Building Lego's New Star Wars Droids

First you build the models from bricks, then kids learn to program with blocks

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Lego’s new big Star Wars set, and one you can expect to see a lot more of as we come towards its September 2019 release date, is actually three sets and an app in one box. The Lego Star Wars Boost set lets kids build three iconic droids, including R2-D2, and program them through missions using an app.

It’s designed to teach kids the core concepts of coding, with programming done by dragging blocks together on a phone or tablet to form a series of commands. The droids can move around, but also have lots of extra things they can do, partly driven by attachments you can add to them all.

We had the chance to try out the new robots with designers Carl Merriam and Steve geist, with an early version of the app. The main difference from the current Lego Boost set is that you can have all three robots built and ready to go at any time – the original Boost had five things to build, but you had to take one apart to build the next.