Robot Testers Wanted - Lego toy company - Product Development - Brief Article

Electronic News, August 3, 1998

Lego Mindstorms, the unit of the Lego toy company that is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop new uses for semiconductors -- in Lego's case embedded toy applications -- is seeking people to beta test a new Robotics Invention System the company is preparing to roll out this fall.

Lego recently sent out a letter saying, "As an official tester, you'll be among the very first to experience our Robotics Invention System. In return, we ask that you notify us of any bugs, problems or errors you encounter in our software or documentation. What's more, for your participation, you'll also receive a Robotics Invention System absolutely free. Just return your testing software to us and we'll send you a copy of the final software when we officially launch our Robotics Invention System this fall." Lego has already introduced building blocks with computer chips inside that enable children to build intelligent toys (EN, March 23). The company's robotics testing program is slated to begin early this month and all testers must have at least a 90MHz Pentium equivalent processor and 16 megabytes of RAM. Interested roboteers can visit the company's web site at: http:/www.legomindstorms.com/betatest/