Bionicle is a line of toys by the LEGO Group

Lego Group

The LEGO Group is a family-owned company based in Billund, Denmark, and best known for the manufacture of Lego-brand toys.The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen...

 marketed primarily for 5- to 16-year-olds. The line was launched on December 30, 2000 in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and June/July 2001 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. "Bionicle" is a portmanteau constructed from the words "biological" and "chronicle". The concept is similar to Lego Group's earlier themes, Slizers/Throwbots

Slizer/Throwbots

Slizer was a line of Lego toys released in 1999 similar to BIONICLE or later released Lego RoboRiders. They were known as Throwbots in North America but were called Slizers in Europe. The name Throwbots refers to the unique disk-throwing function the toys had...

 and RoboRiders

Lego roboriders

The RoboRiders was a series launched in 1999 by LEGO after the Slizers; it was short lived. A total of seven official sets and four promotional sets were released while this series lasted. Special cans, when exposed to cold temperatures, would reveal codes used to play...

 in that each of those lines had characters based on classical element

Classical element

Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs...

s.