Today, Lego announced that it would be releasing the software for its Mindstorms NXT sets to the open source community.

I have loved Legos since I was a small child (in fact, I have been known to still drag them out every now and then) and was excited at the news of an update to the Mindstorms series. I always felt that the Mindstorms kits had a lot of potential, but they were never very easy to extend beyond the simple included software. When the NXT set was first announced, I was ecstatic. I could not wait to get my hands on the new and improved set of sensors and the much improved "brick" control unit that features a 32 bit processor, more memory, and a multitude of connectivity options. Now with the announcement that the NXT software will be made open source, my excitement has doubled. I am giddy just thinking about being able the poke and prod the software until it does just what I want it to. I cannot wait to see what the community does with the NXT platform.

In case you want to pick up a NXT set, they are available for preorder for $250 from Lego, Amazon, and other retail outlets.

Lego only days away from launching Mindstorms as open source [via Gizmodo]
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