No one does brand synergy quite like Lego. The company’s been one of the biggest Star Wars licensers over the years, and for the first time, it’s applying one of the most valuable pieces of IP to its own line of STEM kits, Lego Boost. For this year’s Star Wars Day, the Danish company is announcing the arrival of the Lego Star Wars Boost Droid Commander set, which uses the underlying educational property as a jumping off point to build a trio of classic robots from the series. Kids can use the kit to build R2-D2, Gonk and the Mouse Droid, commanding them on 40 different missions, while learning to build and code in the process. It looks like an effective way to disguise the whole learning bit behind one of history’s most beloved film series. It’s similar to the approach taken by littleBits’ Droid Inventor Kit a few years back — though Lego’s got a pretty remarkable track record of using Star Wars IP. The set includes 1,177 pieces coupled with color and distance sensors and an interactive motor to get the robots moving. All of that works with a new Boost Star Wars app, which will be available for Android, iOS and Fire devices, featuring such missions as assisting an X-wing flight and seeking those sneaky rebels. The system arrives on September 1, timed for the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final film in the sequel trilogy.<doc-sep>(Image credit: Lego) The best robot kit for kids is getting a major upgrade and a heavy dose of Star Wars magic. Due out September 1 for $199 U.S, the Lego Boost Droid Commander set features all the tools your child (or you) need to build a working R2D2, a Gonk Droid and a Mouse Droid while learning a lot about programming. The Lego Boost Creative Toolbox, which launched in 2017, remains the toy of choice for budding engineers and developers under 12 because it combines the fun of building Legos with the best companion app I’ve ever seen. Unlike many other robot programming apps that give children a giant toolbox of block-based code with limited instructions and no goals, Lego Boost’s software gamifies the learning experience, making children complete a series of sequential challenges in order to unlock new features. With the Boost app, kids don’t ever get stuck because the program always offers guidance about how to complete each task, while also leaving them enough leeway to write their own programs from scratch. The Boost coding language is completely block-based, with icons on each block to show you its function. Because there’s no reading required, even preliterate children can learn. (Image credit: Lego) Lego Boost Droid Commander builds on this rich tradition with a new app that turns the gamification volume up to 11. The app, which will be available for iOS, Android and Amazon Fire devices at launch, and its lessons are part of an exciting, interactive Star Wars story. You start on the planet Tatooine, where different characters, including Luke Skywalker, give you coding missions. There are different missions for each Droid, so you’ll need R2D2 for some challenges and the Gonk Droid or Mouse Droid for others. During a demo, I witnessed a mission where Luke asked R2 to help him map Beggar’s canyon. As you advance, you go to the Millenium Falcon, where you use to travel to different locations, each with its own set of missions and characters. The locations include Bespin, the Death Star and (unbelievably) Alderan. Yes, you can travel to Alderan -- the planet where the Death Star blows up in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope -- and do some coding missions there. When you swipe past Alderan in the list of planets, you see an animation where it breaks apart (a clear callout to the movie). (Image credit: Lego) Lego also told me that, at one point in the game’s story, you participate in the Battle of Yavin. There’s a coding challenge that involves R2D2, but you’ll also get to fly an X-Wing fighter within the app. Lego said that one of the subplots in the story involves the Empire planning a birthday party for Grand Moff Tarkin. There are 43 missions in all. Unlike original Lego Boost, which makes you take each of its five robots apart in order to create the next one, the 1,177 pieces in the Droid Commander kit give you enough elements to build all three Droids at once. However, as with the original Boost, there’s only one set of electronics: the Bluetooth Move Hub that contains the controller and a motor, a color / distance sensor and an external motor. Each Droid pops open to allow you to swap the electronic components in or out, without destroying it. (Image credit: Lego) The Boost Droid Commander kit also comes with a slew of Lego elements that help you build accessories for different missions. For example, the Gonk Droid has different removable arms that you can pop on or off, and R2D2 has (non-electronic) computer terminals to which it can connect. The robots move in different ways. While R2D2 and the Mouse Droid roll around on wheels, the Gonk Droid walks on feet. If you just want to move one of these robots around the living room without writing a program for it, the app has a driving mode with an on-screen joystick and buttons. You can even write custom programs to attach to each of the six buttons. If you’ve finished all the programming challenges or just want to work from a blank canvas, you can create your own custom programs by heading to the Jawa’s sandcrawler. There, you have access to all the blocks, which you can use to control one of three Droids or a robot of your own design. (Image credit: Lego) With a fall launch date, Lego Boost Droid Commander is set to be the hottest STEM toy of the 2019 holiday season. Lego told me that it is targeting children 8 and up (original Boost is labeled as 7 - 12), but because there’s only minimal text in the app (planet names are labeled as are some help screens), much younger kids should enjoy it. My son mastered original Lego Boost at the age of five-and-a-half. At $199.99, the Boost Droid Commander set is about $40 more expensive than the original Boost set, which is still for sale. However, you’re getting about 400 more pieces and an exciting Star Wars game, which should make it well worth the premium.<doc-sep>
Toys and Collectibles Action figures, statues, exclusives, and other merchandise. Beware: if you look here, you’re probably going to spend some money afterwards. Prev Next View All Consumer-focused robots have been having a bit of a hard time in recent years. Just last week, Anki, maker of the adorable Cozmo and Vector bots, was the latest robot maker to go under as consumers hesitated to spend $250 on an automaton that didn’t really do anything. Lego’s latest creation also won’t vacuum your floors, but who hasn’t fantasized about building and commanding their very own Star Wars droid army? The Lego Star Wars Boost Droid Commander set is the first from the toymaker that connects a licensed property to its Boost robotics platform, which is a more kid-friendly version of the company’s highly technical and capable robotic Mindstorms kits. We fell in love with the Lego Boost Creative Toolbox when we tried it last year, but being able to take it one step further and build interactive versions of some of the most famous robots of all time is as good an excuse as any to play with Lego again. A Lego Mouse droid, R2-D2, and Gonk droid. Photo : Lego At $200, the Star Wars Boost Droid Commander set (available starting September 1, 2019) is actually slightly more expensive than Anki’s Cozmo, but it comes with instructions and 1,177-pieces for building three of the franchise’s most recognizable bots including a Mouse droid, a Gonk droid, and R2-D2. Each droid is powered by the included Lego Boost Move Hub which can be swapped between each robot to bring them to life with movements, sound effects, and music from the endless film franchise. The Move Hub connects to an accompanying mobile app over Bluetooth allowing each robot to be controlled wirelessly. But there’s also a level of autonomy that can be added to each droid, as they can be augmented with a color and distance sensor that helps make them somewhat aware of their environments as they roam. Will R2-D2 wander around your home serving drinks or sharing holographic messages from a Princess all on his own? No, not even close, but the Lego Boost Star Wars app does allow you to program custom movements using a drag and drop coding interface that’s kid-friendly, and more importantly, technologically- challenged- adult friendly. Using Star Wars to covertly teach kids’ STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) concepts is not a new idea, toy companies like littleBits and Sphero have already tried their hands at it. But the basic nature of Lego gives the company a big advantage because once you tire of R2-D2 or a Gonk droid stumbling around your living room, they can be rebuilt into an infinite number of other robotic creations. Lego just might be exactly what the consumer robots space needs right now. When a Lego robot vacuum is done cleaning, you could rebuild and reprogram it into robotic puppy, or a robot sentry, or whatever random thing you’d want a robot to do for you.