The building blocks for young electronics designers

The upgrades incorporate new features such as colour recognition, Bluetooth support and additional robot models. The software will be included with all Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kits and is based in the NI labView graphical programming software. This allows children to drag and drop icons that are representative of the various tasks they want the robots to perform, in the same way as professional engineers control robotics with LabView. Lars Nyengaard, director of innovation and robotics for the LEGO Group, said: "We are constantly amazed at how graphical programming based on LabView makes the NXT simultaneously powerful and easy to use. We're proud to have built the Mindstorms software around LabView technology, which uses picture-based interaction that facilitates a fun and creative design experience for children. This new generation of Mindstorms delivers new features to help our young customers increase their interest and knowledge in robotics." Ray Almgren, vice president of academic relations at NI, added: "LEGO and NI share a vision of inspiring today's students to be tomorrow's innovators. We believe that {this new version} helps children explore technology and provides an important hands on learning platform that develops creativity and ingenuity in today's students."