Subject:
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Re: RIS 3.0
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sat, 23 Aug 2003 15:48:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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1653 times
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"Steve Baker" wrote:
> No - there is no "3.0". There was talk of it some time ago - but I think
> we've seen the last of decent Lego robotics sets. I'd very much like to be
> proved wrong though.
>
> I was rather suprised to see that in the latest Pitsco Dacta catalog,
> there is hardly any space dedicated to Lego robotics - that space now
> being taken up by Tamiya and a bunch of no-name kits that can only be
> built one way and can only do one thing.
>
> Pitsco were the last place to buy a bunch of useful Lego parts.
>
> Could this be the death of RIS - even at exhorbitant prices for
> the educational market?
Well, that has been said many times about Technic and this year we
ended up getting sets like the backhoe, mars rover and rescue truck.
The backhoe has an unprecedented number of pneumatic components,
and these components have been redesigned (i.e. new molds). I doubt
that Lego would go to the trouble of creating the new molds for those
components for use in just this one set, so it seems a reasonable assumption
that we will continue to see Technic sets with pneumatic components for
some time. Technic is not dead.
John mentioned that these new clear motors and gear boxes could be
part of the new line of robotics components and I think he's onto
something here. It's clear that the intended role of these components
is for more than just the current Inventor lineup. For instance, take a
look at that collar of 24 teeth that surrounds the crossaxle socket on
these components. So far, none of the current sets makes use of this
collar. If you look closely at the motor, you will see that collar was
deliberately designed out of a single piece of plastic so it could bear
a load that wouldn't force the two halves of the motor apart. It seems
likely that Lego will be introducing a new interconnection methodology
to their system. What better use for this, than in a robotics set?
I believe there is another as yet unseen gear box in the forthcoming
#4095 Record and Play set. On the back of the 4094 idea book, if
you look closely at the rear of the dog model (at his tail), you'll see
another clear component that doesn't seem to match the configuration
of any of the current clear gearboxes. I believe this might be a right
angle gearbox. If you go to the Lego Make & Create pages at
http://www.lego.com/create , and follow the links to their Inventor
Saves the Day online game, you'll find a right angle gearbox
represented on this screenshot:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/markril/Misc/inventor.gif
The point of this is that Lego has clearly spent a fair amount of
effort creating these components, and it only seems logical that we'll
continue to see these in bigger and better sets yet to come.
In the past, I've expressed some skepticism about 3.0, too. My
thought was that Lego would come out with better software for
the current hardware. But, seeing as how that hasn't happened,
I'll bet they're taking it to the next level with new hardware and
software. We've been waiting a long time it seems... it could be
that the hardware is ready, but the software isn't. It's easy for a
software project to get overly ambitious (don't I know!), and this
could be what has delayed 3.0 for so long.
What is a little bit strange to me is the recently redesigned RIS
motor. Why redesign it if you're introducing a new motor like
the clear one? It could be that Lego realized that 3.0 was taking
longer than anticipated and they would have to continue to make
the old motor for the RIS 2.0 in the meantime. Or, perhaps one of
the components of the old RIS motor was no longer available and
the redesign was necessary to support current sales of the RIS 2.0
and Dacta sets.
Anyways, enough rambling from me, I'll just conclude that there
seem to be some promising signs out there... :-)
Mark
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: RIS 3.0
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| (...) No - there is no "3.0". There was talk of it some time ago - but I think we've seen the last of decent Lego robotics sets. I'd very much like to be proved wrong though. I was rather suprised to see that in the latest Pitsco Dacta catalog, (...) (21 years ago, 23-Aug-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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