In 1995 LEGO conducted a study to determine how to become “digital” – how to do it and what it would take. This study took place from May to October in a secret lab on the third floor of LEGO headquarters, Legocentret. At the end of the study LEGO management received a report detailing programs, people, and resources needed to move into the new paradigm. LEGO quickly approved the plan, and SPU-Darwin was set in motion at the beginning of the new year.

This website is the story of SPU-Darwin, of moving LEGO into the 21st century. I’m not sure yet how to tell that story, so it’s organized as a blog. This will allow me to present pieces of history as they come, without worrying about having to have everything set before presenting anything, and will allow me to experiment with presentations. Also, a great deal of leading edge science and engineering had to be developed, and those stories will require intense technical material, which might not appeal to everyone, and those entries will be separate from the general ones.

To Darwin members: the blog structure of this website is expressly designed to allow everyone to chime in with their memories. Please do that. Periodically I’ll go through the topics and concentrate them down into organized stories. It’s my hope that this path will eventually lead to an actual publication someday, like an interactive multimedia book, but we’ll worry about that later.

I’m not a designer, so if you’d like to contribute anything about this website design, PLEASE do so.

Note: only Darwin members (which is not just LEGO employees, it’s everyone who was intimately involved – this means you, SGI and Informix and DDE) will have editing access. Everyone else can email, which will be dealt with separately.

Julian E Gómez, PhD
(former) Director of the Advanced Technology Group
(former) Chief Scientist