This semi-secret Lego Smart Brick feature gives it even more potential

To my surprise, the company showed off one more feature I didn’t see during my first demo, perhaps the most impressive one should these bricks make their way to adult builders: precise distance measurement.

Lego Group design manager Maarten Simons whipped out a “Lego ruler” made of standard Lego bricks divided into segments that were each 10 Lego studs, or roughly 8cm (3.15 inches) long. He attached a Smart Brick to one end of the ruler, and dragged a second Smart Brick along its length. The Smart Bricks changed color every time another 10 ten studs was passed, exactly at the dividing lines of each segment.

Simons then moved the Smart Bricks away from the ruler and performed the same trick. Using just a pair of Smart Bricks, he was able to measure the distance between two points in 2D and 3D space. Simons says the bricks can accurately track each other’s position at distances of up to roughly 4 to 5 meters (12–16 feet) away.

Then, Simons rotated a brick in midair, and we watched it light up as soon as it was precisely facing the other brick.

From previous briefings, I already knew the bricks could tell their own orientation and if they were relatively closer or further from each other. But it’s clearly more powerful than that, with more potential than the first three Lego Star Wars sets will offer on launch day (assuming these precision features work in the real world with all its forms of wireless interference).

The Lego Star Wars sets very intentionally let kids blast each other’s ships without them truly facing each other, because the company’s research shows kids prefer that. But it clearly doesn’t have to be that way. Low-hanging fruit: future Lego creations could have a precise blasting game.

They might have potential in Lego robots too. Lego Mindstorms was one of the toymaker’s most sophisticated building sets, but even with drag-and-drop programming capabilities, its complexity limited its appeal to kids. With the Smart Brick’s ability to know its location and orientation around other Smart Bricks, Lego robots could possibly navigate obstacles built with Smart Tags, or autonomously find their way back to base stations without the need for detailed programming, cameras for sensing, or pricier components like the Mindstorms’ Intelligent Brick.

Lego’s being extremely quiet about future plans for its new Smart Play system, but it’s getting more and more interesting, with more potential uses, as the company reveals what the bricks are capable of.