To celebrate the 10th anniversary of LEGO Mindstorms, a group of professors, middle-school students, and corporate nerds will be launching several Mindstorms robots into near-space. The High Altitude LEGO Extravaganza (HALE) project will set the robots aloft in an atmospheric weather balloon shortly before sunrise this morning outside of Reno, Nevada. At about 100,000 feet (30km) the balloon will burst and the robots will parachute back to terra firma collecting data and photographs along the way. One robot named Lil' Joe will attempt a world record free-fall decent before deploying its parachute on a pre-programmed schedule. Mind you, the world record is attributable to Mindstorms NXT free-fall, a title we expect is currently held by your little brother sleeping upstairs.

Read -- HALE
Read -- HALE launch tracking