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Early this morning the LEGO Group announced that it had selected 100 finalists — out of an applicant pool of more than 9600 people — for the Mindstorms Developer Program (MDP).

As part of the community-based development process that LEGO announced a few months ago (and was mentioned in a recent WIRED cover story) these lucky folks will get a few months to tinker with the NXT before the product is released at retail.

The MDP will be chaired by Mitch Resnick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, who also contributed to the design and development of the first Mindstorms in 1998. MDP developers will be divided into three groups, each dealing with a separate area of interest: software/hardware, inventions and creations/community. Access to a MDP web forum will be included, while participants will be encouraged to swap ideas, suggestions and other bits to help the community shape NXT development.  

Here’s a quote from the news release by Soren Lund, NXT Marketing Director:

“Because we are in the business of making a robotics toolset, as opposed to pre-designed or pre-programmed robots, we feel that inviting pioneers from the community broadly enhances the new product and experience for all MINDSTORMS users in ways that will exceed expectations at both the building and programming levels. Additionally, the diverse backgrounds, talents, interests and livelihoods of these 100 participants confirms the appeal and versatility of the platform we are bringing to market for tinkerers, enthusiasts and roboticists of all ages.”

The 100 developers selected for the MDP will be allowed to purchase early NXT sets, as well as pre-release NXT software, for a discounted price of USD $149.99. Once the program ends MDP participants will receive final software and other elements. The program will run from March 1st to June 15th.We’ll have more on the MDP program in the near future, and you can also check out the official Mindstorms NXT site for info as well.

During our neon-soaked sojourn through the wilds of CES we did manage to grab some video footage of the Mindstorms NXT in action. These files have been sitting in the dusty corner of a digital camera for the last few months, but I thought that these may be of interest. Apologies for the unusual angles and shaky camera work — I’ll drink less coffee before I take my next batch of video clips.

> NXT slots robot [2.9MB mpg]

> NXT brick menu [3.3MB mpg]

> NXT control software [3.9MB mpg]

In this final look at the Mindstorms NXT unveiling at CES we’ll take a gander at a few of the models that were on display at the show, as well as offer up a few samples of the prototype product packaging. There were a few new NXT-created gadgets on hand, including a robotic scorpion using the new ultrasonic sensor as a head and a good deal of the new LEGO Technic elements included with the set. I didn’t get to see this model in operation, but I did see two others: a ball-grabbing robot arm, and — my personal favorite — a functional slot machine with spinning tumblers and a hard candy payout.

The robot arm was able to pick up either a red of white plastic ball, then drop the chosen object on one of a variety of containers. The actual code used to make the claw arm do the grabbing, moving and dropping bit looked very straightforward and intuitive, which should help make mastering the more powerful features of the NXT less time-consuming than it was in the old software.

Since we were in Vegas, the NXT slot machine seemed to be a crowd favorite. This contraption used a new NXT touch sensor to replicate the coin-drop and the arm pull, which activated motors that spun three tumblers — with blue, white and red bricks on each face — to simulate the spinning wheels on a traditional slot machine. A winning combination would drop the gate holding a payout of candy, along with some suitable sound effects from the NXT brick. My historical gambling luck held true, as repeated attempts at trying to win the blasted jackpot failed miserably. Naturally, the person who tried after me won the goods.

Next to all the NXT demonstration models there was a prototype of the NXT retail packaging on display, which will likely be changed somewhat before the NXT ships this August. See below for a few snaps of the front, back and inside flaps of the packaging.

The recently announced Mindstorms NXT was on display in the Robotics TechZone at CES, surrounded by other robotics exhibits. A number of NXT sample robots were being demonstrated, but in this installment we’ll focus on some of the key features of the new NXT intelligent brick, which replaces the yellow RCX brick used in earlier versions of Mindstorms.