Lego is for life, not just for Christmas!
It's also not just for children and spot riddled teenagers and Ericsson has proved why.
Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms multi-national, recently exhibited at the Mobile World Congress using Lego robots, built with
Lego Mindstorms to showcase their employees ideas for robotics solutions for the 21st century. Ericsson asked their staff to get creative and develop robotic solutions in concept using Lego to serve the needs of mankind.
The four robots all 'talked' to each other using a Twitter style Social Internet of Things system so that each one could tend to the needs of the other or their environmental surroundings. The plant could message the gardening robot to ask for water and the gardening robot could then message back to say it was on its way.
Whilst this all seems like a bit of fun the practical application is actually very real. In a domestic environment this system could rolled out throughout home so that the washing machine could talk to a domestic robot to tell it that it's finished, then the washing could be loaded into the drier, which when finished would message the domestic robot to come empty and fold the newly washed and dried clothing - fancy!
Businesses are increasingly asking their staff to get creative and are using robots as a medium to do so. With robotics kits, such as the
Lego Mindstorms, becoming more accessible and affordable to people outside of traditional academic and research circles, the advances in robotics applications are getting much more practical. The DotCom boom has been and gone, next we will see the Robotic boom and who knows who will be the first to automate the everyday home, it could be someone you know!
The
Lego Mindstorms kit is incredibly versatile which makes it such a great platform, whether for an introduction to learning robotics, a simple robotics project or right through to University and industrial research. What's more, they make a fantastic Christmas present and we have them in stock, ready for Christmas at only £248.23* - that's cheaper than Smyth's and Argos*!
*price excludes delivery - prices correct as of 11/12/2014
