Make: Online: LEGO Archives

LEGO Archive: LEGO

January 16, 2010

Lego flame

Flickr user Cole Blaq's Lego flames use florescent and transparent elements to give the illusion of fire without resorting to backlighting. [via brothers-brick.com]

January 14, 2010

I like this 1981 ad for Lego. It reads, in part: "Have you ever seen anything like it? Not just what she's made, but how proud it's made her. It's a look you'll see whenever children build something all by themselves. No matter what they've created."

Compare the above to Lego ads for girls today. (Via Feministing)

January 12, 2010

Lego video celebrates moments of inspiration

Think of that little bolt of excitement that hits when the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear. That's a CLICK moment in action. Consider times when a great idea comes out of the shadows of the brain and needs to be shared. That's a CLICK moment, too.

The hub of the program, www.LEGOCLICK.com, is a virtual canvas of ideas, inspired moments, quirky stories, solutions and tips from serial CLICKers designed to celebrate and inspire CLICK moments of all types.

January 11, 2010

Realistic Lego models

Check out Polish Lego fan Maciej Drwiega's 1:13 truck models -- the blue and black truck is a Kenworth K100 Aerodyne, the red one is a Kenworth W900 LongNose, and the truck with the crane is a Jelcz 315. Drwiega puts so much care into researching and crafting his models that they can be confused for the real deal at thumbnail size. [via the Brothers Brick]

More:

January 9, 2010

Lego minifig snowperson

I assume that minifigs are gender-neutral in the absence of characteristic clothing or hairpieces. Danes Bjarne Tveskov and family are responsible for Lego Leslie, here. [via The Brothers Brick]

Aluminum Technic bricks

Bill Shaw creates and sells Lego Technic-compatible aluminum bricks.

It all started as a supplement to enhance Bill's Mindstorms projects. All the elements are made to work with the original Lego Technic elements, but what makes them interesting is the fact of being made from high grade 6061 aluminum, instead of plastic. All the elements are designed in shapes not available through Lego, but that somehow may help you to solve some specific needs.

For instance, Shaw sells beams at nonstandard lengths and angled parts at different angles than Lego offers. [via technicbricks]

More:

January 8, 2010

Fab-your-own Lego

Check out the work of Ottawa maker Andrew Plumb. A few months ago, he created the .stl of a four-stud disk, uploaded it to Thingiverse, prototyped it on his Makerbot and then sent it off to fabbing service Shapeways to be output in plastic as well as bronze-infused steel.

In more recent experiment, Plumb used a laser cutter to create plates with holes sized for Lego studs and pins.

At first glance, I'll have to tweak the designs more for the laser's kerf. The hole inner diameter is too loose for Lego and too tight for my Shapeways-printed stainless-steel disc buttons, so that places the inner diameter somewhere between 4.9mm and 5.0mm. Will have to break out the calipers when I get home for more precise measurements.

More:

Interview with MakerBot owner Andrew Plumb

January 5, 2010

MAKE visits MicroRAX HQ

In November, I had the opportunity to travel to Seattle for a Magic: The Gathering tournament. While I was there, I visited the headquarters of TwinTech, a small company run by identical twin brothers, Steve and Chris Burrows, who manufacture a small rack-building set called MicroRAX. At the time, a similar set, called MakerBeam, was hot in the news for its innovative funding angle -- getting capital via the microfunding site KickStarter. I was intrigued because MicroRAX was a nigh-identical product, lacking only MakerBeam's marketing moxie. But also unlike MakerBeam, it was a product already on the market, with starter sets available from TwinTech's online store.

Chris Burrows picked me up at my hotel and we drove to TwinTech's workspace. The company works out of a small warehouse, sharing it with other small industrial firms. Set up in one corner of the space, the workshop was gloriously messy, filled with a variety of machinery and half-finished projects.

TwinTech's core business is making couplers that let you connect multiple tubes at once, however, it was the MicroRAX that interested me. Obviously they had tons of beam lying around. In addition to boxes of beam waiting to be cut -- both plain aluminum and their awesome black anodized version -- there were numerous examples of the MicroRAX used for practical purposes. The Burrows' rule is that they won't build anything for the shop (e.g., shelves or an iPod stand) using any other material besides MicroRAX.

Unlike some systems where you're expected to use the sizes of beams you're given, MicroRAX fully assumes you're going to hack off specific lengths off the standard .9-meter beams available from their store. This also means that if you had a need for larger pieces, the guys can cut it special for you -- I saw lengths of MicroRAX beam in the 5-10' range used for practical purposes around the shop, as well as huge cardboard boxes holding uncut 12' beams they'd gotten back from the extruder.

I asked Chris about the open-source angle. One aspect of MakerBeam which appealed to potential donors was their claim to be open source, though this is not the case thus far -- still in alpha, it lacks the documentation, user-contributions, and open standards that are the hallmarks of open projects. A better example might be Contraptor, a fantastic VEX-esque building set that sets the benchmark for openness and community cooperation.

While MicroRAX isn't open, Chris told me that when you deal with engineers, you can't hold anything back. A company can't really have an industrial product like TwinTech's multi-tube couplers or MicroRAX without divulging everything to a potential customer. They'll want to know the precise dimensions and characteristics of your product before they'll buy it. From an end-result standpoint, how is that really different from publishing your 3Ds?

The brothers are thinking about taking MicroRAX open, but in the meantime, they published their core product design, the "snowflake" cross section of the MicroRAX beam, to Thingiverse, potentially allowing anyone to extrude their own beam.

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January 4, 2010

Lego domino row-bot makes setup a snap

Matthias' Lego domino row building machine takes the tedium out of laying out lengthy domino runs - and looks pretty smooth doing it. A motor from an old tape deck keeps the little guy moving forward and equally spacing each handmade wooden piece -

The key idea that makes the machine work is that the magazine is just a row of dominoes dragged along the table. This avoids the problem of having to somehow lower the dominoes onto the table. My first unsuccessful attempts back in 1985 involved dropping the dominoes out of the magazine onto the table. But the impact of dropping the dominoes would often cause them to tip over, with ruinous consequences.

Project pics and much more of his process can be located over at WoodGears. [Thanks, Mark!]

Related:

Domino run tips

LEGO Photo app converts photo to LEGO mosaic

With the new LEGO Photo iPhone app you can convert snapshots into a LEGO photo mosaic. Just take a picture, press a button, and watch the app build an image out of LEGO. Use the resulting image on your favorite social networking site or as a guide for your own layout. [via techchee]

January 2, 2010

Lego polaroid looks snappy

Arvo's neato Lego polaroid cam looks ready for retail ... in some parallel universe where the classic format is still widely supported :( Alas, this model only produces pretend pics - still quite sweet. [via Gizmodo]

December 28, 2009

LEGO minifig group costume

This LEGO minifig group costume has some amusing making-of photos, and the costumes turned out great! [via EMSL]

December 21, 2009

Xmas-themed Lego ray gun

Flickr user Andrew Colunga describes this awesome Lego ray gun as "X-maspunk." [via Boing Boing]

December 10, 2009

Legos on Hoth

Cool pics from Flickr user Avanaut. He describes the photography in this comment. [via The Brothers Brick]

November 20, 2009

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Gifts for dads

There's a funny thing about dads' toys. Very often, kids borrow dad's supposedly grown-up toys and dad plays with toys designed for a much younger demographic. With that in mind, we present the Gifts for Dads list, filled with stuff that may appeal to more than one generation in your household. And you may also want to check out the holiday gift guides over on the GeekDad blog.

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LEGO-sized hole punch by MUJI

Paper craft meets LEGO with MUJI's quad hole punch and kits, available November 27th at MUJI Japan. [via CRAFT]

November 17, 2009

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Santa Claus Machines

Santa's got the coolest tools. How else could he and his elves build all those gifts in time? Now, thanks to custom fabrication services, we can all get access to the Santa Claus Machines. From bespoke action figures, to interplanetary terrain models, from one-of-a-kind sneakers, to tailor-made machine parts, there has never been a better time to harness advanced fabrication tools to build objects of your own design! In this gift guide, we'll look at some of the leaders in the Santa Claus Machine revolution.

Big Blue Saw
If your gift plans call for something sturdier than wood or acrylic, you may need to move beyond laser cutters into a full-blown CNC machine shop. Enter Big Blue Saw. They have an intuitive browser-based CAD program where you can design your part, and then choose your material (aluminum, steel, etc.) and thickness. They'll fire up their water-jet machines, and in no time you'll have that rolled steel stocking stuffer in your hands.

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November 13, 2009

1979 LEGO minifig patent

LEGO minifig patent from 1979! [via @grantimahara]

Update: A reader writes in with this clarification:

Its not a patent but a design, in the legal sense (and practical). The difference is subtle, a patent is protects something like an apparatus (thing), a method of doing this apparatus and possibly how to operate said apparatus (let's stay away of medical/chemical patents for now). Unless there's a "technical effect" you cannot have a patent. A Design protects a shape/form of a product, toys usually fall under this class. Things get interesting when the shape has a technical effect (i.e. providing better grip in a hand mixer) then you might actually be able to get a patent on a design.

November 11, 2009

Flashback: Lego Recharger

This week's flashback is as fun as it is useful, brought to you by our own Make: Online contributing writer and the host of Make: television, John Edgar Park. Originally appearing on the pages of MAKE Volume 12, the Lego Recharger helps keep your gadgets all juiced up and stores your keys too. How incredibly convenient! Check it out.

Lego Recharger
By John Edgar Park

On a recent trip to Legoland, I saw a neat product in one of the stores: a Lego key rack with Lego brick keychains. What a great idea, I thought. With this I could come home, empty my pockets, and have a consistent place to hang my keys. But wait, what about all the other devices I just pulled out of my pockets, where do they go? And, for that matter, how will all their batteries stay charged?

Then it dawned on me. If I attached a powered Lego brick to each gadget to provide life-giving juice for their thirsty batteries, I'd solve 3 major problems in my life: lack of gadget organization, lack of battery power, and lack of Legos attached to all my possessions.

The first thing I did was to sift through my Lego Mindstorms and Technic bins. I grabbed some 9V motor wire bricks and a large baseplate to start playing with the design. I wanted to avoid modifying the bricks as much as possible. I also wanted color coding so I'd be less likely to accidentally hang my iPod on the cellphone's brick, thus blowing up the iPod. This is a danger of universal connectors. Since the motor wire bricks come only in black, I needed to use additional bricks for color coding. I considered color-coded tiles on top of the device-end brick, but the smooth tiles always seem to hide a Lego's, well, Lego-ness, so I opted for a 2×2 studded plate instead. Much more geek chic. I placed color-matched bricks below the respective charger-side brick on the base plate.

Next, I needed to splice the motor wire bricks onto my power adapters and gadget plugs. My first attempt involved cutting, stripping, and twisting corresponding wires together, soldering them, and then covering the splice with heat-shrink tubing. This worked great, but wasn't very elegant. I wanted to leave these Lego dongles on my gadgets all the time, even when they were in my pockets, so getting the wire length down to a minimum was important. The splice wasn't helping that.

Looking more closely at the Lego 9V motor wire brick, I noticed 4 pressure tabs on its ends. I grabbed a small screwdriver and pried the bottom off the brick. Inside, the insulated wire pair was pierced onto 2 sharp metal posts. The wire was held in place by the pressure between a small ridge of plastic and the recently pried-off bottom. Excellent. I'd now be able to cut all of my charger wires in half, and simply crimp a Lego motor wire brick onto each end.

For my key chain, I ripped off the original Lego design. I drilled a small hole into a 2×4 brick and then screwed a small screw eye into it. My apologies to Lego purists for all the drilling, but hey, Lego did it first!

The whole system was cheap and easy to build, works great, and keeps my devices organized and charged. I've gotten so used to it that I've installed an unwired counterpart key rack at my office.

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November 9, 2009

What families call LEGO

Pt 2267
Giles Turnbull @ The Morning News has a fun article about the family Nomenclature for LEGO... He writes -

It’s a scene that is replayed by kids and parents everywhere. And it’s the starting point for a unique quirk of language: Lego nomenclature.

Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. “Dad, please could you pass me that Brick 2x2?” No. In our house, it’ll always be: “Dad, please could you pass me that four-er?”

And I’ll pass it, because I know exactly which piece he means. Lego nomenclature is essential for family Lego building.