Brainstorming with LEGO mindstorms

Recently a fleet of LEGO mindstorm EV3 kits arrived to our lab. They are supposed to serve as some learning aid for the students who are studying Cognitive Robotics course. From the first day of the reception of these kits, I was waiting for a free time to put my hands on them. Finally, I spared some time for it. Among different sample robot designs, the one which took my attention and also the easiest one to build was TRACK3R robot since it looked like a mars rover to me.

One thing I realized while playing with the the LEGO kit is, there is a huge impact on our creativity while we are interacting with physical objects and models rather than brainstorming only with the mind. While assembling the components of the TRACK3R robot, so many beautiful ideas came into my mind about different things we can do with small robotic vehicles. Some people thinks that working with the LEGO kit is kids stuff and expressed such comments while I was working with the LEGO kit. However, I know the value of this. Therefore I don't bother about the time I spend on playing with LEGO kits.

After putting the batteries and powering up the control brick of the LEGO robot, I found a familiar friend inside it. This brick runs a version of Linux kernel. Well, that's a good news.