[Lego] Spybotics!

Only at a place like Bricklink can you casually grab a complete set of sealed 21-year-old LEGO products... Insane.

I initially planned to get the remainder of the 12V train accessories, but I came across a much better deal. In my never-ending quest for collecting all kinds of (niche) LEGO products, my favorite chapter in the company's history is the time they went nearly bankrupt with a 800 million dollar unpaid debt: the Ploughman era. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

During this time (late 90s to early 2000s) lots of unique products were released, even more so were not. It was the time of great leaps in technological advancement, so much in fact that toy companies were threatened to become irrelevant. In response and an act of desperation, LEGO gave carte blanche to their development team. As a result, their unchecked expenses went through the roof and every LEGO theme except for Bionicle was running at a loss*.

*I'm currently reading the book "Brick by Brick" by David Robertson. It goes into painstaking detail on precisely why the company went nearly bankrupt under Paul Ploughman's leadership, and how Jørgen Vig Knudstorp dragged the company out of it. It's a fascinating read. I might eventually write a blogpost about it once I've finished reading it.

I've made it no secret that I firmly believe the company's most interesting and fascinating products come from this era. Any of these products have the same quality as any other LEGO product. It's just many older LEGO fans find that these products strayed too far from the traditional brick. It's easy to make the argument that unconventional products were the reason for the company's downfall, but the only reason why LEGO got out of troubled waters was by sheer discipline, planning, innovation and a bit of luck with Bionicle catching lightning in a bottle. Not just the traditional brick.

But enough talk about that - what are Spybotics? It's a short-lived offshoot of LEGO Mindstorms, aimed at a lower price point. Released during a time before adults were willing to spend a lot for LEGO products, Mindstorms (like the monorail) were priced exceptionally high. This was also before computers were readily available and user-friendly, let alone asking a child to program a toy was a tall order. Spybotics however, seemed to aim to address these issues.

Spybotics were priced at almost a quarter of the retail price of Mindstorms, it simplified the building experience and provided an easier entry to programming robots through play with missions on its CD-ROM. Released during the middle of a resurgence of the spy genre, it like many other products on the market, hoped to piggyback off of it.

However, Spybotics never saw success. Like how Galidor and Knight's Kingdom II met its demise by competing against Bionicle, the unexpected rising success of (hacking) Mindstorms blew the wind out Spybotics' sails. And like many other LEGO products at the time, Spybotics still couldn't sell even at large discounts. But unlike themes such as Galidor or Bionicle, Spybotics has almost no following - only a handful of fans*. It's a niche within a niche, if you will.

*As is common with many LEGO products, it's well researched and analyzed by fans and thus what is on that PCB board, how to run the CD-ROM on modern computers and connect the Spybotics through serial is well documented.

What we're left with, is a perfect encapsulation of the Ploughman era... or is there more to it? Aside from the coolness factor with these toys having a strong visual presence on a display shelf, Spybotics genuinely has things going for it.

While you can't add motors or sensors to these units, they are arguably the most compact remote-controlled LEGO unit, jam-packed with functionality. It includes all of the components found in the original Mindstorms kit: it reuses the same internal components found in the 9V motors, the light sensor and touch sensor. All of it is just integrated directly onto the Spybotics PCB. Furthermore, it includes the pinnacle and bane of Ploughman's carte blanche: the fiber-optics unit. And not only can you directly remote control the Spybotics without having to program it, because LEGO reused the base code from the original Mindstorms in all of its offshoots, you can let the Spybotics communicate with any of these (not just only other Spybotics), and vice versa. Spybotics is just a wonderful toy full of untapped potential.

Icing on the cake for these sets are the many exclusive recolors for parts, found nowhere else. It's stuff like this that comes from the Ploughman era that's never going to happen, ever again. Because remember: LEGO lost money for each single Spybotics produced. It's insane how that went. But like I said: it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's a rabbit hole you can spend your entire life digging into, and it's something I'm probably going to end up doing out of love.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!