[ryukoposting]

Call me names, but I'll go to bat for stickers.

Even when I was a kid, I wasn't keen on graphic designs on the pieces. I liked the uniformity of consistently-colored pieces. Most graphics only make sense in the context of the set they were packaged in. Stickers give the customer flexibility. Use them when you build the set, and remove them later if you take the set apart and don't want them anymore.

Killing Mindstorms was a head-scratcher to me. Hell, there was an entire international tournament built around Mindstorms. I know FLL still exists, but why kill that darling specifically?

NXT still kicks ass by the way. I have a backup of the NXT programming environment somewhere, it can be coaxed into running on Windows 11.

[FinnKuhn]

You can argue this for their sets targeting children and I don't think anyone minds stickers on those.

On display sets for multiple hundred Euros however it just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors - especially as no one is ever going to disassemble these sets.

[ryukoposting]

I think that's fair, though I'm sure we would disagree on plenty of edge cases in the definition of a "display-oriented" set.

It just feels to me like AFOLs poopoo on any set for having stickers, without considering the advantages stickers have from the POV from the POV of a child with few LEGOs and fewer dollars.

[FinnKuhn]

In my case I think we can agree that the Lego Icons series is mostly display sets I think. At least those are what I was thinking of and that is how Lego markets them as well.

[ryukoposting]

They do tend to use printed graphics on those, right?

My #21334 is technically Ideas, not Icons, but it's in that same aesthetic sphere and it uses printed bricks.

My #10266 is the most "display-ish" set that has stickers, but it's also well within the gray area between "plaything" and "display piece."

[FinnKuhn]

The one I have is definitely full of stickers.

#10298 Vespa 125

[FarmerPotato]

stickers > just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors

They are cheap!

To print on a piece you must run the inkjet assembly line, do QC on it.. With early Collectable Minifig series, I heard they outsourced that. I imagine inkjet lines that run all day for one piece type (maybe having changeable jigs.)

It's cheap to print a whole sheet of stickers!

Another approach that isn't so cheap is: in-mold transfer printing sheets. I learned about this at plastics shows around 2000; Apple used it on the all-in-one spotted iMac in 2001-ish.

Now since Lego ships perpetually ships 1x4s and 1x2s with black smileys or such, I guess carbon black in-mold transfer must be cost-effective. (That's a guess)

I know we're gonna be arguing taste in stickers forever.

[bigstrat2003]

I have some of those display sets and I think the stickers look fine. Yeah it's less convenient than printed pieces, but I think the complaints are significantly overblown.

[FinnKuhn]

I have one since a few years (it's a display set) and you can clearly see the stickers now as they haven't aged the same being subjected to sunlight.

I also have a set from another manufacturer that prints everything and there you don't have this problem.

[closewith]

But you can only remove them once, and then never recreate the original set. Not great.

[FarmerPotato]

Silverlight. 3.0 was built on Silverlight. And I guess other 3rd party proprietary stuff.

I coached FLL 9+ and Junior FLL 6-8. FLL moved on to Boost and Java programming. These days I only do high-school FIRST.

[FarmerPotato]

Another detail: National Instruments declined to update the Mindstorms software. Just wasn't a profitable business case. (The LabView vi libraries, I dunno if they worked past 2015.. I stopped upgrading.)

[ryukoposting]

I finally had the time to get back into FRC mentoring last year, for just one season. I changed jobs and had to move across the country before this season started. I miss it dearly.