New products! LEGO Education Science Kit (#45620, #45621, #45622)

 

LEGO Education Science Kit

This represents a new product line from the LEGO Education division announced in January 2025: the LEGO Education Science Kit. It finally shipped to Taiwan in October. A big thank you to Teacher Lin Zhengxue for providing me with such an excellent new product to use at the earliest opportunity!

I still recall April 2019, when, at Teacher Lin Zhengxue's invitation, I took a 24-hour whirlwind trip to Shanghai to attend the LEGO Education launch event for LEGO SPIKE. Six and a half years have passed since then. According to the "law" of RCX, NXT, and EV3, there should be a replacement every eight years. Thus, LEGO Education has launched a new product.

Since the LEGO Toy division's MINDSTORMS series has ended, I assumed LEGO Education would release a new generation of robotics kits. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be a science-related product, not robotics education or a typical STEAM kit. It really gave me a start.

From the 120 lesson plans already made public, I discovered that these three Science kits do not require computers or tablets as auxiliary equipment at all (is it "unplugged"?). It seems LEGO Education is pivoting to root itself in basic science education.

(Fortunately, thanks to a post by Master Yoshihito Isogawa on Facebook today, I discovered that this kit can actually be used to control electronic components via programming!)

Brief Introduction to the Kit

The LEGO Education Science Kit is divided into three products:

• #45620 is designed for Grades K-2.

• #45621 is designed for Grades 3-5.

• #45622 is designed for Grades 6-8.

  Each product features 40 lesson designs, with each lesson lasting 45 minutes. Each kit can accommodate up to 4 students simultaneously.

I received the most advanced set, #45622, which contains the most electronic components and brick parts. The official list price is $499.95 USD.

Even before opening the box, the carton felt heavy—heavier than a SPIKE Prime set. I was wondering why, but upon opening it, I discovered the reason: three massive construction instruction booklets, all printed on glossy coated paper, giving them significant weight. The plastic sorting tray, however, is quite lightweight.

The three instruction booklets are labeled C1, C2, and C3, corresponding to the 40 lessons. (The numbering for #45620 should be A1, A2, A3; and for #45621, B1, B2, B3).

The content of these lessons can be viewed by logging into a LEGO Education account on the official LEGO Education teaching page.

Contents of the plastic sorting tray:

• Center: 4 bags of LEGO bricks.

• Left (Electronic Parts): From top to bottom: Double Motor, Single Motor, Remote Controller, Color Sensor.

• Right (Other items): USB cable (Type A to Type C), and three NFC cards.

For details, please refer to the parts list PDF on the official LEGO Education website.

Electronic Parts

These four types of electronic parts are not as rich as those in previous robotics kits, and in terms of specifications, they appear to be decoupled from PF2 (Power Functions 2.0).

The Type-C socket complies with EU charging requirements for electronic products. During charging, the light flashes orange (my phone camera seems to show some color distortion); when fully charged, it flashes green.

Each electronic component features an independent rechargeable battery, Bluetooth communication, and NFC reading capabilities. Therefore, they can be paired using NFC cards. Basically, there are several ways to play:

1. Double Motor & Single Motor Independent Operation: Manually rotating the motor's disc triggers it to spin slowly or quickly. These actions are built-in modes.

2. Remote Controller with Motor: Using the joystick's wireless control to make the motor spin.

3. Color Sensor with Motor: Upon detecting different colors, it drives the motor to spin forward, backward, or wobble. The corresponding colors and actions are also built-in.

The brick selection contains a very small amount of Technic series simple machine parts, such as gears, cams, and pulleys. Construction primarily relies on System Bricks. I believe this is for stylistic variation and to make assembly and disassembly easier for students.

(I should probably release a "Power Mechanics Pack" that people can buy to use in conjunction with this, to fully learn both science and simple machines with this Science Kit!)

Programming

My first impression of this kit was: Is LEGO Education abandoning STEAM education? Perhaps shifting to basic science is a good idea! However, teachers will need to provide constant guidance, using brick manipulation as an aid to help students understand the core scientific knowledge. It would be heartbreaking if LEGO bricks were reduced to a supporting role!

It wasn't until I saw Master Isogawa's post today that I realized LEGO Education has already prepared a programming page. Similar to SPIKE, it uses the Chrome browser's Bluetooth API to connect.

The programming user interface is similar to the SPIKE App, meaning it is Scratch-like, so everyone can get the hang of it quickly.

Basic logic sequences, event triggers, mathematical operations, and variable lists are all present. It also includes Scratch's unique computer display, Q&A, and sound functions. Unfortunately, there are no extensions yet. I believe this is the initial version of the interface, and there should be many updates in the future.

(I hope LEGO Education will publish relevant technical documentation and be open to suggestions to make the software better. Although, judging by the experience with SPIKE, that might be difficult!)

Bluetooth can connect multiple electronic components simultaneously. From the program commands, I found many hidden features. For example, the Double Motor has a built-in gyroscope; the Color Sensor can use reflected light mode or provide Hue readings.

• Word Block programming page (Currently only available in English)

• Icon Block programming page

Summary

There doesn't seem to be much discussion about the LEGO Education Science Kit in the community yet. I hope this article provides everyone with a preliminary understanding. Discussions are welcome!

You can visit Teacher Lin's Ruten or Shopee store to check it out!

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