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LEGO Dacta Milestones

1980 The LEGO Group establishes the Educational Products Department to develop and market products for schools and other learning institutions.
1982 The Educational Products Department introduces the first LEGO® product developed especially for the school market. Simple Machines gives students a hands-on opportunity to learn about gears, levers, pulleys, friction, and mechanical advantage.
1985 Building on the success of Simple Machines, the Educational Products Department introduces Motorized Machines, which extends the simple machines concepts by adding motorization. Students can now bring their inventions to life with a special LEGO motor.
1986 The Educational Products Department launches the first LEGO computer control products. Using easy-to-understand commands, students can now control their LEGO models via a computer.
1989 On February 21st, American professor Dr. Seymour Papert, of MIT's Development Laboratory of Computer Learning, is named "LEGO Professor of Learning Research." Dr. Papert began working with the LEGO Group in 1984 to link the Logo programming language to LEGO bricks.
1989 The Educational Products Department changes its name to LEGO Dacta. The word "Dacta" comes from the Greek word "didactic," meaning, "the study of the purpose, means, and substance of learning and the learning process."
1992 With the introduction of Air Systems, LEGO Dacta expands its range to include pneumatics.
1993 LEGO DACTA Control Lab, our latest computer control product, features a new interface box, which can be used with 4 types of sensors: Light, Touch, Rotation and Temperature. Logo base software, with user friendle graphics, enables children to write procedures, monitor sensors, plot graphs, and write reports. (Download LEGO DATCA Control Lab Article).
1995 To introduce simple machines to the very youngest students, LEGO Dacta designs special gears, pulleys, and beams that work with the DUPLO building system. Children as young as five years old can use the new Early Science & Technology Sets to examine the motion of wheels and axles, the meshing of gears, and the hoisting power of pulleys.
1996 LEGO Dacta develops the Intelligent House to provide students at different skill levels with a smooth introduction to computer control technology. Challenge activities provide students with the opportunity to develop their programming skills by writing procedures to solve problems.
1996 LEGO Dacta establishes its own site on the Internet.



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Page updated November 5, 1996