LEGO discontinues Mindstorm kit: Mumbai-Pune fans reminisce their younger days and creations

"It is completely disheartening," says an unhappy Pune-based Nishad Bhatawadekar, an adult LEGO fan, who has been closely following the news of LEGO discontinuing its Mindstorm Robot Inventor Kit. "There will be no Mindstorm at all after this for the first time in over 20 years. The rationale that LEGO has given is that they will be focusing more on different educational products," he adds.

According to a report by Brickset.com, in late October, Denmark-based toy making company LEGO announced that it would be discontinuing its most recent and last remaining LEGO Mindstorm Robot Inventor kit. Though expensive, the very same kit that has been an important part of many children's childhood in India. The blocks have led many of them to fall in love with toys more than ever before and some to continue working on them even today, when they are adults. The Punekar is only one of them.

Practical Mindstorming with LEGO
For somebody who has been a fan for only seven years, compared to others, 39-year-old Bhatawadekar is a very passionate fan and can be called a ‘LEGO nerd', who spits the names of the models including EV3, NXT and NXT 2.0 like he's grown up with them. He explains, "While growing up, since LEGO was expensive, we couldn't afford it. When my kid was five years old, I introduced my son to it seven years ago. Being a mechanical engineer, seeing different gears and working models, I thought it would be a good way to teach my son about it. Now, both of us have been building different things since then." Interestingly, he also puts them to good use to build unique concepts.

The creations include a sugarcane juicer machine, Ganesh Chaturthi idol that they built in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, and even a vacuum cleaner over the last few years. "Every year, we tried to build something with LEGO for Ganesh Chaturthi. We built a Ganesha idol with the EV3 kit in such a way that when we gave it prasad, the idol would give blessings. When we tapped the mouse, then it would make an elephant sound," shares the mechanical engineer, who took to LEGO almost naturally because of his occupation.

Mrunal Shah introduced his son to LEGO very early on, and has since converted it into a teaching module for other children, teachers and adults too. Photo Courtesy: Mrunal Shah

For fun and teaching
Closer home, Navi Mumbai-based Mrunal Shah was lucky to grow up playing with LEGO blocks because he received them as gifts from his extended family over the years. It went on to become a very instrumental part of his childhood. "The best part about LEGO is that you can build so many multiple combinations of things you imagine with bricks and blocks." Even if you have a house model, Shah says one can build a dinosaur or an aeroplane with it too. Such was his fascination for the building blocks that he has not only gone on to encourage his child but also wants to teach other children to take by even converting it into ‘Sunday Bricks' as a challenge by conducting workshops through a teaching module for kids. "It started because I wanted to pass on my collection to my child and while I played with them as a child, for him I had to develop an interest in it. So, I started with theme-based workshops at Sunday Bricks," says the 41-year-old, who even made a Halloween LEGO creation after Diwali. The workshops are not only for kids but also for teachers, parents, and even adults, as a team-building exercise.

Even as LEGO is going to discontinue the educational bricks, Shah isn't unhappy because he says something better will come up. He explains, "Since every product has a life cycle, for the 20-odd years that Mindstorm has been here, there is more research about how to take it to the next level." So, there is definitely something bigger and better coming, believes Shah, and something more challenging, interesting and more future-ready is coming.

Taking it to the next level
It is no different for Nikhil Fernandes, a former Mumbaikar and another LEGO fan like Shah, who has grown up with the building blocks, and more specifically Mindstorm. Like Shah, even he got his LEGO blocks from family on birthdays or other important milestones over the last three decades. Interestingly, Fernandes was also introduced to it in school. "My school had an annual festival where there used to be a special Lego-only classroom where the benches would be removed, and a lot of the older kids used to bring at least 20-30 sets to put on display. So, this was very fascinating for me early on and I got inspired by the fact that you could creatively build your own toys," he shares.

It also gave Fernandes the liberty to nurture his fascination with building his own things over the years. One of the earliest experiments was the assembly of his computer at home. He explains, "In my childhood, I secured the different parts from different places - a second hand sale at an organisation in Mumbai; the keyboard, mouse, RAM and speakers from a street market, and that was my first computer. So, when I discovered that using Mindstorms there was an entirely new dimension to Lego, I was even more fascinated to discover it." The fact that he can develop programmable toys and experiences using Lego building blocks like technic, regular lego bricks, sensors, motors, mechanical parts is what still fascinates him.

Being a huge LEGO fan, the 38-year-old has kept himself updated with all the latest developments including exhibitions and fan creations. Having already won several competitions, the creative professional also participated in a Lego Alexa Voice Challenge, conducted by a community platform called Hackster.io in 2018-19 and ended up being in the Top 100 submissions in the world. "We built a unique Alexa-powered beach clean-up rover - a solution built with LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, Amazon Alexa and worked with an Echo Device through the Alexa Gadgets Toolkit over the Internet," he says proudly.

Ask him how he feels about Mindstorms being discontinued and Fernandes interestingly shares both Bhatawadekar and Shah's sentiments about the discontinuation. While he is disappointed, the LEGO fan says that it would not hinder anything because "creators don't stop and there are other ways to build things using platforms and experiences". He explains "Mindstorms was never about only building robots for play. It is purely about opening your mind and unleashing your creativity using multidisciplinary tools and skill sets. You could take part as an individual or a team in the experience."

In fact, he has a suggestion. Since there are many fans around the world of LEGO, the creative professional says Mindstorms can certainly be kept alive in certain tech or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) communities or maker fests and communities. "As there is a certain delight to building your own toys and experiences and this was one of the few popular culture or consumer-facing ways to do it. Also, it's one more way to be connected with physical motors, sensors, hardware and a real toy in the real world in a world increasingly going digital and virtual," Fernandes concludes.

Also read: Wordle: What you need to know about the word game that is taking over the internet