On the morning of January 12th, myself and the rest of the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) community received an email entitled, “Announcing a New Era for FIRST LEGO League.” I didn’t read it at first—the theme of this season has been archaeology, and the word era made it seem like it was about next season. After receiving a few messages, I could tell I’d missed something big, and upon re-reading, it became apparent the email was, as far as children’s competitive robotics leagues go, a bombshell.
What followed wasn’t just a platform update but a foundational shift that could fundamentally change who gets to participate in FIRST LEGO League. The announcement outlined major changes to the technology platform used by FLL, with a relatively short timeline for teams to adapt.
While change isn’t new to FLL, it’s hard to overstate how disruptive this one feels—especially in a space where progress usually moves at a glacial pace. For coaches, educators, and families who have invested years into building teams, fundraising, and learning a system, the news immediately raised questions about cost, access, and what this means for kids currently in the program.
How We Got Here
In 2025, as I documented here and here, I worked with a group of adults to start a FIRST LEGO League team for our children. It’s been a really fun, challenging, and occasionally arduous process. The theme this year was archaeology, so beyond learning how to build robots, we’ve also learned about ground-penetrating radar and took a field trip to see the world’s oldest shoes. We even learned that radiocarbon dating becomes less reliable on objects made after the 1950s due to the advent of nuclear weapons testing.
The kids have gotten a lot out of it, surprising me many times along the way. Last week, while working on their season-ending presentation, one of the children shared that making the poster was their favorite part of the whole season. As we wrap up our season this month, I was looking forward to learning more about the Challenge tier, since we’ll be first-timers next season and there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Getting into FLL is not as simple as signing up for the city’s Little League. There are different tiers, kits, state organizations, acronyms, and more to learn—and a lot of it is learned “on the job.” I have not been doing this nearly as long as most people in this space, but I feel comfortable saying that I would welcome changes to the league, the gameplay, and the experience if it meant the overall program could learn and grow.
With that in mind, I’m trying to remain open-minded about these changes until I see how the kids I work with react to them. But it’s hard to underscore how massive these changes are, and how quickly they’re happening in a space where the wheels of change usually move at a glacial pace.
SPIKE Is Dead. Long Live Computer Science +AI?
The announcement the email referred to shared that LEGO is retiring the SPIKE platform, both hardware and software, in June of this year. Because of that, FIRST LEGO League will have to move on as well, as new teams will no longer be able to purchase SPIKE kits or replacement parts. The app that allows teams to program their robots will continue to be supported for five years, which is fairly generous as far as tech platforms go. After that, teams will need to turn to alternatives like PyBricks to continue programming their robots.to program robots.
In SPIKE’s place will be the newly announced LEGO Education Computer Science & AI kit.
is that a monorail track i spy!?
Focusing on the kit for a moment, there are some exciting changes. First and foremost are wireless sensors, which is huge. Presumably, those will make their way into consumer kits as well, as the Powered Up system continues its slow shuffle off to the grave. Many eagle-eyed builders have noted what appears to be some kind of monorail track, as well as new rubber elements—like feet—that could help keep a robot from sliding on a table.
The wireless upgrades are also allowing for some major changes to FLL competitions. For example, there will be cooperative challenges. There also seems to be an overall effort to increase the “game” factor, including the ability for kids to drive their robots remotely at competitions, instead of simply turning them on and letting the program run. It feels like a potentially more fun and engaging experience.
On the less exciting side, FLL teams have one year to acquire the new ~$530 kits, which are scheduled to begin shipping in April. Next season will have two tracks: one for teams with the means to get the new kits, and another for those who weren’t able to acquire them yet. After that transition period, teams will need the new kits in order to participate in FIRST LEGO League.
What Does This Mean For Teams?
The responses from some corners of the FLL world have been nothing short of apoplectic. I initailly struggled to find even a single positive reaction to the announcement.
Via @andytgeezer
via FLL(FIRST LEGO LEAGUE) FB Group
You can say that this is the internet and that people will always be mad about change. But there is a key difference between this backlash and the response to something like the Smart Brick. A consumer can complain all they want and then simply walk into a big-box store and buy the product anyway. Teachers, educators, and coaches like myself can’t just go to the store. We need to fundraise and write grants.
I don’t think the average person understands how much work goes into grant writing. It can take years for a dream to become a funded reality. You see it again and again in these comments: people who spent the last year or two securing funding for SPIKE kits, only to wake up to this news. It can be a gut punch.
Personally, our school district loaned us two SPIKE Prime kits, and we purchased a secondhand SPIKE Essentials kit. This past fall, I had to ask all of our parents to cut a check to cover the start-up expenses for our team, explaining that going forward, the cost per season would go down, since we would only need to pay the annual registration fee. Instead, I’m now going to have to tell them that, to replace what we have, we have one year to raise $1,600. We won’t have that by the fall, but we’re fortunate enough that, with some fundraising, I think we’ll be able to get there by the following season.
I know coaches who are really going to struggle with this. Teams whose parents can’t shoulder that kind of financial burden will see their kids effectively priced out of FLL, and that sucks. And for schools that already have these kits, five years may sound like a long time, but anyone who works in education knows it can take that long just to secure funding—let alone train staff on how to teach with new equipment.
This is a risk-versus-reward calculation for LEGO Education and FIRST. FLL isn’t the only competitive robotics league, and there are cheaper robotics education options available. They know they’ll lose some number of teams, but they’re clearly betting that these changes will bring in twice as many to make up for that loss.
No More AI Fridges
The most common criticism I’ve seen of both the Smart Brick and the FLL changes is, “Who asked for this?” I find this to be a silly question. Nobody asked for the cronut, but most would agree the world is better off for it. Businesses often have to evolve at the expense of their current customers to survive.
However, the world watched as the largest tech companies descended on Las Vegas to peddle AI products and services. They promised the future and gave us AI refrigerators. As writer Ed Zitron put it, “Hundreds of other companies demoed other robots you couldn’t buy, and despite what reports might say, we were not shown ‘the future of robotics’ in any meaningful sense…. CES 2026 was the ‘year of robotics’ in the same way that somebody is a sailor because they wore a captain’s hat while sitting in a cardboard box.”
Image via The Verge
So if the promise of AI is falling flat, what is it doing in the new Computer Science & AI kits? The “& AI” naming convention makes it sound, at first glance, like yet another AI fridge. LEGO, however, promises they’re providing “safe AI learning” with the following traits:
Develops students’ AI literacy skills
Safe, meaningful and creative experiences
Supports AI learning progression
AI-based computer vision features
AI possibilities and challenges presented in an age-appropriate way
Everything saved locally—no login or sharing of student data
AN AI experience in the new computer science + ai kit
If by AI, LEGO means teaching kids machine learning and other automation skills, in the context of today’s computer science landscape, then that strikes me as a good thing. Anyone who goes into these fields will need a working understanding of those skills. However, if it turns out we’re teaching kids to “vibe code,” I’ll be disappointed.
Risk and Reality
Taking a week to digest the news, I have mixed feelings. On a local level, assuming we can fundraise to get the kits, I think the new kits and experiences have great potential. I’m even excited to get our hands on a new kit to see how the kids interact with it.
On a global level, my heart breaks for the coaches and educators who might have to look elsewhere for robotics education. For those who put their reputations on the line to get funding for kits, only to have this news dropped in their laps.
I genuinely hope the risk pays off and that FLL continues to inspire kids for decades. I also understand the sentiment that this announcement will cause real hardship for people, regardless of the motivations. However this transition ultimately plays out, I hope it’s remembered that behind every kit and rule change are kids, families, and educators doing their best to make something meaningful happen.
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