A new track system sneakily announced?

[Mr Hobbles]

This morning Lego announced their new Computer Science & AI kit for the Education market. Aside from the usual electronics components (same as their last Science kit), the pictures reveal what looks to be a new track system!

There are straight pieces and quarter-circle pieces, and there's a gearing system on top. Their promotional videos for the set show a motorised robot climbing up and down a vertical piece.

There's also a new 4x4 piece that holds a gear internally that looks like it's designed to wrap around the track.

This looks like it would be perfect for some kind of a monorail system.

It's a shame that the curves are only in white right now, but in my experience there's no way Lego makes new parts like this purely for a Lego Education set. So are we going to see inclusion in Lego City soon?

https://education.lego.com/en-gb/lego-education-computer-science-and-ai/

Here's a picture I took from their website showing the track pieces, along with the 4x4 transparent "gear and grippy thing" that holds the build on the track.

Edited Monday at 06:37 PM by Mr Hobbles

[TeddytheSpoon]

The "& AI" bit is incredibly disappointing from LEGO... but at least the tracks look nice! Rack-and-pinion railways, anyone?

[dr_spock]

Can the new tracks attach between regular train tracks such as for making a cog railway?

[Mr Hobbles]

23 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

Can the new tracks attach between regular train tracks such as for making a cog railway?

That's a great question. My guess is the straight track pieces yes - they look to be three studs wide with stud attachment points underneath, but the curved pieces no - the radius looks too sharp to fit inside the existing Lego train tracks.

Edited Monday at 04:09 PM by Mr Hobbles

[Mr Hobbles]

Here's a better picture of the piece that clips onto the track and holds the gear

[Pelzer117]

Exciting. To avoid the problem with the curves, you could also use a mountain railway with straight tracks. The straight track section has 2w (two studs wide) so it would fit nicely in the middle of the normal 6w train tracks.

It would be really amazing if there were even enough space for the 4W tracks. Then you could build narrow-gauge mountain railways. 

[FGMatt]

I wonder how the curve radii compare to the rollercoaster track?

[JopieK]

I'll try to get a set to review :)

In the meantime:

 

 

I think it is also an 'interesting' topic for us, Powered Up is also at his end I'm afraid, hope LEGO will come up with a compatible new generation but I don't know...

[Mr Hobbles]

22 hours ago, JopieK said:

I'll try to get a set to review :)

In the meantime:

 

 

I think it is also an 'interesting' topic for us, Powered Up is also at his end I'm afraid, hope LEGO will come up with a compatible new generation but I don't know...

I already have the other set, Lego Education Science, that was the same components as the new Computer Science and AI kit. I have a suspicion that Smart Play and Lego Education Science are really all the same thing. I think I'm finally starting to see Lego's long term vision here.

Both use BLE to communicate between smart bricks. Both use NFC tags/cards to "connect" and "instruct" the smart bricks what to do and what role they play. And they all mesh together in a connection-less Bluetooth network (through broadcasts).

I expect Smart Play to have at least a wireless motor component in a set, perhaps next year, with the Smart Play Smart Brick sending instructions to it. Similarly to how the Lego Education Color sensor and Remote work with the wireless motor. I expect this system replaced Powered Up.

It wouldn't surprise me if in 1-3 years we see a Lego City set with new components in it - a new remote and a new motor (with inbuilt battery and BLE, no seperate hub in the middle). They could make a new LED light component for headlights, or they could use the Smart Brick. It can generate train horn sounds, it has LED's for headlights, and it could be wirelessly controlled from a remote.

No app in any of this.

I'd bet they even speak the same BLE protocol.

Edited Thursday at 10:59 AM by Mr Hobbles

[JopieK]

That would indeed make a lot of sense. I have arranged a meeting with local certified education partner representative in February.

[Mr Hobbles]

1 hour ago, JopieK said:

That would indeed make a lot of sense. I have arranged a meeting with local certified education partner representative in February.

Very cool. Keep in touch with what you learn from that!

 

[Toastie]

10 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

with the wireless motor

This would need quite the new battery technology? At least when you want to accelerate some mass. Conservation of energy, even not taking into consideration any kind of nonreversible processes, means that the battery in the autonomous motor needs to be one-of-a-kind. Could be that I missed something. But even the "smart" brick, just doing light and sound and BLE sniffing runs for max. half an hour (or so). The moment real torque is required, amperage and thus Joules go way up.

I am just trying to figure out, how this will ever work. It may, when the attention span of operators is much less than 10 minutes, of course. You could feed the motors from additional (dumb) battery packs. The motors are smart, the battery box for the motors is dumb, which would of course require wires. Alternatively, the motors can be BIG, accommodating a reasonably sized battery.  

Interesting!

Best
Thorsten

[Mr Hobbles]

14 hours ago, Toastie said:

This would need quite the new battery technology? At least when you want to accelerate some mass. Conservation of energy, even not taking into consideration any kind of nonreversible processes, means that the battery in the autonomous motor needs to be one-of-a-kind. Could be that I missed something. But even the "smart" brick, just doing light and sound and BLE sniffing runs for max. half an hour (or so). The moment real torque is required, amperage and thus Joules go way up.

I am just trying to figure out, how this will ever work. It may, when the attention span of operators is much less than 10 minutes, of course. You could feed the motors from additional (dumb) battery packs. The motors are smart, the battery box for the motors is dumb, which would of course require wires. Alternatively, the motors can be BIG, accommodating a reasonably sized battery.  

Interesting!

Best
Thorsten

I agree for us AFOL's it might not be a great system - if you look at Lego shows, most AFOL's still stick to 9v. No batteries, hubs, etc. Power Functions and Powered Up is rarely used. But for kids, who as you say, maybe play for less than an hour at a time, it could be fine.

It's worth noting that this is the direction Lego has gone in with Lego Education - here's a video I recorded, showing the motor and the size of it. This contains the motor, battery, Bluetooth, LED, NFC reader, and USB-C charging circuit, in a 6x4x3 size, minus the attachment points on the side. So it's quite small. A train motor could be a little bigger, or, dare I propose even a monorail motor? :D

Maybe I'll run a test to see what the battery life of this motor is. :)

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by Mr Hobbles

[Toastie]

2 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

and USB-C charging circuit

Ahh - when than circuitry is as "smart" as that in the PF rechargeable battery box (#8878), it allows charging the motor while operating. #8878 shows quite the performance in this regard!

 So for more power demanding builds, this may be an option!

Best
Thorsten

[M_slug357]

@Mr Hobbles I really like that card system for registering devices to the controller (kids will def lose those lmao), but what is the limit for # of things per controller?

Also, potential Pokemón TCG crossover, anyone…?

xD

[Mr Hobbles]

2 hours ago, M_slug357 said:

but what is the limit for # of things per controller?

Theoretically, unlimited. Unlike Powered Up which required the controller to connect to a hub, these new components are connectionless and rely on broadcasts.

Think of it like yelling instructions to people in a room. If there’s no one in there, no one will listen. If there’s 10 people listening in there, all 10 will hear the instructions.

Components will ignore instructions for a color they aren’t configured for.

(It’s actually not just color, each card has a unique id read by NFC. So you can have multiple groups of people each with an orange card, but those orange cards are different, so their devices won’t interfere with the others)

 

 

[dr_spock]

That sounds like some sort of multicast protocol. Wonder if it can get into congestion issues after a certain number of devices.