Moving Mindstorms back to Technic

[kbalage]

I think it's a great idea. Although the topics are more TECHNICal there (sorry), a little more exposure really wouldn't hurt for them.

As I see placing the whole Mindstorms / Powered Up ecosystem on the big LEGO hobby map is also challenging for the fans, not only for TLG  There are fragments in Technic, then we have the coders coming from the old Mindstorms era, then the train guys with some folks from City/Town... it's all around the place  

 

[ninoguba]

Yes please!

[Fuzzock]

It makes sense as Mindstorms for the most of the time are based on Technic construction. Also as already said, PU/Buwizz/SBrick etc have blurred the previous lines of distinction that we had.

As someone who is planning on getting back into Mindstorms again I would love to see the two areas combined so that I can see the combined ideas base in a single location.

Ian...

Edited April 18, 2022 by Fuzzock

[SNIPE]

I'm all for this idea,

Also we didn't get RCX/NXT/EV3 in official sets but now we get Powered up/Control+ in official sets, including in Technic sets, so there is a lot more overlap now. The "robotics sets" of today is just recolored and rebranded existing parts (including electronic parts).

Edited April 18, 2022 by SNIPE

[Jim]

Done.

[Fuzzock]

Ian...

[Nazgarot]

Good to have you back! 

[Jim]

[Toastie]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:00 PM, Gray Gear said:

Most Mindstorms builds are basically technic builds with different electronics

Well no. This may appear as such when the "different electronics" in a "Mindstorms" set is used with the bricks'n'pieces provided with these sets. And they can be nicely combined with more technic pieces.

I see Mindstorms much more so as an ever evolving "programming environment" for operating microcontrollers. Within Mindstorms "remote control" using "remote controllers" is at best uninteresting (this is what I read over and over in the Technic forum: PoweredUp is sort of bad because there is no decent "remote control" and cell phones suck for controlling race cars, trucks, cranes, whatever).

My MOCs are hardly Technic builds - they are almost always brick-builds with some technic elements to hold axles, gears and so on. As @Lok24 siad: Head over to the Train forum to learn about automation/autonomous operation of PoweredUp devices. It is all there. Entire programming environments are provided, along with individual solutions.

Mindstorms aims at automating stuff. Recognizing things and respond properly. Automation. Autonomous operation. In the Technic forum world, the microcontrollers (called hubs for whatever reason) are mostly reduced to "motor controllers" using hand-held remotes. Call them PoweredUp, BuWizz, or whatever, even the entire Chinese stuff is aimed at that: Push a lever, press a button and something begins to spin.

So yes, exposure will surely go up.

Personally, I will then have to learn to browse more than one page to get to true Mindstorms entries - and pay much more attention to content, as I am far less interested in learning about another truck/supercar/backhoe/excavator/racecar/harvester ... which is no problem at all! 

Best,
Thorsten

 

 

[Jim]

8 hours ago, Toastie said:

Personally, I will then have to learn to browse more than one page to get to true Mindstorms entries - and pay much more attention to content, as I am far less interested in learning about another truck/supercar/backhoe/excavator/racecar/harvester ... which is no problem at all! 

Best,
Thorsten

I hope you can find your way in the Technic forum. I will try to do my best and give all Mindstorms creations a [MINDSTORMS] prefix to be easily recognizable.

Come to think of it; maybe I can alter my frontpaging tool (this is a tool which automatically scans featured topics and posts them on the frontpage) to scan for [MINDSTORMS] and make a collection topic. Hmmm interesting. This could work for .... let's say [TC21] as well.

By the way; do we want to call everything Mindstorms and use the prefix [MINDSTORMS] or should we go for something more generic, like [ROBOT] or [ROBOTICS]?

[gyenesvi]

I see that this has already been decided, and it's fine for me because of the thin line between the two regarding parts and electronics (though I tend to agree with @Toastie that Mindstorms is more about the programming, less about the building, while Technic is the other way round), and because I am interested in Mindstorms but I rarely get to visit the forum..

I also wanted to note that I'd support the idea of moving contest related entries to a single subforum (contests don't overlap in time so one is enough), that way we could post non-contest related builds even during contests without worrying about being pushed out quickly from the first page by the contest entries. It would also be easier to find contest related stuff all in one place.

Edited April 21, 2022 by gyenesvi

[Jim]

3 minutes ago, gyenesvi said:

I see that this has already been decided

Yes, the majority have spoken.

For now, we have moved Mindstorms back into Technic and we have decided to increase the topic count per page to 50 instead of a subforum.

[Lok24]

Just my idea:

Mindstorms ® and Technic™ are LEGO Themes. There is just one "Mindstorms" set, which includes  Technic parts and Technic(!) electonic parts, i.e the "Technic™ Large Hub".

And there are the motorized  "control+"  sets with technic parts and Powered Up components, programmable, no Mindstorms at all. And Spike, no Mindstorms at all.

And even much more set with System parts, like Boost, trains, piano  and so on, few technic parts, programmable, all with Powered Up components. They all don't really belong to "Technic", cause "technic sets" in the way LEGO names sets contain technic parts only. 

And Duplo, with the hub and  two Apps.

 

3 hours ago, Jim said:

By the way; do we want to call everything Mindstorms and use the prefix [MINDSTORMS] or should we go for something more generic, like [ROBOT] or [ROBOTICS]? 

What do you want to point to?

- motorized? ( carousel)
- motorized and remote controlled? (car with remote)
- motorized and programmed functions? (car with sensors)

I think in any case "Mindstorms" is not a good prefix, which it formerly  was  (some years ago, when Mindstorms EV3 was the only system)

[Toastie]

3 hours ago, Jim said:

I hope you can find your way in the Technic forum.

@Jim , I sure will! Particularly with the proper tagging - but even without it is entirely OK!!!

Now, my personal opinion is that "[ROBOTICS]" is much more accurately describing what "Mindstorms" tries to convey. The latter appears to be another cool name for something uninteresting to many; the same holds true for "PoweredUp", which is apparently different from "Mindstroms" (which it hardly is, particularly with the arrival of PyBricks) but is so much more than PowerFuntions. On the other hand, "Mindstorms" has been there for decades ...

Nevertheless, to me, it appears as if the common denominator for Mindstorms and PoweredUp is Robotics.

Just my 2 cents.

Best,
Thorsten   

[Jim]

2 hours ago, Lok24 said:

What do you want to point to?

- motorized? ( carousel)
- motorized and remote controlled? (car with remote)
- motorized and programmed functions? (car with sensors)

That is a good question. I am aiming at programmable stuf, but there is indeed a thin line.

2 hours ago, Lok24 said:

I think in any case "Mindstorms" is not a good prefix, which it formerly  was  (some years ago, when Mindstorms EV3 was the only system)

Agreed.

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

Now, my personal opinion is that "[ROBOTICS]" is much more accurately describing what "Mindstorms" tries to convey.

At the moment, I do think that Robotics fits the bill best.

[Lok24]

Yes, it should be more than a profile for any "hub"

The entries in Wikipedia differ, but german (translated) says:

The aim of robotics is to create a controlled cooperation between robot electronics and robot mechanics through programming.
 

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Lok24

[Lasse D]

With such a merge, I'm not sure where my Mindstorms model like this would fit:

It has Technic and Mindstorms as underpinnings, but the top part is City / Special themes.

I will continue building modules as this for at least another year. However. I am always in doubt as to where to post them. As an example. Where should I post this ferris wheel?:

Mindstorms? - It is NXT controlled and autonomous

Technic? - It has Technic everywhere underneath in order to control the tracks and lifting mechanism.

City? - It moves City people in a City environment

Special Themes? = It is part of a theme park, and thus not completely "LEOG City"

Games? - It is based on the video game Theme Park

 

[Toastie]

25 minutes ago, Lasse D said:

It moves City people in a City environment

I believe you need to decide on what best describes the purpose/is the main aim of your MOC, as cross posting is not necessarily the way to go.

This one is easy, though: It belongs to the [GPC] (Great People Contraption) category of the TechniC++ forum .

Furthermore, as the TechniC++ forum now covers Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team, and Scale Modeling, you just need to decide on 1 out of 4 (instead out of 5) forums.

Spoiler

Fun fact: Every time, I type "forums" it appears as if the Justified and Ancient make weird noises - barely discernible, but at the same time with vigor - also, the keys "m" and "s" seem to vibrate and the key "a" seems wanting to pop out ...
This article makes me feel much better; particularly the graph at the end ... also, my laptop is behaving again as soon I downloaded that article as PDF and copied it into the Windows system folder.
https://grammarist.com/usage/fora-forums/  

Wonderful build and wonderful layout!!!

Best,
Thorsten

Edited April 21, 2022 by Toastie

[Jim]

37 minutes ago, Lasse D said:

With such a merge, I'm not sure where my Mindstorms model like this would fit:

I this case, it would fit where you want it to fit. Either of the five examples is fine, you pick the right one. Do you want it to be City? Or do you want to show it in Technic? It's up to you to decide.

[Lasse D]

Alright. Thanks for your answers. Then I support the merge.

[m2fel]

Is it possible to keep the Mindstorms subforum and include the posts in the technic section? I believe the Mindstorms topics will often be pushed down fast and if someone only checks now and then for Mindstorms or a first time user might really have to dick for those topics.

The idea is that a new topic in the Mindstorms subforum appears in the technic one too and you can answer in both forums. Seams complicated but what if in the technic forum someone posts a topic with [Mindstorms] it also appears in the Mindstorms subforum. Could be useful for Mindstorms topics not to get lost.

On the other hand, if [Mindstorms] or similar is used it should be easy to search for those topics.

Guess I am thinking to complicated 🤯

[howitzer]

13 minutes ago, m2fel said:

Is it possible to keep the Mindstorms subforum and include the posts in the technic section? I believe the Mindstorms topics will often be pushed down fast and if someone only checks now and then for Mindstorms or a first time user might really have to dick for those topics.

The idea is that a new topic in the Mindstorms subforum appears in the technic one too and you can answer in both forums. Seams complicated but what if in the technic forum someone posts a topic with [Mindstorms] it also appears in the Mindstorms subforum. Could be useful for Mindstorms topics not to get lost.

On the other hand, if [Mindstorms] or similar is used it should be easy to search for those topics.

Guess I am thinking to complicated 🤯

I don't think the forum software supports that kind of feature. You're right that Mindstorms topics can get pushed down pretty quickly, but I believe many more people are still going to see them, as opposed to old division where only a few people ever visited the section where they're visible.

[Jim]

43 minutes ago, howitzer said:

I don't think the forum software supports that kind of feature. 

Nope, it doesn't.

58 minutes ago, m2fel said:

On the other hand, if [Mindstorms] or similar is used it should be easy to search for those topics.

Guess I am thinking to complicated 🤯

Hehe, I guess you are.

But I will look into a topic collection tool. I have written my idea in a previous post. Like the frontpaging tool. I can scan topics for tags or prefix in the title. When a topic starts with [ROBOTICS] (or another chosen designation) the topic can be added to an index topic. That way we have a solution more or less like the one you are proposing. The collateral  advantage is that we can do this for [TC21] as well.

[The_Tinkerer]

Here's a thought, what if we create a Q&A collection topic to pin in place of the "Generic Building Help Topic", to have a "Technic Help Topic, Mindstorms Help Topic, Modeling Help Topic and Generic Building Help Topic all in one place. It'd take up the same amount of room in the Pinned section, but have specific sections for each Not-Subforum. I myself have some questions about the Mindstorms Hub and the Powered-Up Hub.

[Jim]

That’s an interesting thought. I like the idea.