Michael Bates: March 2026 Archives
FIRST & LEGO Education Partnership Update
FIRST Robotics and LEGO are not renewing their long-time partnership, the FIRST Lego League competition, beyond the 2026-2027 season. This is bizarre and surprising. Here is LEGO's statement on the parting of ways: "LEGO® Education will launch a 2027-2028 season, and we look forward to bringing fun, inspiring and creative STEM learning and the important skills it develops to even more children in the future." The Brick Fan blog notes: "LEGO Education back in January announced that they will be releasing a new Computer Science & AI learning solution while the SPIKE Portfolio will be retired at the end of June."
"FLL used spike prime as its ecosystem, but Lego discontinued the commercial version years ago, and Lego education announced that they're discontinuing the education edition as well. Mindstorms as a brand has completely ceased to exist, which means FLL no longer has a way to get new control systems.
"The only motorized remote control programming system systems LEGO offers aren't able to run autonomously without an active connection to the brick, which breaks a bunch of FLL rules. They also suck compared to spike prime in terms of teach teaching kids to code and use sensors.
"Essentially, Lego moved on. The only people who were buying these kits were FLL teams, and that clearly just wasn't enough to justify the cost of manufacturing them."
When Country Was King « TK Smith
The ballrooms, dance halls, and honky-tonks of Los Angeles and Orange Counties in the 1940s and the bands that played them.
San Fernando Valley, 1946. The impressive Tarzana Rexall building, Lee's Roundup, a Western Swing dance hall. Here's the view today.
This California Marsh Once Spied on the Soviet Navy - @mareislandfoundation on Tumblr
Skaggs Island, north of San Francisco Bay, was home to a base that intercepted Soviet radio signals from across the Pacific and decrypted them.
