The MoonBots Competition is back and it’s better than ever this year. The contest challenges teams of kids from around the world to think about the moon and answer questions about space exploration. A second phase of the competition challenges the teams to create a robot using Lego Mindstorms to overcome lunar trials.

What’s more, there’s some exciting news this year because the robotics portion of the contest is going to allow teams to design their own game and the judges are looking forward to some really creative entries. Top it all off with some pretty great prizes and the solution is simple — if you’re into robotics, space, or just love science, go register today!

I am starting a new public accessible prototyping lab in Huntsville, Alabama, called MindGear Labs based on the fab lab model. I’ve dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur and have done a fair amount of research on the topic. But this is my first attempt at starting a business. Here is where I document weekly my mistakes and successes in creating a business from the ground up.

I’m staring at a Lego scene next to my chair. The centerpiece is the model of the White House. However there is a stormtrooper on the roof. And behind him is another Lego man. Off to the side is the stormtrooper’s speeder car, as is the other Lego guy’s smart car. The stormtrooper is pointing what appears to be the other Lego man’s garden sprayer at an Ewok treehouse. The Ewoks are innocently doing whatever Ewoks do whenever they’re not kicking the snot out of a bunch of stormtroopers. You gotta admire this stormtrooper’s bravery though, even if is he is firing from ambush.

This scene could only come from a nine-year old.-He actually did this several weeks ago. It amuses me greatly to look at it. My son took a couple of unrelated Lego kits and mixed them up into a surreal bouillabaisse. And of course the scene includes some sort of combat.

Why mention this now? Lately I’ve been meeting with marketing folks. That was this week’s theme as I rush around trying to start a business from scratch. And the marketers have told me to not forget the kids. Kids may not have most of the money in our economy, but pretty much all of what they have is disposable. And a kid doesn’t have to have money to wield considerable influence over how money is spent. That point is usually made to me with a recounting in sotto voce of how many times they drove their kid to dance class last week, or how far they traveled last weekend for their kid’s club team game. That’s not a hard point to make to me. I’ve spent my time coaching soccer teams, leading my son’s cub scout den and taking him to karate practices. I also seem to have become his practice bag for his punches and kicks.

Until now I saw my customer base being either engineers who want to build something cool after a long day driving a keyboard, or artists and others that want to sculpt something that expresses themselves. Clearly I need to give more thought to the kid side of things. I’ve always seen the educational aspect of the fab lab; heck, that’s how they were started. In fact in an earlier post I described the kids area my son and I sketched. But how do you entertain while educating someone who sticks stormtroopers on the White House? (Somewhere there’s a Department of Homeland Security analyst laughing over that last sentence.)

As a small business owner I moved quickly and decisively on this issue. I changed my son’s title to Junior Vice-President (Youth Relations). That may not be sufficient for this issue though. I need to give some more thought on how to be kid-friendly. That isn’t as easy to do as it sounds. Adults will still be the main users of MindGear and they might not want to trip over a bunch of little guys while using the laser cutter. And I’ll have to convince the kids that staring into the laser cutter isn’t as cool as it sounds. Making a lab interesting to a ten-year-old is considerably different problem than making one attractive to a sixteen-year-old, so that’s an issue.

On the other hand, giving the power to ‘make almost anything‘ to someone who ambushes Ewoks with a garden sprayer sounds very exciting! Imagine what surreal designs and contraptions a kid would make. My son thinks nothing of using my T-square as a crossbow or pretends a lamppost is a paintbrush or missile. What can he visualize in the gleam of a sheet of metal or the grain of a hardwood? The catchphrase for fab labs would really come alive in the fertile imagination of a child. Perhaps I’ll see them make almost anything. Although right now I need to build a Mindstorm robot to fight off the stormtrooper.

The St. Louis Rams play football in a dome located just off the banks of the Mississippi River. On Sunday afternoons every autumn, the facility is packed with screaming fans watching one of our most physical sports: armored athletes pushing, hitting, and tackling with every fast twitch muscle fiber in their bodies. But last weekend, in the same giant arena and on the same floor, fans gathered to cheer and scream as thirty thousand children battled with their minds.

Once again, St. Louis was host to the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship, an event that features the best of nearly a quarter million participants. The teams hail from 56 countries and every state and the Championship is a culmination of months of hard work, but more accurately, a celebration of achievement in STEM education.

A segment of bleachers had been removed from one side of the dome, along the same meridian on the field where the ball is kicked off to begin football games, revealing a huge hallway that links the floor of the dome to the nearby convention hall. That cavernous room was filled with small cubes that serve as pits for the teams. It was a beehive of activity. Teams were dressed in clothes as colorful as the rainbow (and oftentimes with hair to match), parading about and singing team songs, ferrying robots to and from competition, and milling about their garages where machines were fine-tuned or time between matches was killed.

The FIRST 2012 Championship, like others before it, was broken into four different competitions. For the youngest competitors, those between the ages of 6 and 9, competition takes place in the Jr. FIRST Lego League (JrFLL). Here, kids explored challenges facing scientists and build Lego models related to their challenge, while working on their presentation skills. The next step up, for kids 9 to 16, is the FIRST Lego League (FLL). For this competition, an autonomous robot was built using Lego Mindstorms. Children were also asked to become involved in their local and global community through outreach projects and science was studied in earnest.

High school kids had two competitions they could enter to learn more about robotics, programming, and engineering. The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is similar, in ways, to the junior varsity. Teams are smaller and competition features head-to-head events, including alliances among teams, and FTC teams build robots based on the Tetrix platform. At the top is the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which represents the closest thing to “real world” engineering kids can find. With a limited amount of time (and resources), teams work with professional engineers and mentors to design original robots.

This year, both the JrFLL’s and FLL’s competition involved food safety. The Junior competition was tasked with learning more about their favorite snack foods and discovering how to prepare and store them without contamination. After developing a presentation, teams created a model related to their snack using Lego bricks. Some teams used robotics, but it wasn’t a requirement.

FLL teams were asked to research a problem related to food safety and develop a solution. They were then asked to reach out to their community and present their findings. Some incredible ideas were developed during this part of the competition. (Editor’s note: Check back later this week for more on these remarkable kids.) The FLL’s game, “Food Factor,” required teams to create an autonomous robot that could accomplish a series of tasks related to food safety in a very short period of time. Teams could change out their robots’ accessories, to attempt more than a dozen goals — from harvesting corn to pest removal (corn and pests were of the plastic brick varieties) — but the time allotted forced teams to pick and choose the tasks they wished to accomplish.

The FTC’s game was called “Bowled Over” and involved two bowling balls, 100 racquetballs and a dozen stackable crates. Each contest began with a 30-second autonomous period when the teams tried to push a bowling ball into a corner; the remainder of the game allowed participants to control their robots. After taking control, teams tried to stack crates on their robots and collect racquetballs in the crates. Near the conclusion of the game, teams used a variety of approaches to lift the baskets into the air. For distances above ten and a half feet, teams received points.

Finally, the FRC competed in a game called “Rebound Rumble.” On a playing field reminiscent of a basketball court (but with a half dozen more basketball goals and a few tipping bridges) each team of three robots attempts to score baskets. In this year’s contest, defense seemed difficult to play. Perhaps it was because seemingly fewer teams created defensive robots or because there were more points to be earned by shooting baskets, offensive robots ruled the day. Many teams sank free throw after free throw with the accuracy of Rick Barry.

The amazing thing was that – win or lose – spirits were always high, attitudes were positive and everyone was having a very good time. Walking among the teams in the pits, it was difficult to not catch some of their enthusiasm; it was that infectious. Much is made about the deficits of students engaged in engineering and technology in our schools, but at the FIRST Championship it was easy to forget, if only for a little while.

Lego Batman The Vidoegame

The desire for new, better and bigger seems buried deep in my children’s genes. Whether this is really nature or their being nurtured in a consumer culture I’m still not sure but this weekend we managed to escape the more-cycle.

My son had been saving up for Lego Batman 2, the latest in the Lego videogame series, and was working out whether he’d have enough money when the game lunches in June. A few calculations later and he looked downcast — it was going to take a lot longer to reach the $39.99 price tag.

I suggested he looked around for something else closer to his pocket-money finances. A few minutes later he had discovered the first Lego Batman game on Amazon for $8.97. Not only was it cheaper but he already had enough money to buy it.

Lego Batman Co-op

As I mentioned previously the earlier Lego games also have the advantage of a multi-player mode if you have two carts. After a few negotiations with his brother and me we decided to pool our resources and buy two copies of Lego Batman.

It’s the best thing we’ve done in a long time. Not only has the novelty of Lego Batman 2 dropped from their radar but they the boys have spent ages playing together cooperatively.

They each sit on their bed with a DS in hand. To start a cooperative game they go to the central Bat computer to link up. From there they both exist in each other’s game. What I wasn’t expecting though was that they could both progress their characters and earn money as they played. Map changes are synced to ensure they are in the same place but apart from that they can free-roam around.

Because they each have their own screen (two screens actually) there is none of the compromise that the console cooperative modes have from their split-screen approach. Whereas it can get a bit confusing playing those versions, the DS game was much more straightforward — even for our youngest.

Lego Batman Co-op

One frustration was that if either player closes the DS lid to pause, the link between them is broken. There is no way to re-establish the link without restarting the current level. My boys usually decided to play on separately to finish the level and then go back to the Bat cave after that to re-link their consoles. It would also be good if you could play cooperatively over the Internet rather than locally. My kids have friends and family elsewhere who they would love to play with, but that’s not an option that’s catered for.

It’s great to hear them play together, talking to each other about what they need to do next. Whereas they are usually quietly absorbed by other DS games, this cooperative play really brings them out of themselves. It’s also proved to be an excellent way to pass the time on car and train journeys as well.

Lego Batman is available on Amazon from $8.97. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes will be available June 1st on 360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS, DS and PC on Amazon from $29.99.

Image: Dave Banks

This past weekend, a new Legoland Discovery Center opened in Kansas City. The indoor attraction, which features rides, activities, party rooms, and lots of Lego bricks is just the fourth in US and the seventh in the world. Visitors will want to block out two to three hours to get the most out of the LDC.

After entering through a huge outline of a minifig, visitors are treated to a very abbreviated story of how Lego bricks are made. The story includes some interactive exhibits, as well as the opportunity to take home a souvenir Duplo brick with a decal that commemorates their visit. After that, visitors are funneled through “Kingdom Quest,” an interactive laser gun ride that is similar to “Lost Kingdom Adventure” ride at the US Legoland parks.

Upon exiting, guests can fan out and experience a number of attractions. Kids can climb, swing, and monkey around in the Lego City play area to work off some energy. There’s even a pit filled with foam Lego bricks (kids must wear socks here). Building on the newest Friends property, there’s an area for building and the opportunity to sing some karaoke.

For kids who want to build, there are several opportunities. In the Lego Racers area, kids can build a car and then race it down one of several hills, launch their vehicles off jumps and see who is the fastest. For younger builders, there a Duplo Village for those who like to build with bigger bricks and for a really good time, kids can build on the earthquake table – a grid where buildings can be constructed before switching on an oscillating motor that mimics an earthquake. Bricks will fall.

If visitors want to learn from the pros, parents can sign their children up for the Lego Master Builder Academy, where a Lego master will help kids build a kit or if they really want to be impressed, visit the Kansas City Miniland where many of the city’s landmarks have been replicated in one and a half million Lego bricks.

The icons were voted on by the locals and buildings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to Starlight Theatre can be found, along with Arrowhead, Kauffman, and Livestrong Sporting Park. Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any barbecue joints – come on, Lego! Finally, it wouldn’t be Kansas (even though the LDC is in Missouri) without a Lego visit to Frank Baum’s Oz. The display took six of Legoland California’s builders more than half a year to complete.

Visits can be completed with another ride called “Merlin’s Apprentice,” where pedaling moves your vehicle higher and higher on this magical circular ride or stop by Lego Studios for a fun 4-D movie. Guests can complete their trip to LDC by stopping at the cafe for a bite to eat and, of course, exiting through the gift shop.

There are plans for “Adult Nights” when grown-ups can come and play on their own and special weekends dedicated to Star Wars, Lego Friends, and Pirates, as well as special holiday events. Legoland Discovery Center is a welcome addition to Kansas City and a great place to spend a few hours with the family.

LEGO was kind enough to send us their LEGO Master Builder Academy Level One set, created by actual Master Builders! Master Builders are the people that create all of those awesome LEGO displays you see in LEGO stores, Downtown Disney, LEGOLAND, and so forth and so on.

I could tell you all about the fun we had building the LEGO set, but this video does a better job:

If you have a budding Master Builder then check out the Master Builder Series. It’s good LEGO fun.

Thank you, LEGO!

LEGO sent us the Master Builder Academy set for purpose of this review. Obviously the opinions are our own.

My desk is now protected by a Time Lord.

There are those within our ranks who are what you might term Lego purists, and that’s okay. Just as there are Sony fanboys and Mac devotees, there are some builders that shudder at the thought of handling off-brand materials. But for the rest of us The TARDIS Mini Set is a Whovian dream come true.

This construction set comes complete with 53 specialized bricks used to create the 11th Doctor, companion Amy Pond and, of course, an adorable awesome 3 1/2 inch TARDIS. The vehicle set itself makes for a simple build, and, while it features plain paper accent stickers instead of more durable decals, it includes extras in the event of any unfortunate ripping or misplacement.

Living together in tiny harmony.

The figures each come in four pieces — head, torso and legs with a skirt for Amy and a miniscule Sonic Screwdriver for the Doctor — and boast eight points of articulation. They’re sized at about an inch and 3/4, which means, despite their more stylized proportions, they stack up nicely against your Kre-O and official Lego mini figures. (Think the Lego Friends line only less… pink.)

BBC-licensed and Lego-compatible, the Character Building: TARDIS Mini Set is a quality workplace collectable and a passable toy. With the only knock against the latter being that the play set itself (sadly) isn’t bigger on the inside. Still, with a little imagination you and/or your geeklings will be whisking the Doctor and Amy off on another universe-spanning adventure in no time.

The TARDIS Mini Set is available from many finer suppliers of nerd ephemera, most specifically the crew at the incomparable ThinkGeek, for under $20. You can also flesh out your desktop diorama with Character Building blind packed minis. Because what’s the world of Doctor Who without a bit of mystery?

Review materials provided by: ThinkGeek

Image by Thomas Lockwood used with his permission

By now most of our readers have come across the Lego Cuuso site, a place where builders can submit models and people can vote on them. If the model gets 10,000 votes Lego will look into the possibility of making it into an official playset.

I came across this idea by Thomas Lockwood, Cuuso user Tbone_TB1, to build a Firefly Serenity play set. He has already built a small model of Serenity and is proposing a larger model that would accommodate minifigs. He is also planning on these features:

• Movable loading ramp
• Cockpit capable of fitting 1 minifig
• Light up firefly drive
• Playable dining area and cargo hold
• Rotating engines

As for the minifigs, Thomas has some concept art for Firefly minifigs that look really good. I especially like the Jayne with a ski cap and Wash kind of looked like a minifig already. Speaking of Firefly characters, Morena Baccarin (who played Inara) recently gave the project a boost when she tweeted about it.

To give your support to the project go to the Firefly Playset Cuuso page and vote for it and make sure you scroll down to see the minifigs. To see more photos of the Lego Serenity model check out Thomas’s Gallery over at Brickshelf. He does good work and I wouldn’t mind having my own Serenity to put next to the Millennium Falcon in my china closet.

You won’t see these baddies anywhere else, pretty much in the universe! That’s right, in the next few weeks, GeekDad will be featuring exclusive villain pics from the upcoming blockbuster, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.

In Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin join other famous super heroes from the DC Universe including Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to save Gotham City from destruction at the hands of the notorious villains Lex Luthor and the Joker. Batman fans of all ages will enjoy a new and original story filled with classic Lego videogame action and humor as players fight to put the villains back behind bars.

Click through to see the pics and profiles of legendary nemeses Lex Luthor and the Joker!

The Joker
Real Name: Unknown
Base: Gotham City
Special Powers and Abilities: Though not especially strong or skilled in fighting, the Joker is a dangerous villain. He often wields a deadly joke, props or gags, such as a BANG!-proclaiming flag pistol that doubles as a spear gun.
In-Game Abilities: Immunity to toxic materials or hazards. He carries a machine gun and can generate electrical power- ups using his Joker buzzer.
Sources:
DC Comics Web Site: dccomics.com/characters
The DC Comics Encyclopedia

Lex Luthor
Real Name: Alexander Joseph Luthor
Base: Metropolis
Special Powers and Abilities: Luthor is one of the smartest men on Earth, able to invent technological marvels or manipulate entire nations. He believes in brute force and is an unskilled fighter, relying instead on weapons and armor.
Special Weapon: The Deconstructor, which allows Lex to pull black Lego bricks apart.
Sources:
DC Comics Web Site: dccomics.com/characters
The DCComics Encyclopedia

At last, the galaxy far, far away has come to Legoland Windsor. Just over a year after the Star Wars Miniland opened in Legoland California (read Dave Banks’ excellent write up of that one here) the Lego master builders have recreated all the same models again and brought them to UK, and to celebrate the opening of the Star Wars Miniland Experience, they had a special weekend-long, Star Wars-themed party and called it the Star Wars Invasion.

Originally, I hadn’t planned to go along as weekends at Legoland can get very busy, plus we’d already been to the new Harry Potter Studio Tour that Saturday, but it was lovely sunny morning when we woke up on the Sunday, so the munchkin and I decided to just do it – annual passes and living close by are great when making spur of the moment decisions! After an initial downer — leaving my cash sticking out of the cash machine and driving away (D’oh!) — we arrived nice and early, skipped past all the lines (another perk of the Merlin Pass) and headed straight for the new attraction.

The Entrance

The whole thing is housed inside the old Lego Racers arcade game section, which is both good and bad. The Racers game was getting very tired as it had been there from the beginning, and being indoors means you (and those precious millions of bricks) are safe from the unpredictable British weather. The downside is of course that is very hard to get decent photos of all the cool models, so apologies for the grainy, blurry or bleached out shots!
Over the doorway is an oversized Lego Millennium Falcon which leads you down to the first of the seven scenes. As far as I can tell they are the same as the ones in California, taking in all six movies and the Clone Wars:

• Clone Wars: A battle scene from Christophsis between droids and troopers
• Episode I: The Theed Royal Palace and hangar on Naboo and the droid invasion
• Episode II: The Geonosian execution arena and a battle scene, with gunships and hellfire droids
• Episode III: Order 66 on Kashyyyk and the duel on Mustafar
• Episode IV: Mos Eisley spaceport, the cantina and the moisture farm
• Episode V: Echo Base and The Battle of Hoth
• Episode VI: The forests and landing platform on Endor

The Mega Falcon

I won’t bore you all by going through each scene, brick by brick – that’s what the photos are for – but I will quickly mention a few of my favorite bits. The Gunships over Genosis were pretty impressive and one of them even had a certain little green fellow on board – as pointed out to me by the munchkin. The Giant A6 Juggernaut Heavy Assault Vehicle (yes, I had to look that up on Wookieepedia) in the Kashyyyk scene was quite incredible – such a huge and detailed model for something that probably has about 10 seconds of screentime in the film, and it was fun trying to work out which Wookiee was Chewie.

Cuddly R2

The Falcon blasting its way out of Mos Eisley is HUGE! Nearly 20,000 bricks apparently, Han and Chewie are even in the cockpit. There’s a crawl tunnel leading to a viewing bubble in the middle of the scene too, which is fun for the little ones. In addition to the huge AT-ATs, Hoth features a Bacta Tank, the Wampa and tucked away at the back, Han and Chewie taking on the probe droid. The Imperial Shuttle on Endor is another monster of a model, but I liked Vader on the landing platform and a the speederbike spinning to its doom around a tree too.

Of course when your tour is finished, you’re led straight into a dedicated Star Wars shop, full of pretty much every set Lego sells. I was hoping to see the new R2-D2, but unfortunately only his life-size brother was around, together with C-3PO, Vader and Chewbacca, all made from thousands of bricks. There was also a display case showing all the Ultimate Collector models fully assembled, including the epic Super Star Destroyer and Death Star – which is probably the closest I’ll ever get to them!

Cosplayers

I’m glad we decided to go along for the Invasion day, as Lego had pulled out all the stops to make it a fun-filled day for everyone. Loads of kids came along in fancy dress (I couldn’t even convince mine to wear the cool Leia T-Shirt I got for her at Christmas though), as did many adults – although they were mostly members of the 501st. We spotted Troopers, Imperial Officers, Biker Scouts, Rebel Pilots and even Endor Leia (no Slave Leias though; it was a family day after all!). However, I’m not sure Jedi Luke and Han were really feeling the fun! There were competitions running for finding them all and a stage set up as a Padawan Training facility, where several lucky students got to battle Lord Vader himself. Back up by the main entrance stood a replica of Luke’s Landspeeder, and whizzing around it where two full size radio controlled R2 units.

A great day out just got even better; I can’t wait until our next visit. In the meantime, there’s a slideshow of all of my photos from the invasion below, and the video at the top was put together from iPhone clips in about 15 minutes using iMovie on the iPad – a very hand bit of kit indeed.