I love it when things that recently were science fiction become mundane. When you’re building it out of LEGO, it’s no longer futuristic, is it? Robots riding Segways. Yawn. Let’s put frickin’ lasers on their heads. Then you’d have something.

The beauty of the design is using a simple light sensor, instead of using gyroscopes, to continuously measure the distance from the ground, while constantly adjusting its drive motors with the info, to keep the thing upright. The second iteration on the video makes the robot lean forward or back to operate the scooter, just like a real Segway works.

Building instructions here: nxtprograms.com

LEGO kit here:

Come on, Mom and Dad; a LEGO Death Star costs $399, and after an hour isn’t good for anything but supplying pieces to step on in the dark when you tuck junior in. $289 and your kid’s a robotic engineer. Pony up!