9748 Droid Developer Kit
In the wake of the announcement of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars Boost Droid Commander set I thought it would be interesting to have a look at a previous programmable incarnation of R2D2 in LEGO. There have been plenty of LEGO version of this iconic droid, but only one had a programmable brick at its core, back when LEGO robotics was still in its early stages.
1999 saw the release of the Droid Development Kit (9748). This kit featured R2D2 as its main model, but also included instructions for a Trainer Droid and a Jedi Knight Droid:
The kit was based on the Micro Scout programmable brick. This p-Brick contained a single 3V motor (powered by 2 AA batteries), a light sensor and a 4-bit processor. The p-Brick came with 7 pre-programmed behaviours and a “P” program that allowed for some basic programming through a Visual Light Link.
The building instructions were never available as a natively created PDF file, but LEGO has scanned the instruction booklet and it can be downloaded from this [link]. The booklet describes the 7 behaviours and provides a link to a LEGO website that explains how to use the "P" program. Unfortunately this website has been lost (like so many of the digital content on the LEGO websites) and the Internet Archive has not retained a copy of the page. Fortunately there are many fan-made resources that have documented this brick and you can find a description of the VLL protocol [here].
A year later LEGO released the Dark Side Developer Kit (9754). This set was again based on a Micro Scout (with a light grey top and red buttons and port) and featured another three models. Scanned instructions are again available from the LEGO website although so far I have only been able to locate the 1st of the 3 booklets [here].
The R2D2 from the 9748 Droid Development Kit was a fun toy, but much of its potential was never used. The Visual Light Link could be used together with the IR tower of the RCX, but LEGO never released a program that made this easy. A handful of hardcore fans did work with the protocol and support was included in Bricxcc, the text-based programming environment created by John Hanssen.
The limited programming capability of the brick and the fact that it include a single motor required ingenuity and skill to include more than one motorized function in the models. R2D2 was capable of moving forward in a straight line, but when the motor direction was reversed it would turn, allowing for some degree of steering with the droid.
Fan designers came up with even more complex additional models and a number of the big names in LEGO robotics at that time collaborated to create a book published by Syngress: LEGO MINDSTORMS Dark Side Robots, Transports and Creatures. It featured models by Kevin Clague, Soren Rolighed, Miguel Agullo and Hideaki Yabuji. An additional chapter by J.P. Brown was offered as a free download.
I found a few pictures of 2 of the models on an old hard drive…
Super Battle Droid
Orbital Defense Cannon
After these two kits, the Micro Scout was never again used by LEGO and the protocol that tied it together with the RCX and the Code Pilot (!!) was “lost” in time…
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