The toy company said that the SMART Play system encourages social play among kids, with interactive elements that respond to player movements and builds. Julia Goldin, LEGO's chief product and marketing officer, emphasized that this innovation marks a significant evolution in LEGO's history.

The new sensor-packed Smart Play Brick will land this spring as part of a special Star Wars collection. The update adds interactive lights and sound to the Lego experience—including the minifigs.

The Lego company has not made any major redesigns to its brick since the debut of the modern brick in 1958, so this is pretty big news. But what does it mean? In a continuation of screenless play, Lego is not trying to make the brick something it isn't, in this case, but simply offers an elevated experience for all ages.

The Smart Brick looks very similar to a normal 2x4 Lego brick, but it contains a custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip which is smaller than one of the studs on the brick itself. It’s joined by an accelerometer and a copper coil, and Lego has created its own Play Engine and Neighbor Position Measurement (NPM) system.

Just because LEGO Technic is technically a toy doesn’t mean that you cannot do solid engineering with it, like building air-powered engines. After first building a simple air-powered piston

Little Lego engines with actual pistons and crankshafts that turn and move are one of the true simple joys of human life in the modern era. So, it just stands to reason that the best way to maximize that joy is to rev the crap out of these Lego engines ...

Today, Kirby’s focus has shifted toward following industry news, and he has a sincere passion for one-off and tuned vehicles, car toys (especially LEGO brand,) and anything else even closely related to cars. You can also, on occasion, catch him playing ...