The LEGO company is producing a special, Limited Edition, version of the Mindstorms NXT brick. The brick will be black, and LEGO will only produce 1998 of them, to commemorate the creation of Mindstorms in 1998. Owners will get special goodies, like bragging rights, and special programs with the purchase of their brick.

The first LEGO MINDSTORMS products came out in the year 1998 and have since then continued to bring fun and active building and programming experiences to millions of robotic builders across the world! Why a Black NXT? Because it is cool! And looking around in the MINDSTORMS community we noticed that a Black NXT was high on the wish list among users. Once you have bought and received your new Black NXT you will get access to additional materials like a special-made program for the Black NXT, a personal certificate of ownership, wallpapers, building instructions for special models.

You can purchase one of these exclusive items from www.legoshop.com or from Amazon.

Do you remember with Mindstorms originally came out? Did you buy one then, or did you wait? I remember being almost beside myself with excitement.

[Via The Brothers Brick]

Chris Grine claims he can draw 3 robots a week for a full year, thereby creating “165 ‘Bots With Stuff“. His whimsical drawings will put a smile on your face and give you a good chuckle.

I especially enjoy #006, “a robot with a warm tender heart” and “a robot with a distinct limp“.

Good work Chris, we’ll be watching to see if you can make it to 165!

So, what’s everyone’s favorite so far?

Jon Stewart and his crew tackle the difficult ethical questions of involving robots in war. Hidden behind the humor, there’s some decent points.

[Via The Robot Report]

Dvice and SciFi are sponsoring a Steampunk Cylon Contest. Your challenge is to design a steampunk style Cylon and submit a drawing or photo to SciFi before March 20th. Winners will win various Battlestar Galactica prizes.

The Cylons were created by the people of the Twelve Colonies. Intelligent robots, they were used as slaves and soldiers to fight humanity’s wars. But the Cylons became sentient and they rebelled. Man and machine fought to a bloody stalemate, then the Cylons withdrew to a remote region of space. A truce between the Twelve Colonies and the Cylons lasted for 40 tense and silent years. Then, on the 40th anniversary, a stunning blonde — a Cylon in human form — met the human envoy… moments before the Cylons vaporized the station and launched a genocidal attack on the Twelve Colonies.

Build on! So say we all.

Riding with Robots brings us a neat story of how NASA has recycled one of their missions, and turned it into another. The EPOXI (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended Investigation) mission utilizes the main vehicle from the Deep Impact mission to performan another series of experiments which will perform a close (600 miles) fly-by of the comet Hartley 2 on October 11, 2010. During its trip to Hartley 2, the space probe will pass by Earth a total of 4 times and is currently in a solar orbit. The probe uses Earth’s gravity to gently nudge it into the path of the comet. The mission, which is being run by the University of Maryland, will only end up costing tax-payers $40 million USD (compared to $330 million USD cost of Deep Impact).