Bug book. Hmmm

Disney collaboration crossover between jungle book and bugs life...?

“Constructope”

Isn't this one of the sets that was slowly sending Lego bankrupt, around the turn of the millennium?

Boy Huwbot is going for some deep cuts tonight.

I always found those dome eyes of Insectoids sets adorable, and so this is one of those robot kits that's always tickled my fancy. Never managed to find a copy though.

What a fat looking Insectoid.

I love it how aside from the electric Mindstorms elements, you can clearly tell this set was created from whaever leftover parts remained from Insectoids.

Insectoids LIVE!

I like to imagine this is one of the giant alien bugs the Insectoids were supposed to be modelling their ships after

@Astrobricks said:
"Insectoids LIVE!"

Well, lived, anyway. For a bit longer.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Zordboy :
That’s a complicated question. Short answer is they probably didn’t help. Long answer is they weren’t really cranking out a slew of new molds, aside from the actual Mindstorms elements, which meant they weren’t Galidoring the company. Mindstorms was successful enough to currently be on its fourth iteration, as well as influencing the design of PF and PU. It needed some form of support besides the main kit, and schools might have grants that they have to spend on _something_ of this sort (one of the guys in my LUG was excited to hear that Best Buy was stocking the NXT kit because he was provided with some funds to spend only there, and previously there really wasn’t much he could find that qualified).

In terms of parts packs, these were garbage. I got two, I think on clearance. One was Vision Command (I didn’t have a digital camera at the time, and quickly discovered that the LEGO webcam was deep in the bottom of the barrel). The other was the Mars pack. About the most use I got out of that was the super long 9v wires. Then the insulation rotted off, and another guy in my LUG popped the ends open and replaced the wire with something that looks nearly identical but should last more than ten years.

As Mindstorms kits...I can’t really comment, since I never got the base kit. They all came with a CD-ROM with digital instructions and supplemental programming that pertained to the kit they were packed with, so if you were actually buying them to expand your Mindstorms collection, they certainly offered a lot more than they did to someone who was just going to chuck the CD in a desk drawer. Well, except the really advanced users who were wiping the OS off the RCX and replacing it with better homebrew options, in which case it once again was just a parts pack plus maybe a peripheral for the RCX."

I loved the RCX sets, and if I remember correctly, the Robotics Inventory Set is the most-sold Lego set ever, with around one million copies. This (edit: 9735)was kind of a poor man's RIS. I have the Scout electronic brick only, which may be coupled with the yellow RCX, but I never really got that far.
So I think this set, along with the other Mindstorms sets was an important step in the saving of the company.
The Vision Command was really cool, where it was easy to build a motion tracking camera.

Mindstorms was the best! I got into it through my school, and in some way, the RCX will always be “my” LEGO robotics system.

Huw said: "Not much interest in this one today..."

Oh, believe me, I was *very* interested in this when it came out - primarily cause it was a stand-alone system without all the hassle of Lego's typically half-arsed PC integration. Unfortunately it was part of the Dacta/educational line and not sold in regular stores (at least not here) - I tried contacting the Norwegian distributor but they couldn't sell me one directly, so they referred me to an educational robot company instead. This didn't work out either as they were a strictly "B2B" business (selling mostly to schools and similar institutions) and were totally unable to sell it to individuals without VAT registration - it was just the usual "the computer system won't allow it" jobsworth excuses.

I really wish Lego would abandon the PC/phone requirement for their digital products (or at most make it a secondary/optional feature) - it tends to only work with very specific systems, is *way* more hassle than it's worth, and totally lacks future-proofing when said systems are discontinued. This utter lack of stand-alone designs is *really* what kills Lego's digital products for me.

@Wrecknbuild:
No, from everything we've heard through internal sources, the only things that saved the company were changing the way the company designed new parts and sets, and producing Bionicle. Someone recently commented that Bionicle was representing 40% of their total sales at peak, so mostly the best any other themes did was cover their costs, and build towards the future. Mindstorms in '98, SW in '99, and HP in '01 were three themes that were introduced during that time that would go on to be a big part of the next 20 years, but that doesn't mean they were instrumental in saving the company at that time.