CAREFUL ’BOT YOU WISH FOR
HOT FOUR #4
Lego Mindstorms Robot Inventor
The silence is always the warning. The calm before the storm. Something big must be imminent when the noise stops… and robot uprisings are no different. So after seven years of absence, Lego Mindstorms is back with this 949-piece kit combining classic brick-building with elements of coding and robotics. The instructions included will help you to make Blast (pictured), a dart-firing action hero who hammers through obstacles; Gelo, a stunt-pulling four-legged critter; Tricky, your very own robo-Ronaldo; MVP, short for Modular Vehicle Platform; and Charlie, a dancing ’bot who loves playing the drums and dishing out high fives. But as everybody knows, Lego is all about indulging your imagination, so the inclusion of four motors plus colour and distance sensors and the Robot Inventor app means there’s scope here for even more creativity than usual. The app, available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and some Fire tablets, covers the basics of drag’n’drop coding, but you can also use Python to programme your own, more sophisticated silently-taking-over-the-world routines.