s Vex, kids ten years from now will feel about robotics the way most of us do about TV.
DLH
