LEGO MINDSTORMS
TECH TOY OF THE YEAR
The warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia was strong with Nintendo and Lego this year, so it’s no surprise to see the pair dominating this category. Our eventual winner is the second coming of a robotics brand that helped save Lego in the 1990s. Even though the term ‘educational toy’ should strike fear into the heart of every kid, the new Mindstorms Robot Inventor is a 5-in-1 kit of coding creations that our eager six-year-old tester couldn’t put down. Top of the bots out of Lego’s fivesome was Charlie, a square-jawed tyke who trundles around on two wheels, but every Mindstorms creation is packed with character to make this a very worthy winner – plus there’s plenty of support for extending the kits if your future engineers want to go off script.