DUBAI An online store is delivering Lego robots to your doorstep.
Atlab, the Middle East distributor of Lego Education products, which launched its webstore on Tuesday promises to deliver the build-it-yourself robots and spare parts to most GCC countries within four days.
For many ‘adults’ the brand ‘Lego’ evokes jovial nostalgia.
“Six lego bricks can be put together in 900 million different shapes, so there’s no limit to what one can build,” Steen Lund, Lego Education senior territory manager, told XPRESS, “builders can then connect the ‘intelligent brick’ to a computer and have their robot programmed to do a variety of motions. It is a great educational tool and has been utilised in classrooms for some time.”
Lund said that the idea for Lego Robotics was floated 30 years ago, when a number of teachers approached the toy company asking them to put the ‘brick’s’ to use in the classroom.
“Thirty years later here we are,” he said at the Gulf Educational Supplies and Solutions Exhibition.
“We have a full continuum of Lego robotics catering to everyone from pre-schoolers to hobbyists. There are sets designed to aid in language learning, art and storytelling. The early simple robotics help students understand pulleys, levers and friction; while the MindStorm EV3 platform challenges older students to build their own robots and program them as well.”
The MindStorm Education EV3 core set, valued at Dh1,475, features the Intelligent Brick, a powerful small computer which makes it possible to program and control the motors and sensors included in the set.
“The program is very user-friendly and accessible,” Lund said, “We had to make it in such a way that children can use it and teachers could program and present the robot within the 45-minute class time. The program is also available with an Arabic interface.”
Adlab general manager Senthil Kugan said that “over 3,000 schools in the region utilise Lego Education products in their classrooms. We have been dealing directly with schools for years but realised there is a personal demand from parents and children as well, as you can’t buy Lego Education products in toy stores.”
He said that more than 3,000 students from the region compete in the annual World Robot Olympiad, where students from a number of age-relevant categories show off their mechanised creations. The 2011 Olympiad was hosted in Abu Dhabi.
“Over 50 Lego Education products are now offered on the webstore. We hope to bring that number to around 80 in the next three months.”
