1998 – LEGO Mindstorms: The Robotics Invention System (RCX)

If we start several years prior to 1998 and look back to 1982, LEGO had a new product line called Technic (have you heard of it?). A few years into this new line of products, LEGO began to work with Seymour Papert (one of my educational heroes) to create programmable LEGO. Papert even has a book called Mindstorms (ironic?). One of Papert's colleagues, named Mitch Resnick (from MIT Lifelong Kindergarten), who I have had the pleasure of meeting, presented a prototype to LEGO in Billund and things started to take shape.

Fast forward to 1998, when LEGO released the Robot Command eXplorer (RCX):

Figure 1.1 – RCX 2.00 brick hub

You'll know this brick as the yellow brick that started a journey unlike any other – a powerful programming device with 32 KB of RAM with no USB (not available to the public until September 1998), no Wi-Fi (cell phones were just emerging with...