Yesterday, The Lego Group announced that they would be discontinuing their Mindstorms-branded products at the end of 2022, as first reported by Brick Fanatics and several other Lego fansites. In an official statement, the company said it would redirect its internal Mindstorms team to “other business areas”and that its Mindstorms Robot Inventor App digital platforms would be operational through the end of 2024.
Lego Mindstorms debuted on September 1, 1998 as a revolutionary educational tool originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which allowed children and adults to build robotic systems using standard Lego parts and a computerized control box.
The kit gained a key part of its appeal by allowing owners to easily program the control unit on a personal computer using a drag-and-drop visual programming language, making it possible to create complex robots with a relatively simple set of parts. Over the years, hobbyists and explorers have taken the Mindstorms series in unexpected new directions, while Lego itself has revamped the product line with increasingly complex offerings.
Lego announced the latest (and presumably final) entry in the series, the Mindstorms Robot Inventor (51515), in June 2020, representing the fourth generation of Mindstorms products after launching in 1998 and major changes in 2006 and 2013. Set 51515 retails for $359.99 but may not be available as Lego is phasing out the product line.
Here is the full Lego statement that has been made available to Lego fan sites:
Since its launch in September 1998, LEGO MINDSTORMS has become one of the flagship “Assembly and Coding”projects in the company’s portfolio, bringing with it significant brand equity and becoming a standout experience in the early days of consumer robotics and leading to ongoing build and program such applications. like SPIKE Prime, from the LEGO Education system.
However, now with a number of priorities in LEGO Education and other Build & Code projects, we have decided to focus our resources and future plans by redirecting our MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor team and their expertise to other business areas.
This means that the physical product MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor (51515) and related items (88016 and 88018) should be out of our portfolio by the end of 2022, while digital platforms like the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor app by the end of 2024.
We remain a firm believer in the Build & Code offering and will continue to support it through platforms such as SPIKE Prime and we continue to maintain the trademark for the MINDSTORMS brand and evaluate our future plans with LEGO Education.
It’s worth noting that Lego hasn’t completely closed the door on bringing back the Mindstorms brand in the future – the company mentions retaining the Mindstorms trademark – but with a redirection of internal Mindstorms team and resources and a gap in Mindstorms product availability after December. 2022 seems to be the end of the product line as we know it.