Tea with Lee Magpili and the LEGO Mindstorms EV3

Though my schedule being back in the US this summer has been busy, when I learned that Lee Magpili was going to be in town, I cleared my schedule. I first met Lee when I was working with the Bronx FIRST LEGO League initiative several years ago. He was a quiet presence in comparison to the energetic middle school students that attended our workshops to play with LEGO robots, but I quickly learned of his prowess with building with LEGO elements. His rovers navigated the FLL field with ease and used mechanisms that balanced simplicity with effectiveness. Eventually he mentored an FLL team to do exceptionally well. Like all great FLL coaches, however, he insisted on the students doing the work. In our conversations at that time, I quickly understood that Lee believed (and continues to believe) that LEGO is an amazing platform upon which to learn an enormous range of useful skills. Robotics, in particular, capitalizes on the unique blend of play and learning through LEGO to get students to understand the engineering design process. Lee is a believer in the potential for students to be quickly engaged and motivated to work hard when the right tools are around.

It was consequently no surprise when I learned Lee had been selected for a job with LEGO education in Denmark a couple of years ago. He and I wrote back and forth periodically about the position and what it entailed, but for a while our conversations turned noticeably away from the details of his work. I figured this was just a consequence of the distance and I left it at that.

This ended last January with the announcement of the LEGO Mindstorms EV3. When Lee posted a link to the announcement on Facebook, I suddenly understood. It made me realize that like any good designer, he kept his ideas secret until they were ready to share with the world. (I assume a pretty airtight NDA was also involved.)

Lee sat down with me at Saints Alp Teahouse in New York for some bubble tea, snacks, and conversation about the EV3. What struck me was that Lee’s enthusiasm for using LEGO as a learning tool hasn’t just been maintained, it has grown considerably since becoming part of the EV3 team. As you might also expect, he was excited to show me the bits and pieces of the kit that will be coming out in August.

From a LEGO designer’s perspective, the attention to detail in acknowledging the desires of the LEGO fan community and the limitations of the NXT set will most definitely be appreciated. There are some subtle changes that made me excited given my own experiences building with the curves of the NXT and its parts.

For example, a reshaping of the motor has made it much easier to attach pins and secure it to designs:

Sensors can be attached using a single pin if needed:

I also suspect that many people will discover ways that alignment between different components will be much easier with the new set:

Lee also spoke a lot about the care that he and the team have taken to make the bar for entry with the kit low, and the ceiling high. The education kit will include instructions for building modules that can be used in different designs. A conveyor belt doubles as a set of tracks. A motor-wheel module can be built that is sturdy but easy to build upon. This will help students (and teachers) minimize the frustration that inevitably occurs when straying from build instructions to pursue an idea for a new design. The strengths associated with building with Technics parts will be a lot more intuitive to newcomers that may have only worked with bricks.

I am excited to get my hands on one of these kits. In my robotics class this year, students grew considerably in their ability to conjure up a design and make it happen with the bricks. Students often got frustrated by the curves of the NXT motors getting in the way of their designs. The ease of attaching motors directly to the programmable brick of the EV3 will make it even easier to get students learning programming techniques. The on brick features for prototyping and programming will make things much easier for trying out quick ideas, especially on an FLL field.

It was good catching up with Lee – he is a person to watch in the world of LEGO Education. He was at the FIRST World Festival to demonstrate the EV3 to FIRST LEGO League teams, not to mention members of the Board of Directors at the LEGO group. He told me that his plans include photographing Gyro Boy in Times Square and Washington Square Park. Though he assures me that the robot named ‘Evan’ that has been touring the world to demonstrate the EV3 is not named after me, I’m going to continue to assume that it is.