LEGO Mindstorms

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LEGO Mindstorms
The Structure of an Engineering (R)evolution
December 15, 2000

6.933J Structure of Engineering Revolutions
Prof. David Mindell
Christopher Beland
Wesley Chan
Dwaine Clarke
Richard Park
Michael Trupiano
Contents
1.0 INTRODUCTION......................................................................... 3
2.0 STRUCTURE OF AN ENGINEERING (R)EVOLUTION ...... 6
3.0 THE EPISTEMOLOGY AND LEARNING GROUP............... 8
4.0 THE LEGO COMPANY............................................................ 23
5.0 THE MIT MEDIA LABORATORY: A FOSTERING
ENVIRONMENT........................................................................ 31
6.0 SYNTHESIS ................................................................................ 38
7.0 APPENDIX: THE MEDIA LABORATORY AS A
SOLUTION TO THE INNOVATOR’S DILEMMA............... 39
8.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................... 41
9.0 REFERENCES ............................................................................ 42
LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 2

Introduction
1.0 Introduction
In 1998, the LEGO Company released a new product called the LEGO
Mindstorms Robotic Invention Kit that became an instant commercial
success. Children and those young at heart could buy the $200 kit—
consisting of 717 pieces including LEGO bricks, motors, gears, different
sensors, and a “RCX Brick” with an embedded microprocessor—and
construct and program various LEGO robotic creations. In fact,
Mindstorms creations featured on the LEGO web site include an
automated blackjack card dealer, a robot that crawls up walls, and even a
robotic toilet bowl scrubber.
Figure 1.1 The LEGO Mindstorms Robotic Invention Kit consists of 717 pieces, including
LEGO blocks, motors, gears, various sensors, a RCX brick with an embedded
microprocessor, and software for programming Mindstorms creations.
Sold in toy stores across the world, the Mindstorms kit became one of the
hottest selling Christmas gifts that year in the United States, selling 80,000
units in less than three months. The New York Times heralded the product
as a “new revolution” for LEGO, moving a toy company that was losing
money from “increasing competition from electronic toys and computer
games” back into the black [33].
Furthermore, the adult engineering and so-called “hacker” community
embraced the Mindstorms product—a huge surprise to the LEGO
Company—boosting sales by 300 percent in 1999. As a testament to this,

Introduction
users have created numerous Internet web sites, featuring blueprints on

how to build newfangled Mindstorms creations and listing the code
needed to program them. Enterprising software engineers have also
developed alternative programming environments and operating systems
for the RCX brick, including one called LegoOS and a Java-based runtime
environment called TinyVM [37]. Publishers have even released several
books about using the Mindstorms kit, including Lego Mindstorms for
Dummies and The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms.
On the surface, the story of how the LEGO Mindstorms Robotic Invention
Kit became a commercial success appears to be straightforward and
almost cliché. The story is often trivialized in the press as a textbook
example of how a MIT Media Lab project became a success commercial
product. As retold by countless magazine features and newspaper articles,
the Mindstorms kit was based on work done at the MIT Media Lab by
learning researchers Seymour Papert and Mitchel Resnick. As the New
York Times relates, “The very name of the Lego robot set, Mindstorms, is
taken from the 1980 book of the same name by Seymour Papert, a
computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Techno logy who
argued that training in computer programming may be one of the most
promising ways to teach children about the nature of problem solving.
Lego later financed some of his research, and an early version of the Lego
programmable brick was developed at the MIT Media Lab” [33].
Figure 1.2 An “Automated Blackjack Card Dealer,” a Mindstorms creation built by one of
the numerous adult engineers and so-called hackers that have purchased and
embraced the Mindstorms product.
Source: LEGO Mindstorms Hall of Fame
The “technology transfer,” however, was not a one-way process, nor was
it anything as simple as cloning a product or being aware of a new idea.

Introduction
The story behind LEGO Mindstorms is, in reality, a fascinating narrative

of how three organizations—Resnick and Papert’s Epistemology and
Learning research group, the LEGO Corporation, and the MIT Media
Laboratory—engaged in a complex social interaction, which shaped the
evolution of the technology. Each group had its own interests and ideas of
what success meant. Thus, each organization influenced the development
of the Mindstorms product and its Media Lab prototypes in different ways.
The Epistemology and Learning group, for instance, endeavored to create
and disseminate new Cons tructivist approaches to learning. The LEGO
Company also aspired to provide Constructivist approaches to learning,
while wanting their brand “to be the strongest in the world among families
with children” [12]. Finally, the MIT Media Lab sought to create a new
and publicly visible model of academic research that emphasizes the
public impact of ideas, fosters idea transfer between academic research
groups and corporate sponsors, and encourages community outreach.
Ultimately, the Lab provided an environment for the research that led to
the Mindstorms product to grow and mature.

Structure of an Engineering (R)evolution
2.0 Structure of an Engineering (R)evolution
2.1 The Fallacy of Technological Determinism

Prof. Neil Gershenfeld is one of the research directors of the Things That
Think consortium at the MIT Media Laboratory. One day, he was at the
Lab and found a group of students building a strange but interesting new
demo:
“The only thing they couldn't tell me is why they were doing
it. Once they realized it was possible, they could not conceive
of not making one.” [8]
In his book, Inventing Accuracy, Donald MacKenzie encounters a similar

attitude of inevitability [14]. He quotes some other authors writing on the
subject of nuclear missile guidance:
Teams of scientist and engineers do and inevitably will

discover ways of improving system performance.
On the issue of guidance accuracy, there is no way to get
hold of it, it is a laboratory development, and there is no way
to stop progress in that field.
The possibility of greater accuracy in targeting missiles led
to the shift from the “countervalue” approach, aimed at
cities and economic targets, to one aimed at specific military
targets, i.e., “counterforce.”
McKenzie terms the notion that technology has a “natural path”

independent of supporting social institutions, “the fallacy of technological
determinism.” [14] What people often forget is that there are multiple
possible paths of development; in this project history, the technology
clearly traveled along more than one direction.
We find in this project history that different organizations, with different

objectives, interested in different problems make, not surprisingly,
different design choices. These forces have imprinted themselves visibly
on the prototypes and products under study.
Unlike MacKenzie's example of ever-growing accuracy nuclear missile

guidance, no one can mistake the problem of ascertaining whether one has
made a simultaneously “fun” and “educational” toy—much less
constructing one in the first place—for an easy one. Far from the
seemingly inevitable escalation of nuclear conflict, the adoption of the

constructivist philosophy of education has been an uphill battle for the
researchers in the Epistemology and Learning Group.
The academic and corporate engineers involved were guided not only by
what they learned from design experimentation, but also through watching
teachers and children use their toys. They were influenced by both
organizational inertia (or lack thereof) and the quirks of end-user desires
and adoption patterns. The “technological trajectory” of the
Programmable Brick actually split off into several directions, including the
LEGO Mindstorms product, the MIT 6.270 robotics competition kit, and
the Epistemology and Learning Group’s Crickets [18].
The question is not, then, to merely disprove the “fallacy of technological
determinism” and demonstrate how organizational goals and cultural
factors guided the development of this technology. Instead, we will
examine how the twin influences of people and technical fact intermingle
and combine.
2.2 Technology Transfer and Academic Research

Moving beyond the technology/society dichotomy, we can also see on a
more sophisticated level that this is a story about the process of technology
transfer from one type of social institution to another. Unlike most
research institutions, the MIT Media Laboratory is funded not just by tax
dollars, but also by numerous corporate sponsors.
What do those sponsors find valuable in that relationship? LEGO

Mindstorms seems to be an obvious answer—this product borrowed
directly from laboratory research and became a tremendous commercial
success. But this is not actually the case—the RCX brick was actually
designed from the ground up by LEGO, for a variety of reasons, including
manufacturing practicality and a slightly different target audience.
Perhaps more important to sponsors than access to prototype ideas and

schematics (some which are made publicly available anyway) is the
opportunity to work alongside Media Lab engineers, to contribute to their
efforts, and in doing so, absorb the unwritten expertise of these
“visionaries” and technology experts. LEGO engineers benefitted from
the accumulated working knowledge of both technical design and user
satisfaction from participating in the project; the Epistemology and
Learning Group benefited from both LEGO's experience in the industry
and ability to mass- market the technology—and promote its underlying
philosophy—to schools and consumers worldwide.

The Epistemology and Learning Group
3.0 The Epistemology and Learning Group

Both press reports and the LEGO Mindstorms packaging credit
researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory with inspiring the design of the
product. The Epistemology and Learning Group, directed by Dr. Mitchel
Resnick, conducted most of the research that led to Mindstorm’s
development. The group’s mission is to use new technologies to expand
the space of what people can build, how they collaborate, and how they
think about what they have built and the world in general.
Formed in 1985 as a founding group at the MIT Media Laboratory, the

Epistemology and Learning Group has since produced many such tools,
including several generations of the “MIT Programmable Brick” and
associated LOGO-based programming interfaces. This section introduces
the history of the wireless LEGO/LOGO technology from the private
sector to academia and back again, starting with the people behind the
questions the Epistemology and Learning Group is asking.
3.1 People
The philosophies and theories of the Epistemology and Learning group
find their origins in a chain of influences that began with Dr. Jean Piaget.
Piaget’s teachings greatly influenced his colleague, Dr. Seymour Papert.
Papert, in turn, attracted his own enthusiasts, which included Dr. Mitchel
Resnick, and several graduate students and academic colleagues.
3.1.1 Dr. Seymour Papert
Born and educated in South Africa, Dr. Papert was a mathematician who,
in the 1950’s, became interested in using science in the service of
understanding how children think and learn. In the early 1960’s, he
worked extensively with famed developmental psychologist Dr. Jean
Piaget, a pioneer of the constructivist educational movement.
“Seymour was among the first to see that massive change was
needed in the education system, partic ularly math and science
education, and to recognize the role that technology could
play in learning. He was also one of the first to recognize that
technology in the classroom was not a “silver bullet” that
would solve all of education's ills. He realized long before the
rest of the education reform movement, that technology in
education is effective only if placed in a large context that

combines well-prepared teachers with integrated social
services." [23]
In the 1970's, Papert co-created Logo, a computer language so intuitive

and simple that young children still program with it today. “Only rarely
does some exceptional event lead people to reorganize their intellectual
self- image in such a way as to open up new perspectives on what is
learnable.”[23] To many teachers in the 80’s this “exceptional event” was
the publication of Papert’s 1980 book, Mindstorms, after which the LEGO
Mindstorms product was named. This book details the invention of Logo
and the philosophical ideas that influenced the technical building of the
language. Papert describes his thoughts on how computers can be used as
teaching machines, and change the means by which students access
knowledge. He takes from Piaget the model of children as “builders of
their own intellectual structures” and describes how computers can be
used to aid in the construction of knowledge. [23]
Papert’s contributions go beyond the field of education. Along with Dr.

Marvin Minsky, Dr. Papert co- found the Artificial Intelligence Lab at
MIT. Dr. Papert is also a founding faculty member of the MIT Media
Laboratory, where he continues to work.
3.1.2 Dr. Mitchel Resnick
Dr. Resnick is the LEGO Papert Associate Professor of Learning Research

and is the current director of the Epistemology and Learning Group. His
studies center on the role of technology and media in thinking and
learning. As Dr. Resnick explains, his goal is to “develop new
computational tools and toys that help people, particularly children, learn
new things in new ways.” [32]
Dr. Resnick received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton

University. He decided, however, not to pursue further education in
physics as he feared that he would end up with “more questions than
answers to paradoxes” [29] that fascinated him. Instead, he worked for six
years as a journalist, writing on topics related to science and technology.
In 1982, after writing a long article for Business Week about artificial
intelligence research, he became passionately interested in “how people
think about organized patterns and structures they see in the world, and
why they resist certain ways of thinking about them.”[31] He endeavored
to help people develop new ways of thinking about, and appreciating, how
minds, and other systems organize themselves into complex and
sophisticated wholes. In 1983, he read three books that changed his life:
Mindstorms by Dr. Papert, Structure and Interpretation of Computer
Programs by Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman, and Godel, Escher, Bach

by Douglas Hofstadter. Inspired, he matriculated as a graduate student in
the MIT Media Laboratory. With Dr. Seymour Papert and Dr. Abelson as
his advisors, he received his doctorate in the field of computer science in
1992. In describing his relationship with his advisors, Dr. Resnick states:
“The two of them - Hal Abelson and Seymour Papert -

formed a wonderfully complementary pair. Over the years,
each of them, in his own way, has deeply affected the way I
think- and what I think about. I will be forever grateful to
them.” [31]
3.1.3 Students and Colleagues
Randy Sargent, Fred Martin, and Brian Silverman were also influential in
guiding the evolution of the MIT Programmable Brick. Randy Sargent, a
former Master's student under Dr. Resnick, focused on designing the
second generation of the programmable brick—the “grey” brick. Fred
Martin, a former graduate student and research scientist, was one of the
principal engineers of the “red” brick, the third generation of the brick,
and one of the co- inventors of the 6.270 MIT Robotic Design Contest. Dr.
Martin also helped develop much of the embedded computing technology
ultimately used in the LEGO Mindstorms product.
Brian Silverman, a visiting scientist, wrote the LOGO compiler for the
RCX brick, and influenced several of the key technical design decisions.
Andy Begel, an undergraduate researcher worked with Dr. Resnick and
Brian Silverman to implement a prototype LogoBlocks, a graphical user
interface to the LOGO programming language. LEGO used this prototype
to help them develop the Mindstorms RCX code. Bakhtiar Mikhak, a
research scientist and former doctoral candidate, worked with Dr. Martin
on designing various versions of the Crickets, a smaller, more flexible
version of the MIT Programmable Brick.
3.2 The Philosophy of the Epistemology and Learning

Group
The Epistemology and Learning group focused on studying and promoting
the constructivist philosophy of education. Constructivism, pioneered by
Dr. Piaget, states that knowledge should not be simply transmitted from
teacher to student, but actively constructed by the mind of the student.
“Learning is an active process,” asserts Dr. Resnick, “in which people
actively construct knowledge from their experiences in the world.”[31]

Seymour Papert extends it to what he has termed the “constructionist”
approach to learning. Constructionism adds the idea that people construct
new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in
building projects that are personally meaningful. Students construct their
own knowledge effectively while building creations that interest and
excite them, and encourage them to learn. They learn how to analyze
problems that have no predetermined answer, and come up with their own
creative solutions. They actively analyze what they see, then either
assimilate their observations into earlier mental models, or are sometimes
forced to change their mental models to accommodate new observations
which were inconsistent with their earlier ideas. Teachers play important
role as knowledge facilitators, instead of dictating facts to kids, or
providing them with recipes on how to build things. Teachers are also co-
learners in this constructionist approach to learning. [9, 11, 27]
The constructionist approach creates an environment in which students act

like “real-world” scientists, inventors and engineers. As a result, students
are in much closer contact with the truly important ideas of science and
engineering. They do not simply learn facts, equations, and techniques.
They learn a way of thinking critically and systematically about problems,
and even about the problem-solving process itself. Dr. Martin illustrates
this in an example he described in a paper he wrote:
“In the Soap Box Derby activity, for example, students have
to create theories about their cars' behaviors. One student
might theorize that heavier cars go further than light cars.
Another might theorize that cars with large wheels go further
than cars with small wheels. Students make theories, test them
out, change the theories, and test them again. In later projects,
students go through a similar cycle in the design and testing
of gear trains, computer programs, and feedback systems.”
[15]
The constructionist approach also creates an environment in which

students truly care about their work. The importance of personal relevance
in schoolwork is certainly not a new idea. In The Informed Vision: Essays
on Learning and Human Nature, David Hawkins explains, “Some things
are best known by falling in love with them.” [9] The Epistemology and
Learning group equates this with science: as long as science is viewed as
a collection of facts, formulas, and rules, students will never really know
or understand science; students will know science only when they care
about it:
“In classes where we have run the LEGO/Logo Soap Box

Derby activity, students wanted to learn about friction, since
they wanted to make their cars go further. The students' level

of engagement was obvious from the way they decorated their
cars and added small people inside of them. In later sessions,
when students were free to build and program anything they
wanted, many seemed to become even more engaged in the
activity. Students built projects like merry-go-rounds, home
appliances, and walking “creatures”. Rarely did they want to
go back to their regular classrooms at the end of their
LEGO/Logo time. They wanted to stay and continue
working.” [15]
Papert contrasts the constructionist approach with instructionism, which

focuses on new ways for teachers to instruct, instead of new ways for
learners to construct. Papert succinctly describes the difference between
the two approaches with the aid of an old African proverb: “If a man is
hungry you can give him a fish, but it is better to give him a line and teach
him to catch fish himself.” [24] In instructionism, the traditional form of
education, the knowledge that children should know is identified, and
arranged systematically, and children are “fed”" this knowledge. For
example, when teachers usually teach mathematics, they usually present
students with a set of theorems and formulae, which students are supposed
to digest and get accustomed to applying to various, typical problems. In
Instructionism, to educate better means to instruct better; if computers are
going to be used, they will be used to aid in the instruction of the students.
Papert explains:
“Constructionism is built on the assumption that children will

do best by finding (“fishing”) for themselves the specific
knowledge they need; organized or informal education can
help most by making sure they are supported morally,
psychologically, materially, and intellectually in their efforts.
The kind of knowledge children most need is the knowledge
that will help them get more knowledge.” [24]
An example which illustrates the power and advantages of constructivism

over instructivism in learning mathematics can be taken from the
experiences of Shamia, an 8- year-old girl who attended an “alternative”
community school. Shamia’s project included using LogoWriter, a
constructionist tool that used the Logo software as its basis. During the
course of her class project, Shamia had to create a rainbow for the sky for
the animation she was creating. Creating the rainbow was an illustrative
part of her work because the process required her to pose her own
questions concerning several mathematical ideas, including decimals, the
geometry of circles, relationships between division and multiplication, and
linear relationships. She became enchanted about thinking about these
ideas in order to design a procedure to draw her rainbow. With initial
guidance from her mentor, Shamia developed her “rainbow maker” by
trying out different ideas, testing which ones worked, and debugging those

that didn’t. In the end, she developed a deep knowledge of the
mathematical skills that were needed to implement her project, and she
was very excited to learn and apply these skills to a project that she
initiated and owned. Resnick reflects:
“Some teachers might have designed other activities for

Shamia when it became clear that she was struggling to figure
out factors of 180 or relationships between shapes of different
sizes. They might have interpreted her struggle as an
opportunity to pose tasks for her such as describing patterns in
tables of numbers or comparing perimeters of the same shape
in different sizes. The motivation behind these strategies
could have been to help Shamia learn what she needs to know
if order to be able to figure out the answer to her question.
This kind of teaching, however, would have required Shamia
to suspend the path of thinking that she had formed on her
own. This pedagogical choice would have taken her away
from the path of learning that she had constructed for herself,
requiring her instead to engage in a teacher’s path requiring
her trust that it lead her to the answers she wanted.” [31]
With this philosophy, the challenge for the Epistemology and Learning
Group is to create new tools and environments that engage learners in
construction, invention, and experimentation. As Prof. Resnick describes,
“the process involves (at least) two levels of design: educators need to
design things that allow students to design things.” [31] The MIT
Programmable Brick was such a tool; it was designed to facilitate the
adoption of constructionism.
In education today, the instructivist approach prevails. In promoting the

constructivist approach, Drs. Papert and Resnick face an uphill battle of
going against the established norm. The challenge is to convince educators
that, while their current teaching strategies work and produce results, there
is a different and perhaps better way to educate students. There is an
expected resistance to change—an attitude of “if it ain't broke, don't fix it”
amongst educators. Furthermore, mere adoption of constructionist tools is
no guarantee of the acceptance of the underlying philosophy behind them.
Another challenge that the Epistemology and Learning Group faces is

ensuring their tools and technologies are correctly promoted and adopted
in educational institutions. Proper adoptio n dictates that teachers should
not simply hand students recipes on how to build creations. Students
should go off on their own and teach themselves how to build things that
they are interested in. Thus, the correct promotion of the Programmable
Brick is important. The brick was designed to be gender and age neutral,
so as to appeal to a wide range of children to use in a variety of ways.

Members of the Epistemology and Learning group wanted the brick to be
promoted and used as such. [29]
3.3 From Corporation to Academia and Back Again

In 1985, Dr. Papert, Dr. Resnick, and Steve Ocko formed Microworlds
Learning, Inc. and began working on a new type of “toy.” They
envisioned a construction set that would allow children to build things and
machines, as they had done for years with erector sets, Tinker Toys, and
Lego bricks, but with additional functionality: users would be able to
animate the creations they had built. They wanted to enable children to
build things in the real world and control them on PCs using computer
programs that the children themselves had written. They chose LEGO
bricks over the other kits because they were more “playful” and worked
well as a system. One could easily build a wide variety of mobile objects
using gears, motors, and other things that LEGO was already
manufacturing. LEGO bricks also embodied a “low-barrier to entry and
high-ceiling” design goal that the group valued. They were simple enough
that novice users could easily pick up how to use them, but they enabled
experienced users to build whatever they imagined, with few constraints.
[29, 19]
In the fall of 1985, Papert, Resnick, and their team began collaborating
with the LEGO Company. LEGO was interested in their work. LEGO and
Microworlds shared the same constructivist learning philosophy and were
both intrigued by the novel uses of their system. [29] The Microworlds
team began linking LEGO building bricks with the Logo programming
language, in a combination that they called LEGO/LOGO. Daniel
Bobrow, Wallace Feurzeig, and Seymour Papert developed Logo in the
late 1960s as a programming language for children. It was chosen because
the Microworlds team was particularly familiar with it. It was also a
learning-oriented language with a simple but powerful syntax that
embodied the “low barrier, high ceiling” design philosophy. In 1986,
Papert and Resnick moved to the MIT Media Laboratory, where they
formed the Epistemology and Learning Group. Resnick became a graduate
student of the lab and continued his research on LEGO/LOGO.
Furthermore, he studied StarLogo, a programmable modeling environment
which he designed to help students explore decentralized systems and self-
organizing phenomena. At the same time, LEGO became a founding
sponsor of the Lab, indirectly funding the research of the Epistemology
and Learning Group. Thus, the nascent technology was transferred from
private corporate hands into the academic arena through a wholesale
movement of people.

The first generation of the Programmable Brick was developed by 1989. It
was named the “6502 Programmable Brick” because of the
microprocessor it used. It was wireless—meaning that it was not tethered
to a desktop computer—and ran its own LOGO interpreter. The second
generation brick, dubbed the “grey” brick, or the “Pocket Programmable
Brick”, was designed in 1995. The “grey” brick was smaller, more
portable, and more flexible. It facilitated multiple paths of entry to kids, so
that it could appeal to kids for a variety of reasons. However, because it
was very difficult and expensive to produce in quantity, it was only used
in small numbers. Development continued, and the “Red Programmable
Brick”, or the “Model 120 Programmable Brick,” was designed in 1996.
(There was also an earlier, intermediate prototype called Model 100 which
Dr. Martin used in a teacher workshop in 1995). It maintained several of
the important design features of the “grey” brick, but was more
“economical and robust,” to improve it's suitability for use in classrooms.
Currently, the Epistemology and Learning Group has developed

“Crickets,” a smaller, more flexible version of the Programmable Brick.
Crickets are currently in use today by the Epistemology and Learning
Group, as they are smaller, more economical (e.g. cheaper to product), and
can support a wide variety of different sensors.
Figure 3.1 The “Red” MIT Programmable Brick, circa 1996, developed by the
Epistemology and Learning Group at the MIT Media Laboratory.
3.4 Design Decisions and Tradeoffs

The MIT Programmable Brick was designed to be flexible. The design
team wanted the Brick to be able support multiple activities. This was

motivated by the fact that different kids have different interests; the
engineers realized that they could not predict things that will fascinate
different groups of kids with dissimilar backgrounds. Also, enabling the
Brick to be used for a variety of activities facilitated numerous children,
with different interests, linking up and combining their talents to make
new projects. [19]
An example that illustrates the importance of this design goal was an

experience at The Computer Museum in Boston, where Randy Sargent
attempted to interest junior high school students to use the brick to make
musical instruments. The students lost interest quickly, and were drawn to
a LEGO train set at the other end of the room. The programmable brick
could be interfaced to the train as well, and once it was, the kids became
much more interested in programming. [34]
The programmable brick attempted to connect computing to the “real

world” in as broadly and deeply as possible. It had to be able to act and
react to it’s environment, and the more ways the brick could sense, the
wider the variety of activities it could be used for. Thus, the brick was
wireless—it no longer required a “tether” to a desktop computer when
running, and thus, it had its own processor and programming environment.
Having several input/output (I/O) modalities, such as light, sound and

temperature sensors, was another important design choice for the brick.
Besides increasing the number of ways the brick could be used, this also
allowed multiple bricks to interact with one another. The number of I/O
ports to integrate on the brick was controversial. There was pressure to
increase the number to facilitate more flexibility. However, there was also
pressure to decrease the number to make the brick simple, cheap and easy
to make. In the end, the conflict was resolved in the final implementation
process. The “grey” brick had eight sensor ports and four motor ports,
omnidirectional infrared input and output, and 8-bit sound input and
output. The “red” brick was an effort at a more economical model with
similar functionality. It had six input ports and four motor ports, simple
infrared input, and sound output; other features could be added via
external devices, such as a microphone or infrared output. These design
decisions were much in keeping with the overall vision for the project as
kids did not have to limit their creations to things inside a desktop
computer or to things that had to be connected to a computer. Their
creations could be “alive” and interact with other objects in the real world.
The brick was designed to “break children free” from the desktop
computer mentality, and bring them to a ubiquitous computing world, in
which computers are connected to and spread throughout the environment.
Children were empowered to be architects and engineers, and not just
simple users. [19]

Several programming environments were considered for use with the
programmable brick. Environments considered included traditional, text-
based programming languages, as well as graphical programming
languages. The first two generations of the brick were programmed using
a text-based Logo interface. [21]
While this was very powerful, children were somewhat slow to learn the
language [19]. In order to more fully satisfy the “low barrier” design goal,
Andy Begel, under the direction of Dr. Resnick and Brian Silverman,
implemented LogoBlocks, a graphical version of the interface. [18]
Students could program the brick by arranging the blocks on the screen.
Each one represented an action (“turn on motor 1”), an element of control
logic (“loop 5 times”), or the value of a sensor, a number, or a whole user-
defined procedure. Blocks take input from and give output to each other;
they define a program that is compiled into byte-code and then
downloaded to and run on the brick’s microcontroller.
LogoBlocks made it difficult to produce more sophisticated programs,

however, and so later research produced a hybrid interface that was both
“low-barrier” and “high-ceiling.” In the hybrid, any program can be
viewed in either form—as a text program or in graphical form, regardless
of how it was constructed. It gives beginners the advantage of an easy
graphical interface, but also allow them to learn LOGO syntax as they go
along, and eventually move to text-based coding as they become more
sophisticated.
Figure 3.2 The LogoBlocks graphical programming environment for the MIT
Programmable Brick, developed by the Epistemology and Learning Group.
This group of engineers has thus seemingly changed course several times
with regard to the number of inputs and outputs, and the emphasis on text-

based or graphical interfaces. While the optimal tradeoffs on these spectra
for a given application (if any actually exist at all) may have eventually
been found, the winding roads seemed mostly to be the result of historical
accident. There’s nothing to say that someone couldn't have invented a
graphical programming language, and only later realized it could be
integrated with LOGO. The Epistemology and Learning Group might
have maximized for economy first and flexibility later, and might (or
might not) have ended up with the same product in the end. Regardless, as
we shall see shortly, the LEGO Company, which had many (but not all) of
the same goals, took the same technology in a slightly different direction.
The choices that the Epistemology and Learning Group made were driven
not by some overarching vision ha tched at Microworlds or upon arrival at
the Media Laboratory. Instead, the force driving change was the lessons
that the group was learning from trying to design and produce the bricks,
and from watching children play and create with them.
3.5 From Programmable Brick to LEGO Mindstorms

The collaboration between LEGO and the researchers of the Epistemology
and Learning Group started in 1985, shortly after the founding of
Microworlds. The President of LEGO had read Papert’s Mindstorms, and
realized that the two groups shared similar convictions about how children
learn. Furthermore, LEGO was interested in and intrigued by the novel use
of their system. [29]
Once the project moved to the Laboratory, researchers were freed by the
Lab’s legal arrangements from consideration to issues of intellectual
property on a daily basis. Designs and papers produced by the lab were to
be published openly. As a lab sponsor, LEGO had acquired the rights to
make commercial derivatives royalty- free. This allowed the two groups to
more freely share ideas and concentrate more on engineering and
experimentation, rather than on issues of ownership. [22]
Dr. Resnick described the relationship between the two groups as “very
open.” Dr. Resnick further stated that his research group never had to
compromise in its philosophical ideals in its relationship with LEGO.
Despite the shared intellectual and evangelical mission of the two groups,
there were differences in emphasis.
For example, at the time the decision was made to commercialize

Mindstorms, LEGO could have invested the resources to develop a hybrid
graphical/text programming interface [21]. Instead, LEGO went with a
LogoBlocks- like GUI, emphasizing the ease of use critical to enjoyment
of its products. (The company is now actively pursuing the incorporation
of the latest hybrid technology into the next generation of Mindstorms to

achieve a “high ceiling” of utility.) It is possible that the existence of this
“low barrier” interface contributed to LEGO’s decision to go ahead with
Mindstorms.
The Mindstorms software is revealing of perhaps part of this motivation.

It contains a considerable amount of audio narration, animation, and video
footage documenting the use of interface and the construction of RCX-
based LEGO robots. One quickly realizes that consumers, unlike the
students participating in research experiments, will not have the advantage
of an experienced, MIT-trained engineer familiar with the operation of the
system. LEGO needs to explicitly deliver to the consumer much of the
tacit knowledge that Epistemology and Learning personnel would
otherwise convey. As such, they appear to have successfully done so
through the creative use of high-bandwidth multimedia channels.
When asked what about the Mindstorms kit he would change, Brian
Silverman spoke about the interface. “[The Mindstorms software] was
designed by people who make video games,” he said. A simpler, less
distracting design would have been appropriate, to allow children to
“focus more on building rather than playing with the software.”
Silverman preferred the more minimalist interface that LogoBlocks
offered, which would not distract users or impede their creativity by
suggesting that they build the sample robots featured in the “how-to”
videos inc luded on the Mindstorms CD-ROM. [36]
The immediate social context of the technologies’ development and end-

user environment played a direct role in defining and shaping deliverables.
MIT and LEGO also made different choices in some places. Other
differences in approach and implementation will be discussed in Section
4.3.2.
LEGO used the mature Red Programmable Brick as a prototype for

Mindstorms. However, they designed their equivalent, the RCX brick,
from scratch. Silverman explained, “We really didn't know anything
about production engineering. LEGO needed to make [their] product cost-
effective and robust, and the Programmable Brick really wasn’t geared
towards that.” [36]
How did the actual “technology transfer” work? As mentioned in Chapter

1, it was not solely a matter of transferring design documents from one
building to another; nor was it unidirectional.
There was a two-way flow of information—and more importantly—

people between the two groups. Allan Tofte, an engineer from LEGO,
spent six months with the Epistemology and Learning Group, learning the
technology, contributing extensively to the circuit- level evolution of the

brick, and facilitating the transition from a research project into a
commercial product. Allan Tofte was the principal technical link between
the Group and LEGO [19]. The Media Laboratory, in turn, sent team
member Kwin Kramer to Denmark to work on ideas that led to the RCX
Code programming environment, which was based on Begel's LogoBlocks
program.
In 1994 (in the “red” brick era), Dr. Martin collaborated with elementary
and high school teachers in the design and assessment of curricula for
introducing the technology to classrooms. LEGO specifically consulted
these educators in determining the necessary specs for the RCX brick.
They decisively contributed to the decision to include an on-board LCD
(which was a relatively expensive feature) so that kids could review
sensors values in the field.
The LEGO relationship with the Epistemology and Learning Group

continues to thrive today. LEGO employees visit (either personally or
electronically) with Epistemology and Learning and the other groups at
the lab on a regular basis to talk about the latest research, discuss
directions for new products, and generally “breathe the air” [3].
Epistemology and Learning Group researchers also visit LEGO
headquarters in Denmark for the same reasons.
3.6 Success and Spinoffs

In terms of achieving Epistemology and Learning’s mission to create new
tools for thinking and learning in ne w ways, the Programmable Brick has
been a celebrated success. As a result of the Mindstorms spin-off, the
Programmable brick one of the Media Laboratory’s most famous projects.
The well-attended Mindfest conference—dubbed as a “gathering of
playful inventors,” held in 1999, drew enthusiasts from all around the
world, and is just one example of this popularity.
The presence of hundreds of thousands of Mindstorms and other LEGO-

produced kits in homes and RoboLabs (a related LEGO product) in
classrooms worldwide is a major victory for the proponents of
constructionist learning. But as previously mentioned, many teachers still
use the toys in an instructionist fashion. These teachers tell kids what to
build and how to build it. This was not a flaw in LEGO’s marketing of its
product, though members of the Epistemology and Learning Group were
concerned about how teachers were using the product in their classrooms
[22].
Dr. Resnick is personally involved in directly promoting constructionist

learning to underprivileged children and their teachers through the

Computer Clubhouse project, sponsored by the Intel Corporation.
Children are given access to a rich “invention workshop” environment,
including LEGO/LOGO systems, computer workstations, and professional
and academic mentors. They are also given the freedom to dream up and
implement their own projects. The program is also attempting to bridge a
perceived “gender gap” by establishing Mondays as “Girls Day” at the
clubhouse, so that female students may increase their confidence
expressing themselves with the new technologies.
Dr. Martin adopted the programmable brick (as part of his Ph.D thesis,
under the direction of Dr. Resnick) for use in higher education. MIT’s
wildly popular annual 6.270 contest employs a higher-power version of
the LEGO/LOGO system that AI-savvy engineering students push to its
computational limits. The freedom to design and program their own
robots does carry a large element of the constructivist philosophy, even
though the problem to be solved is given by the teaching staff. (Though
students never seem to have a problem finding the project personally
relevant in a constructionist sense- the class is always quite oversubscribed
and participants and audience members quite enthusiastic.)
Figure 3.3 Prototype version of the Cricket, a much smaller version of the MIT
Programmable Brick.
Source: Fred Martin
Bakhtiar Mikhak noted another interesting property of the Cricket system,

the smaller, easily networkable, and highly mobile next- generation
programmable brick. The incredible flexibility of the system to assume
almost any physical shape and adopt a wide variety of programmed
behaviors, combined with a growing variety of sensors and actuators,
makes the system a very versatile rapid prototyping tool. Mikhak has
demonstrated the Crickets in this context to both LEGO toy designers and
Media Lab researchers in other groups. Both experienced “wow, I never
would have done that!” moments as they experimented recreating old
projects in the new, more flexible medium, or implementing spontaneous

ideas. The critical phenomenon here is a tight iterative feedback loop
between person and technology, which puts the long-term design process
in an interesting perspective. Mikhak also emphasized the importance of
“feeling out” a particular part of the design space in generating exciting
self- inspired discoveries in this way [21].
Future directions for the Programmable Brick include an embedded

programming interface (housed in a Nintendo Gameboy or Microsoft
PocketPC) to allow quick debugging in the field—yet another example of
the “tight iterative feedback” model in action [18]. It is also notable in
this regard that the computing power of the PC, on its “technological
trajectory” in compliance with the so-called Moore's Law has so
completely surpassed the needs of this project that a mere handheld device
will now suffice.

The LEGO Company
4.0 The LEGO Company
The LEGO Company has a long history of valuing a learning-by-doing

methodology. Since 1949, the company has been producing the basic
plastic building blocks that are etched permanently in the minds of
millions of children. Researchers at the University of Chicago and MIT
argue that the elegance of the LEGO blocks (and an explanation for their
long-term success) is their simplicity; they have also studied and endorsed
the constructivist approach espoused by LEGO Dacta, the educational
division of the LEGO Company. LEGO’s affiliation with MIT
researchers and the Media Lab was instrumental in developing
Mindstorms, bringing the product to market, and guiding it since.
This chapter will explore the goals, history, and personalities at LEGO, as
well as its role in moving a technology from academia to market.
4.1 Company Background

Founded in 1932, the LEGO Company takes its name from the two Danish
words LEg GOdt meaning “play well.” The toy maker continues to be
family owned and operated. The Dutch toy company’s current president,
Kirk Christensen, is the grandson of the original founder. LEGO’s web
site boasts:
“The concept of “Play Well” continues to serve as the

philosophy for all LEGO products today. A philosophy
encouraging children to be open and curious. To stimulate
their creativity, imagination and learning – while they’re
having fun.” [12]
As found in several corporate press releases, “In concrete terms, our goal
is for the LEGO brand to be known as the strongest brand in the world
among families with children by 2005.” [12] To this end, LEGO is
explicitly laying out one of its goals or objectives. The following section
will detail other such objectives and will provide context for engineering
decisions influences by decidedly non-technical factors.
4.1.1 Educational Philosophy
The Dacta group, as the educational division of LEGO, is specifically

charged with directing its operations in the educational arena. The group
designs toys that encourage students to use their creativity and natural

The LEGO Company
curiosity through hands-on experiences. The philosophy embodied in the

group’s work is the same constructivist philosophy detailed in Section 3.2
In particular, the Dacta Group believes that:
1. children learn best by doing or making…

2. learning should be an enjoyable, as well as an educational,
experience…
3. extensive scientific research into fields such as cognition,
psychology, evolutionary psychology, and epistemology
support these beliefs…
As reiterated by all members of the group we interviewed, LEGO’s

constructivist approach to learning is a very close match with the
philosophy of choice at the MIT Media Laboratory’s Epistemology and
Learning Group. This played an important role in laying the groundwork
for the long-standing relationship between the LEGO Company and the
Media Lab.
Once again, however, different institutional realities mean different

priorities. As a corporation responsible to its owners, LEGO must
consider financial viability in its choice and design of products. (Over its
nearly seventy- year history, the company has only failed to be profitable
in one year, 1997.) Additionally, as a product-oriented company, its
public image is important. To this end, LEGO must consider public
relations impact resulting from business decisions. We shall soon see how
these organizational priorities manifest themselves in the design decisions
of the Mindstorms RCX brick.
4.1.2 Previous Artificial Intelligence Toy Efforts
On previous occasions, LEGO has released artificially intelligent toys to

its educational customers, including TC Logo and Control Labs. These
toys both aimed to teach children to learn new things in new ways. In a
sense, they may be considered early ancestors of LEGO’s programmable
brick undertaking. LEGO’s own hindsight revealed that several
“constraints” were manifest in the very design of these early iterations.
Specifically, both were extremely dependent upon the PCs with which
they interacted. The “programming language” allowed little in the way of
flexibility and a very low ceiling. Moreover, these early AI toys were
tethered. That is, they were connected to the PC via a communications
wire at all times. Mitchel Resnick, of the MIT Media Laboratory,
remarked that this “imposed both physical and imaginative constraints.”
[29]

The LEGO Company
Robert Rasmussen, LEGO representative and liaison to the MIT Media

Lab, remarked that LEGO’s decision to work with the programmable
brick represented a “natural progression” for the toy company.
4.2 LEGO and the Media Lab: The Decision to

Commercialize
While much of the relationship between the LEGO Company and the MIT
Media Lab is detailed in Section 3.5, this history has not yet examined
LEGO’s decision to commercialize the programmable brick. This section
will briefly explore what influenced this decision.
As LEGO had been working hand- in-hand with the Media Lab for years
on the brick, the toy company continued to be well aware of the
technology. LEGO, itself, offered input on the development path of the
brick, and worked beside the MIT researchers to determine how children
learned from the toy. LEGO had long expressed interest in bringing such
a product to market. Its history with artificially intelligent toys made
LEGO a fantastic candidate for brick commercialization. By the early
nineties, some LEGO representatives had designs to do just this. Several
market conditions, however, prevented such an early release of the toy.
For one, a programming interface relied on a PC, which were not as
commonplace in homes and schools in 1990 as they were in 1998 (when
the product was actually released). Additionally, cost of materials was
much too high (e.g. memory, processing power, etc.) for modest pricing.
Lumped together, there was a lack of general market readiness for such a
product.
By the mid-1990s, the company was ready to move forward with

commercialization. Under the leadership of LEGO CEO Kirk Kristiansen
and LEGO Dacta VP Torbin Sorensen, money was allocated to fund such
a “programmable brick” project. This project was to be the Dacta Group’s
first to reach into the home educational (as opposed to school-based)
market. Kristiansen and Sorensen were advocates of high technology in
their new product development. As such, Mindstorms was given high
priority among LEGO research and development efforts.
4.3 Design Decisions / Trade-Offs

In order to best understand the design decisions or technical trade-offs
LEGO made, it is important to examine the product’s starting point, the
MIT programmable brick circa 1995. First, several key differences exist
in design philosophy. These are outlined in Figure 4.1

The LEGO Company
Figure 4.1 Differences in the design objects of the MIT Programmable Brick and LEGO
Mindstorms RCX Brick.
MIT Programmable Brick Lego Mindstorms RCX Brick

Robustness Designed for “concept.” As Designed for “production.” Any
the toy was in a constant marketed toy would have to
state of change, it did not withstand both an individual child’s
make sense to allocate too wear and tear as well as that of a
many resources to making it classroom environment.
“unbreakable,” as engineers
were available to repair
equipment.
Target All children. The 10 – 14 year old boys. While
Audience Epistemology and Learning adhering to a similar educational
Group was interested in philosophy, LEGO also maintained
exploring how “new a financial responsibility.
technologies could help [all] Executives felt the toy company’s
children learn new things in best bet was its bread-and-butter
new ways.” market.
Cost to End Mostly irrelevant. MIT was Important. LEGO hoped that
User decidedly not marketing a parents of 10-14 year old boys
commercial product. Media would be buying this product. As
Lab sponsors fully fund all such, a quest for a relatively low
research costs. retail price drove some design
decisions.
These differences in design philosophy drove many of the “changes”

evident between the “red” programmable brick and the RCX brick found
in the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System.
The balance of this section will examine some of the key physical and
non-physical differences of the two bricks and will include information on
some of the non-technical influences in the decision process.
4.3.1 Two Bricks, Side-By-Side
This section will serve to describe several of the differences between the
“grey” programmable brick, which is well documents in Randy Sargent’s
1995 M.S. thesis, and the RCX brick, which is available with the
Mindstorms commercialized kit.
Figures 4.2 and 4.3 (below) the MIT Programmable Brick and the LEGO
RCX Brick. Figure 4.4 (below) outlines several of the properties of the
two bricks. This information will serve as a basis for analysis of a few key
design decisions made by LEGO.

The LEGO Company
Figure 4.2 Some features of the “grey” MIT Programmable Brick, circa 1995.
Source: Randy Sargent’s MAS Master’s Thesis, 1995
Figure 4.3 Some features of the LEGO Mindstorms RCX Brick, circa 1998.
Source: LEGO Mindstorms Packaging

The LEGO Company
Figure 4.4 Properties of the “Grey” MIT Programmable Brick and LEGO RCX brick.
“Grey” MIT Lego Mindstorms RCX
Programmable Brick
Number of inputs 4 3
Number of outputs 4 3
Primary Brick Color Red Yellow
Secondary colors Black Black, Gray, Red, Green
LCD Screen? Yes Yes
Microphone? Yes No
Power Source 9V Battery 6 AA Batteries
Number of buttons 2 4
Brick-PC communication RJ-45 Infrared
Software Interface Logo (text only) RCX Code (GUI)
Target Audience All Children 10-14 year old boys
4.3.2 Discussion of Design Decisions
Two decisions the company made had a large impact on the final product:
the choice of a target audience and the design of the programming
interface.
Targeting an audience. While the ideal scenario would have LEGO

market its product (and its philosophy) to all children regardless of age or
gender, the necessity to realize a return on investment drove a decision to
market to a more specific segment. At the same time, executives at LEGO
felt that the toy company could hit a public relations “home run” if it
identified a target market and outsold expectations.
Once a decision was made to limit the target audience, the choice of 10-14
year old boys was an obvious one. This market segment has long been
LEGO’s “sweet spot.” Additionally, market research done by the toy
company indicated that boys would be more attracted to “computerized”
toys than girls would be. It should be noted that this finding does not
agree with what the Media Lab researchers found. Rather, Media Lab
researchers were explicated non- gender specific in designing the brick.
Moreover, they targeted equal numbers of boys and girls when performing
cognitive experiments field anecdotes from Media Lab researchers. [22]
The decision to market to 10-14 year old boys brought with it several
influences over brick design. Namely, the choice of colors (primarily
yellow and black, which mimicked a construction zone) [26] and the type
of sample applications (e.g. robots, etc.) [21] were directly related to the
target market. In a discussion about combative robots built with

The LEGO Company
Mindstorms, Media Lab researcher Bakhtiar Mikhak remarked, “We

[Epistemology and Learning Group researchers] would have never done
anything like that” [22].
Software point of entry: The programming interface. During early

development, researchers at the MIT Media Lab used the Logo
programming language as an interface with the programmable brick.
While precise, the language did not meet the expectations of the
researchers in terms of “low floor, high ceiling.” In terms of “low floor,”
it missed because the barrier to entry was too high for someone who had
never programmed before. In terms of “high ceiling,” it missed because it
lacked some characteristics such as multiple threads (though Dr. Resnick
later implemented MultiLogo to address this very problem.)
Before LEGO chose to commercialize the brick, the MIT researchers had
developed and deployed LogoBlocks, a graphical programming language
that allowed those without programming experience to program the brick.
This helped achieve the “low floor” goal for the language, but still did
little to address the “high ceiling.”
When LEGO moved forward with the Mindstorms project, it literally

borrowed people from the Media Lab to design a programming language
from the ground up. Kwin Kramer, then a Media Lab student, spent
several weeks in Denmark helping LEGO develop RCX Code—the
language used with the commercial brick. LEGO executives decided to
follow LogoBlocks example and chose to draw the functional
requirements for RCX Code from the previously implemented language.
The details were motivated largely by two factors: Media Lab successes
with LogoBlocks and children, and the products target audience.
4.4 Metrics for Success

As we have seen, LEGO made a particular set of business decisions which
took the RCX brick in a slightly different direction than its MIT
counterparts. While it would be difficult to predict the commercial
success of a “different” Mindstorms kit, we can (and will) evaluate the
marketed product against the company’s stated goals.
Mindstorms sales far exceeded LEGO’s expectations. In the first three

months of production, over 80,000 units were sold. [20] These numbers
prompted interested in add-on products. Several such products are
currently available ranging from the “Dark Side Development Kit” (based
on the popular Star Wars theme) to “Vision Command,” which
incorporates machine vision.

The LEGO Company
Mindstorms’ market is broader than anticipated. LEGO was surprised

to find that communities of adults and hackers of all ages have formed
around the product. Mindstorms has been featured several times on the
Slashdot website—a place frequented by numerous members of the
engineering community [35], and has been the subject of several recently
published books. A recent Associated Press article cited a LEGO
executive who attributed “a nearly 300 percent increase in Mindstorms
sales” to adults [20].
Constructivist learning has been deployed… sort of. While LEGO has
successfully sold hundreds of thousands of Mindstorms kits and add-ons,
it would be naïve to surmise that this represents a win for constructivism.
Both LEGO and Media Lab researchers have remarked that many
schoolteachers are not using the toy as intended (i.e. they are using it as an
“instructivist” toy, rather than a “constructivist” one.) [21]. On the one
hand, this may be considered a loss. On the other, though, the tools have
been deployed; this is a critical element involved in disseminating the
LEGO learning philosophy.

The MIT Media Laboratory
5.0 The MIT Media Laboratory: A Fostering

Environment
Each year, as many as 10,000 visitors tour the MIT Media Laboratory.
They see the various research groups’ work areas, which typically consist
of bean bags and stuffed animals sharing space with state-of-the-art video
monitors, circuit boards and radio transmitters. The unique architecture of
the building itself, named after one of the founders of the Laboratory,
then-MIT president Jerome Weisner, reveals some of the research ideals
and philosophies of the Laboratory.
The building incorporates large open spaces, with interior walls made of
glass, and offices furnished with movable furniture. This reflects the
Media Laboratory’s ideal of knowledge transfer—the sharing of
knowledge betweens the many disciplines that the Laboratory brings
together. This ideal of knowledge transfer can be seen in the role the MIT
Media Laboratory took in the development of the Programmable Brick
and LEGO Mindstorms—that of a facilitator for the relationship between
the Epistemology and Learning Group and LEGO.
Figure 4.3 The MIT Media Laboratory in Cambridge, MA.
A study of the MIT Media Laboratory helps explain how the MIT
Programmable Brick evolved and why the MIT Programmable Brick and
LEGO Mindstorms took the shape they did. We found that the Media
Laboratory exerted its influence both through facilitating the relationship
between Epistemology and Learning Group and LEGO and through

creating an environment where a unique group such as the Epistemology

and Learning Group could conduct their research in an effective manner.
The Epistemology and Learning Group might not even have existed if it
were not for the Media Lab. “It’s possible,” reflects Randall Pinkett, a
current Ph.D. candidate in Resnick’s group, “that our group would not
exist without the interdisciplinary focus of the lab” [25]. Pinkett points
out that in a traditional education research environment, there would not
be the necessary expertise or support to enable the technology-based
research in their group. Likewise, the educational research focus of
Resnick’s group would not fit perfectly in a strictly computer science
focused Laboratory.
The Media Laboratory’s emphasis on technology and knowledge transfer

between all parties involved also affected the development of the
Programmable Brick and LEGO Mindstorms. The sponsor - research
group relationship provided by the organizational infrastructure and
collaborative culture of the Media Laboratory allowed information, ideas,
and knowledge about the design of both products to flow between the
Epistemology Group and LEGO. In short, the Media Laboratory provided
the environment that enabled the Epistemology and Learning Group to
survive and cemented their relationship with the LEGO Company.
5.1 Interdisciplinary, Diversity, and Playfulness

Several of the over-arching goals of the Media Laboratory created an
environment where Resnick’s Group could flourish. The lab places a high
value on the generation of creative and innovative ideas. The Laboratory
has several characteristics that facilitate creativity, including the cross-
disciplinary nature of the Laboratory, the diversity of the Laboratory
members and sponsors, and the Laboratory’s emphasis of “playfulness.”
[10]
The Media Laboratory was founded initially with the aim of addressing
the convergence of computing, publishing, and broadcasting. What
resulted was a research laboratory with a strong focus on interdisciplinary
skills. Faculty members include physicists, computer scientists,
psychologists, linguists, historians, and visual and performing artists.
Bakhtiar Mikhak confirms that extensive cross-fertilization of ideas
between the various research groups of the Laboratory takes place.
Mikhak himself took the idea of creating a musical instrument utilizing the
electrical conductivity of Play-Doh, a popular brand of modeling clay, and
surprised his colleagues by quickly re-implementing it using Crickets
technology. [21]

In addition to the interdisciplinary focus of the Laboratory, the diversity of

Laboratory members and sponsors also contributed to the success of the
Programmable Brick and Mindstorms. This diversity is necessary for
adaptability and creativity [10]. Within the Epistemology and Learning
Group, numerous disciplines were represented. Dr. Resnick’s background
was in physics and science technology journalism, working for five years
for Business Week. Seymour Papert’s background is in mathematics and
was an early pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Fred Martin
studied Mechanical Engineering as an undergraduate at MIT.
Along with faculty diversity, sponsor diversity also aided the success of
the Programmable Brick. The Media Laboratory currently benefits from
over 160 corporate sponsors ranging from greeting card publishers to
microchip manufacturers [5]. Ken Haase describes the importance of
sponsor diversity in his essay entitled Why the Media Lab Works – A
Personal View:
“Creativity usually arises from the transfer of solutions

between domains, and a diversity of sponsors assures that [the
researchers at the Laboratory] will be thinking in many
different domains in the process of developing and packaging
our work.” [10]
A final aspect of the Laboratory that facilitates creativity is the emphasis

on playfulness [10]. Playfulness involves actively engaging in designing,
creating, and inventing – not just accessing or manipulating information
[28]. The Laboratory’s emphasis on playfulness was well-aligned both
how the Programmable Brick was developed as well as the very nature of
the Programmable Brick itself. As described earlier, the development of
the Brick was very much a “try it out” methodology. Likewise, the
purpose of the Programmable Brick and the LEGO Mindstorms project
was to promote a constructivist, hands-on method of learning. The Media
Laboratory provided a natural setting for the development of technologies
that accomplished these purposes.
5.2 Sensors, IP, and Trading Places

Another important aspect of the Media Laboratory that affected the
development of the Programmable Brick and LEGO Mindstorms was the
Laboratory’s enabling of the easy transfer of people, knowledge, and ideas
between Resnick’s research group and LEGO. The Laboratory facilitates
knowledge and idea transfer both between its various research groups and
between the Laboratory and its corporate sponsors.

The Laboratory’s unique sponsorship agreement encourages this transfer

of knowledge, ideas, and people between research groups and sponsors.
Instead of providing funding for a specific project or research group,
sponsors donate general funding used throughout the Laboratory. In
return, sponsors are given royalty-free access to any technology developed
by any group within the Laboratory. Media Lab Director of Community
and Sponsor Relations Debroah Cohen states that the value for the sponsor
revolves around the “Media Lab’s focus on developing enabling
technologies – technologies too far- fetched for companies to pursue in
traditional commercial [research and development] environments. [3]”
Research from the Media Laboratory many times proves a concept, or
develops a technology that could be applied to solutions of other
problems.
There are various levels of sponsorship within the Laboratory, including

the introductory level of Affiliate Sponsorship, which requires $100,000
donations per year for a minimum of three years, to the highest level of
sponsorship - Corporate Research Partner, of which LEGO is an example.
Corporate Research Partners fund larger research agendas of the
Laboratory including corporate fellows programs or special Laboratory
facilities. In addition to automatically becoming members of each Media
Laboratory Research Consortium, Corporate Research Partners are granted
the right to have an employee work within the Laboratory. The annual
budget for the Laboratory is approximately $35 million with over 90
percent coming from corporate sponsors. [38]
This unique sponsorship relationship grants researchers at the Laboratory

greater freedom in choosing a focus for their research. As Bakhtiar
Mikhak commented, “The Media Lab is a place where people can do what
they want to do. [21]” Indeed, without the pressure of a specific sponsor’s
demand for a specific product, researchers are able to focus their research
on more innovative, enabling technologies, rather than products with
immediate commercial value.
The intellectual property policies of the Laboratory also affected the

development of the project. Unlike other MIT Laboratories, which require
financial backing from a specific laboratory sponsor when filing a patent,
the Media Laboratory files its own patents. The Laboratory does this in an
effort to ensure the accessibility by all sponsors of all technologies
developed within the Laboratory. [38]
With the technology and ideas behind the Programmable Brick available
to all of the Laboratory’s sponsors, Resnick’s group was free of the
pressures of developing a product specifically for LEGO. Instead of

developing the Programmable Brick with the explicit intent of producing a

commercially viable product, the relationship between the Epistemology
and Learning Group and LEGO took on more of an idea-sharing
relationship. This seems to run contrary to the popular notion of what
research sponsors desire.
LEGO’s relationship with the laboratory started when the it first opened
its doors in 1985. Ms. Cohen further remarks that LEGO is the
Laboratory’s “best citizen sponsor,” referring the company’s high priority
on providing educational products. She further states that LEGO “has a
real commitment to learning and has many of the same philosophies as
[the Epistemology and Learning Group]. [3]”
As a Corporate Research Partner with the right to have an employee work

in the Laboratory, LEGO sent Alan Tofte to collaborate with Resnick’s
research group in 1995, as previously mentioned. Tofte contributed to the
development of the Programmable Brick, providing insights to design
specifications, just as any research assistant from the Media Laboratory
might do. However, Tofte also served as a liaison between LEGO and the
Epistemology and Learning Group, bringing back ideas and knowledge to
LEGO when the company decided to launch the commercialization effort
of Mindstorms.
This open flow of ideas, knowledge, and people facilitated by the Media
Laboratory directly affected the evolution of the Programmable Brick and
LEGO Mindstorms. It allowed different motivations of the different
parties involved to mix, shaping the development of the project. We see
specific examples of this exchange of ideas and influence in the inclusion
on the LEGO RCX brick of an LCD display, as discussed in Chapter 4.
5.3 Outreach
A final cultural aspect of the Media Laboratory was the goal of the lab to
foster an environment of community outreach. The Laboratory promotes
various forms of community outreach such as the Computer Clubhouse
program and the newly- formed Digital Nations consortium. The
Computer Clubhouse, started by Dr. Resnick, promotes the use of
technology to enable under-served youth to acquire the tools, problem
solving skills, and confidence for successful lives [4]. The Digital Nations
initiative aims to use technology to tackle some of the developing world’s
most vexing problems, like illiteracy, poor health and economic instability
[7].

The culture of community outreach evident in the Laboratory facilitated

the Epistemology and Learning Group’s need to receive feedback from
children who interacted with the Programmable Brick. Dr. Resnick’s
research group conducted numerous sessions with local school children, in
which the children were encouraged to interact with the Programmable
Brick, solving problems and developing new projects of their own. From
these sessions, the research group learned a great deal about the
programming interface and what specific aspects of the brick and the
problems presented were interesting to the children, as we see in Chapters
3 and 4.
5.4 Metrics for Success

In evaluating success of the Programmable Brick and Lego Mindstorms,
from the point of view of the MIT Media Laboratory, we must again
examine the goals of the organization in question and, from that,
extrapolate its metrics for measuring success.
One of the primary goals of the institution is to support its form of

operation, that is, an interdisciplinary model which promotes
collaboration, sharing of ideas and knowledge, and the idea of playfulness.
The successful commercialization of LEGO Mindstorms from the
Programmable Brick shows that by this metric, the Programmable Brick
project was a resounding success. The extensive sharing of ideas,
knowledge, and people between the Epistemology and Learning Group
and LEGO, facilitated by its sponsor relationship with the Laboratory,
supports the collaborative nature of the Laboratory’s research
methodology. Also, the playfulness exhibited in the development of the
Brick showed that this aspect of the Laboratory’s methodology, as did the
nature of the commercialized product itself.
The Media Laboratory can also point to the Programmable Brick and
LEGO Mindstorms as a success because it is an example of the Laboratory
producing tangible results. While the Laboratory is more focused with
enabling technologies than immediately applicable products, the
overwhelming commercial success of LEGO Mindstorms serves as an
important benchmark in the value proposition of the Laboratory. The
commercial success of LEGO Mindstorms can be viewed as a culmination
of a long, intimate relation between the Laboratory and one of its
sponsors. All of the individuals consulted for this study have agreed that
the existing relationship between LEGO and the Media Laboratory played
a key role in the eventual commercialization of the Programmable Brick.
LEGO Mindstorms showed that while the Media Laboratory is still a place
focused on technologies of the future, it can add significant, tangible value
in the present. [6]

Although there are many reasons to view Lego Mindstorms as a successful

product of the Media Laboratory, it can also be viewed as example of one
of the faults of the Laboratory. Many detractors criticize the Media
Laboratory for “getting an awful lot of attention just for churning out cute,
flashy toys. [5]” Technologies developed at the Laboratory “almost never
break technological ground, prove significant scientific theories or end up
as important products. [5]” Many view much of the research conducted at
the Media Laboratory as having questionable academic value, including
John Anderson of Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer
Interaction Institute, who states, “We all recognize and envy the high
profile the Media Lab has. We also recognize that some of the work is
kind of questionable. [5]”
While the Programmable Brick and LEGO Mindstorms cannot be viewed

as technologically groundbreaking or proof of a significant scientific
theory, from the points of view of both the Epistemology and Learning
Group and LEGO, they can be viewed as important products.
For the Epistemology and Learning Group, the Programmable Brick

served as an important product promoting the idea of constructivist
learning. The Programmable Brick also achieved Mitchel Resnick’s goal
of enabling children to learn things in new ways by providing a new
technology to do so.
In the eyes of LEGO, Mindstorms was a huge success. Not only did the
commercial success play a large part in improving the financial situation
of the company, the release of Mindstorms marked LEGO’s targeting of a
new market for its educational products. Mindstorms was the first product
developed by LEGO Dacta, the educational branch of LEGO, to be
marketed to the home-education market as well as the strictly educational
market.

Synthesis
6.0 Synthesis
From Microworlds to the Media Laboratory, to LEGO, to homes and

schools, the wireless Programmable Brick changed social contexts several
times. It moved physically and intellectually from person to person and
group to group, taking an imprint of each and contributing a little
something back each time. Each group of people had different aspirations
for the technology, which is why it evolved in so many different
directions, and why there are so many different ideas of why it was or was
not successful.
If there is one lesson from this case study, it is that design is an entirely,
goal-driven process. No engineer can work effectively without some way
to measure, however incompletely, how close they are to being finished.
Nor will they necessarily know where to go next until they have built a
prototype and watched someone try to use it. People and technology are
both integral parts of the system to be engineered and one cannot be fully
evaluated in the absence of the other.

Appendix
7.0 Appendix: The Media Laboratory as a Solution

to the Innovator’s Dilemma
The story of the MIT Programmable Brick’s evolution into LEGO

Mindstorms can also be treated in the context of a theoretical framework
we have not so far introduced.
Clayton Christensen, in his book The Innovator's Dilemma, discusses the

danger to a business presented by so-called “disrupted technologies” [2].
These are low-performance, low-profit products which thrive in
alternative markets and at first, for that reason pose no particular threat.
However, over time, development effort translates into higher
performance, undermining the higher-profit “sustaining technologies” that
business tend to focus on in response to customer demand. [2]
The MIT Programmable Brick was not a low-performance version of older

LEGO tethered-robot technologies. It was really just an advancement on
the older technology, albeit potentially non-obvious and motivated by
research and educational goals. So it does not entirely fit the model of a
“disruptive technology.” On the other hand, it was thriving in an
alternative arena, and it was receiving Research and Development dollars
and attention.
Christensen recommends that companies concerned about successfully

identifying disruptive technologies establish autonomous subsidiaries.
These subsidiaries would be freed from red tape and a need to directly
serve customer demand, and would be provided with resources and a
mandate to innovate new products and cultivate them in new markets [2].
In some sense, the Media Laboratory fits this mold. While LEGO
obviously does not own the Laboratory, it does provide both financial and
intellectual resources to it, and is allowed royalty- free access to its
innovations, just as it would a research subsidiary.
The Laboratory clearly has the freedom to do undirected research without

the need to please any particular set of customers. It also frees, as much as
possible, its employees from the bureaucratic process of justifying
resources spent, and actively encourages “playful” endeavors into new
areas. The Media Lab has a mission to identify technologies that will be
important in the next generation of engineering artifacts, and to be a
hotbed for plans to recombine existing technologies in novel ways. For
sponsors concerned about identifying new technologies that could affect
their business, keeping in touch with developments at the lab would seem
to be an excellent first step in that discovery process. There is an inside

Appendix
joke at the lab that best illustrates this: “We [at the Lab] get paid to fail
where our sponsors cannot afford to do so.” [3]
Contrary to what many people might think, not every Media Laboratory
sponsor necessarily needs such direct inspiration for so-called
”enabling” products as LEGO happens to have garnered. Merely being
party to gossip about new technologies and seeing them explored in a non-
dismissive fashion might be important enough to a company's well-being
to justify dollars spent on undirected research. The Media Lab provides a
common vehicle for many companies to participate in this process all at
once, while at the same time serving an interdisciplinary academic role.

Acknowledgements
8.0 Acknowledgements
This project history and case study was fun and inspiring; many of us had
not had the opportunity to demonstrate and reflect on our playful creativity
with LEGOs for more than a decade and were grateful for having the
opportunity to do so again. To that end, we would like to thank the
following people for helping to make this study possible:
From the Epistemology and Learning Group at the MIT Media
Laboratory:
Professor Mitchel Resnick
Dr. Fred Martin
Dr. Bakhtiar Mikhak
Brian Silverman
Randall Pinkett
From the MIT Media Laboratory:

Debroah Cohen
Elizabeth Yonda
Deborah Widner
From the LEGO Company:

Robert Rasmussen

Appendix
9.0 References
1. Bender, Walter. “Learning and Expressing” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 39, Nos.
3&4, 2000.
2. Christensen, Clayton. The Innovator’s Dilemma. Harper Collins, 1997.
3. Cohen, Deborah. Director of Community and Sponsor Relations, MIT Media
Laboratory. Personal Interview. November 15, 2000
4. Computer Clubhouse Web Site. http://www.computerclubhouse.org (Visited on
November 29, 2000).
5. Freedman, David. “The Media Lab at a Crossroads”. MIT Technology Review.
September, 2000.
6. Guernsey, Lisa. “From Lab to Real Life.” New York Times, November 9, 2000.
7. Guernsey, Lisa. “M.I.T. Media Lab at 15: Big Ideas, Big Money” New York
Times, November 9, 2000.
8. Gershenfeld, Neil. When Things Start to Think. Holt Co., New York, NY. 1999.
9. Harel, Idit & Papert, Seymour. Constructionism: research reports and essays.
Blex Corp. 1991.
10. Hasse, Kenneth. “Why the Media Lab Works—A Personal View” IBM Systems
Journal, Vol. 39, Nos. 3&4, 2000.
11. Kafai, Yasmin & Resnick, Mitchel. “Constructionism in Practice. Designing,
Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World.” Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
1996.
12. LEGO Company Info and History Web Site. http://www.lego.com/info/history/
(Visited on November 28, 2000).
13. LEGO Mindstorms Web Site. http://www.mindstorms.com/ (Visited on
November 29, 2000).
14. Mackenzie, Donald. Inventing Accuracy, A Historical Sociology of Nuclear
Missile Guidance. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1990.
15. Martin, Fred. “LEGO/Logo and Electronic Bricks: Creating a Scienceland for
Children.” Accessible on the web at
http://fredm.www.media.mit.edu/people/fredm/papers/nato/nato.html. (August 1,
1990).
16. Martin, Fred. “Circuits to Control: Learning Engineering by Designing LEGO
Robots”. PhD dissertation, MIT Media Laboratory, 1994.
17. Martin, Fred. “Kids Learning Engineering Science using LEGO and the
Programmable Brick.” In the proceedings of AERA 1996 Annual Meeting. April
6, 1996
18. Martin, Fred and Mikhak, Bakthiar; Silverman Brian. “MetaCricket: A designer’s
kit for making computational devices.” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 39, Nos. 3&4,
1996.

Appendix
19. Martin, Fred. Former Research Scientist, Epistemology and Learning Group,
MIT Media Laboratory. Personal Interview. November 1, 2000
20. Mendoza, Martha. Techies Build Household Appliances From Little Plastic
Bricks. Associated Press. March 27, 2000.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/logo000327.html
21. Mikhak, Bakthiar. Research Scientist, Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT
Media Laboratory. Personal Interview. November 9, 2000.
22. Mikhak, Bakthiar. Research Scientist, Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT
Media Laboratory. Personal Interview. December 5, 2000.
23. Papert, Seymour. Mindstorms. Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas.
HarperCollins. 1993.
24. Papert, Seymour. The Children's Machine. Rethinking School in the Age of the
Computer. HarperCollins. 1993.
25. Pinkett, Randall. Research Assistant, Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT
Media Laboratory. Personal Interview. Dec. 12, 2000.
26. Rasmussen, Robert. Vice President, the LEGO Company. Personal Interview
Nov. 27, 2000.
27. Resnick, Mitchel; Berg, Robbie; Eisenberg, Michael; Turkle, Sherry. “Beyond
Black Boxes:
Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Instruments.” 1997.
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/papers/mres/black-box/proposal.html
28. Resnick, Mitchel. “It’s Not Just Information” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 39,
Nos. 3&4, 2000.
29. Resnick, Mitchel. Research Director an LEGO Professor of Learning Research,
Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Laboratory. Personal Interview.
October 30, 2000.
30. Resnick, Mitchel; Martin, Fred; Sargent, Randy; Silverman, Brian.
“Programmable Bricks: Toys to think with”. IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 35, Nos.
3&4, 1996.
31. Resnick, Mitchel. "Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams." The MIT Press. 1997.
32. Resnick, Mitchel. Dr. Resnick’s Web Page.
http://mres.www.media.mit.edu/people/mres/. (Visited on November 29, 2000).
33. Rothstein, Edward. “In a Child’s Tiny Bricks, the Logic of Computers” New
York Times. October 23, 1999.
34. Sargent, Randy. The Programmable LEGO Brick: Ubiquitous Computing for
Kids. Master’s Thesis, Media Arts and Sciences. Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1995.
35. Slashdot Web Site. http://www.slashdot.com. (Visited on December 12, 2000).
36. Silverman, Brian. Visiting Research Scientist, Epistemology and Learning
Group, MIT Media Laboratory. Personal interview. December 11, 2000.

Appendix
37. TinyVM Web Site. http://tinyvm.sourceforge.net/ (Visited on November 28,

2000).
38. Yonda, Elizabeth. Media Laboratory Intellectual Property Coordinator. Personal
Interview. November 16, 2000.
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LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 2

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 3

users have created numerous Internet web sites, featuring blueprints on

Source: LEGO Mindstorms Hall of Fame

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 4

The story behind LEGO Mindstorms is, in reality, a fascinating narrative

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 5

2.0 Structure of an Engineering (R)evolution

2.1 The Fallacy of Technological Determinism

In his book, Inventing Accuracy, Donald MacKenzie encounters a similar

Teams of scientist and engineers do and inevitably will

McKenzie terms the notion that technology has a “natural path”

We find in this project history that different organizations, with different

Unlike MacKenzie's example of ever-growing accuracy nuclear missile

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 6

2.2 Technology Transfer and Academic Research

What do those sponsors find valuable in that relationship? LEGO

Perhaps more important to sponsors than access to prototype ideas and

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 7

3.0 The Epistemology and Learning Group

Formed in 1985 as a founding group at the MIT Media Laboratory, the

3.1.1 Dr. Seymour Papert

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 8

In the 1970's, Papert co-created Logo, a computer language so intuitive

Papert’s contributions go beyond the field of education. Along with Dr.

3.1.2 Dr. Mitchel Resnick

Dr. Resnick is the LEGO Papert Associate Professor of Learning Research

Dr. Resnick received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 9

“The two of them - Hal Abelson and Seymour Papert -

3.1.3 Students and Colleagues

3.2 The Philosophy of the Epistemology and Learning

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 10

The constructionist approach creates an environment in which students act

The constructionist approach also creates an environment in which

“In classes where we have run the LEGO/Logo Soap Box

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 11

Papert contrasts the constructionist approach with instructionism, which

“Constructionism is built on the assumption that children will

An example which illustrates the power and advantages of constructivism

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 12

“Some teachers might have designed other activities for

In education today, the instructivist approach prevails. In promoting the

Another challenge that the Epistemology and Learning Group faces is

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 13

3.3 From Corporation to Academia and Back Again

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 14

Currently, the Epistemology and Learning Group has developed

3.4 Design Decisions and Tradeoffs

LEGO Mindstorms: The Structure of an Engineering (R)evoloution 15

An example that illustrates the importance of this design goal was an

The programmable brick attempted to connect computing to the “real