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March 10, 2010

Lego's take on classic green army men

Lego's licensing of the Disney/Pixar Toy Story franchise has produced something surprisingly awesome in this mashup of two classic toys. $11 from the Lego shop. [via Geekologie]

LEGO MINDSTORMS AlphaRex controlled by a Wii balance board

LEGO MINDSTORMS hacker Akihiro Uehara built an interface between an AlphaRex and a Wii Balance Board.

User can control the robot's leg motors speed and direction by changing the vector connecting user's center of balance and center of the board. I have designed this application for elementary school kids in a science museum exhibition.

Don't forget to leave a comment on our Facebook fan page to participate in our Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 giveaway. [Thanks, Akihiro!]

March 9, 2010

Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 giveaway

Build your dream, then make it move! Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 is the latest version of the robotic building set that launched First Lego League and inspired thousands of kids. People have used Mindstorms to make everything from robotic animals to Rubik's cube solvers.

Today, in association with The Lego Group, we're giving away a NXT set! All you have to do is leave a comment on our Facebook fan page. Simply find the post on Facebook corresponding to this one, and leave a comment describing a real or theoretical project you'd like to make with the set. We'll choose a random commenter to get the prize. The contest ends noon PST tomorrow. Good luck, and our thanks to Lego for their generosity!

Posted by John Baichtal | Mar 9, 2010 12:00 PM
LEGO | Permalink | Email Entry | Suggest a Site

March 8, 2010

Indirect Collaboration talks to Lego Group rep

Indirect Collaboration is a website exploring the role of crowd-sourced input in the creative process, in anticipation of the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, TX. MAKE contributor Tim Lillis, who does the "Tricks of the Trade: comics in MAKE, is one of the contributors to the site. Here, he talks with Cecilia Weckstrom of The Lego Group about their use of incorporating customer input into their product design process.

Lillis: So, you're in charge of the Consumer Insight & Experience Innovation function at the LEGO Group. What does that mean?

Weckstrom: I oversee all the work on gathering insights from our 1:1 connections with consumers all over the world and based on this insight and on co-creation with consumers we improve existing LEGO experiences and define new ones of what LEGO could be in the future. We want to be driven by those who love LEGO for what LEGO is and thus, knowing what is important to all these people is important and the only way we can remain sustainably successful as a company.

Lillis: What are some of the successful and unsuccessful ideas generated by this group?

Weckstrom: Mostly in my experience it is not a matter of unsuccessful or not - more about timing. We have a few examples where we were far ahead of the market (LEGO Studios for instance) where the idea was great, but ahead of its time so wasn't as successful as it could have been had we launched it a little later. Timing is not just in terms of timing in the market-place, it is also about the rest of the company. The successful ideas are ones that become platforms for value creation, and ultimately not just within the company but including the community too.

Q&A with Cecilia Weckstrom of The Lego Group

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March 5, 2010

Pneumatic Lego robotic arm

Polish Lego builder Paul "Sarial" Kmiec built this fantastic robotic arm using Technic Power Functions elements combined with an external pneumatic compressor!

Just another weekend build - this is basically a late realization of an idea I had back when I was a kid. The goal was to build a model of an entire human arm, with palm included, that would have as much realistic functions as possible while being of more or less accurate size. The look of the arm was considered insignificant.

The most complex part of the arm is obviously the palm with 4 fingers and a thumb. The thumb can be bent and raised/lowered, whereas the remaining 4 fingers have two joints in each of them. The index finger was operated independently, and it was fairly possible to operate every finger individually, except that it would take two times more pneumatic hoses, which were already quite numerous (8 of these was going through the arm). The palm can be theoretically rotated through full 360 degrees, but I never actually tried it for the sake of the hoses in the wrist. The whole arm was heavy and a bending under its weight a bit, but it worked well. I think it was pretty satisfactory for something that was built in just two days.

Lego conference table

This 4x9' boardroom table was created for Ireland's Boys and Girls advertising agency by fellow Dubliners agbc architects. It is, essentially, a 7-stud thick slab of random Lego bricks topped with a piece of tempered glass. More details and photos are available here. A timelapse video of its construction, (inevitably set to the not-so-soothing sounds of the William Tell Overture), is available on YouTube. [via Dude Craft]

March 2, 2010

Lego that makes you want to cry

And not in a good way. I have blogged about scary Lego before, but the capacity of the AFOL ("Adult Fan of Lego") community to twist everybody's favorite happy Danish building toy into Bosch- and/or Giger-esque abominations has pushed darker boundaries since then. This godawful* thing by prolific and talented builder Mike Foy is just called "The Void," and, if I may suggest, belongs on the cover of some trendy modern edition of a very old and very evil book full of unspeakable things. [via The Brothers Brick]

*By which I mean: I love it, Mike. Keep it up!

March 1, 2010

Lego Star Wars foosball table to cut epic battle short

A few weeks ago in a galaxy far, far away, Rebel Troops and the Empire decided to put down their starships and fight out their epic battle like men, in a foosball game. Or, at least that is what I'm guessing is going on in this impressive Lego Star Wars foosball table by Flickr user 2x4. Said to be playable, the table should allow you to settle any dispute you might have with your mates (epic or not), or at least be a fun leisure activity.

Amazingly, this isn't the first Lego foosball table that we've seen around here, however however it does appear to be the first one to stand on it's own brick-laden legs. [via technabob]

Like bricks... in the rain

[via The Brothers Brick]

February 25, 2010

If Death were a minifig

Flickr user DROP HPC-ANC is responsible for this fantastic mural featuring a Lego version of The Grim Reaper. Sir or madam, whoever you are, wherever you are, I'd very much like to shake your hand.

[via Neatorama]

February 22, 2010

Android controlled LEGO Mindstorms robots

I've come across numerous Android controlled vehicles in the past, but never a LEGO Mindstorms robot, let alone two. The folks at ENEA in Linköping, Sweden, built a pair as a trade show demo. One of the main challenges was getting Bluetooth support to work. They ended up using an Ubuntu laptop to tunnel between devices. Of interest is the fact that the Android phone controls more than one device. [Thanks, Phil!]

February 20, 2010

Lego crawler town

I don't think I've ever seen as unique a Lego creation as this "eco punk" mobile town, created by Dave DeGobbi. (Click for a bigger pic!)

Crawler town roams the barren wastes of a post steam-punk world after cataclysmic climate change do to excessive coal use. Several such cities exist but Crawler town is the most popular due to the Aero 500 hydrogen fuel cell Air races that are held. Many people travel the wastes to Crawler town for vacation and to enjoy rare luxuries like Pizza, fresh vegetables and Beer. Travelling the wastes in search of minerals and aquifers ( vital for survival) the mobility of the city keeps it away from the vicious sand storms of the wastes.

Also check out Dave's Goliath airship creation. [via the ever-awesome Brothers Brick]

February 19, 2010

How-To: Lego soap from urethane mold

Ever wanted to make Lego soap? Rachel @ CRAFT writes:

We are a big Lego-fanatic family, and it's fun to find ways to work Lego into all aspects of our lives (not just playtime). This tutorial from Roots and Wings shows how to create a mold from Lego blocks that you can then use to create these fun Lego soaps. These would make great favors for a Lego birthday party and would be a great way to get kids to get excited about washing their hands... though they might just end up playing with them...

February 17, 2010

CubeStormer

We have covered other robotic Rubik's Cube solvers before, but the CubeStormer is a little different. It's fast, really fast! Apparently it's able to solve any 3x3x3 Rubik's cube in less than 12 seconds. Then again, maybe it isn't that fast compared to Erik Akkersdijk!

The Worlds Fastest Lego Mindstorms RCX Speedcubing Robot. Built entirely from lego elements now scanning and solving any 3x3x3 Rubik's cube combination in under 12 seconds.

February 14, 2010

Lego Segway needs only NXT 2.0 parts

This isn't the first Lego Segway (defined as a balancing bot on two wheels) -- that honor would probably go to Steve Hassenplug's Legway. However, the Legway used two EOPDs (Electro-Optical Proximity Detector) from HiTechnic Sensors to balance. What's cool about this project is that it needs only those parts found in a standard NXT 2.0 set. Most notably, it uses a light sensor in place of the expected (and non-standard) gyro sensor.

By using the NXT Color Sensor as a simple proximity sensor to the ground to detect the approximate tilt angle of the robot, the robot can actually balance itself!

For more fun, if you have a second NXT brick, you can make the Segway rider on this robot lean forwards and backwards via Bluetooth remote control, which will cause the robot to start rolling forward or backwards while staying balanced, just like a real Segway!

Most self-balancing robots (including the actual Segway PT) use one or more gyroscopic sensors to detect the actual tilt angle of the robot from true vertical. This robot uses only the NXT Color Sensor (in light sensor mode) by aiming the sensor at the ground and measuring reflected light, which will change slightly depending on how close the sensor is to the ground.

[via The NXT Step]

February 12, 2010

Lenticular Lego portrait

A lenticular image (Wikipedia) is really a set of two or more images printed on, or refracted through, a sawtooth surface so that one image appears to change to another as an observer passes by. Flickr user Reasonably Clever Chris created a Lego version of the effect with a mosaic composed mostly of element number 50746, known among blockheads as "The Cheese Slope." Check the vid to watch the transition, which happens about 35 seconds in. [via The Brothers Brick]

February 11, 2010

Lego steampunk "Voyage to the Moon" model

The 1902 French movie Le Voyage dans la lune provided one of most indelible science fiction images ever: the grimacing Man on the Moon with giant bullet-like space capsule in his eye. Guy Himber's excellent Lego steampunk adaptation evokes the same feel with panache. I love the barrel as the exhaust port! The sculpture won the award for 'Best Art' at the 2009 BrickCon Lego convention.

February 10, 2010

Stream audio to your NXT Intelligent Brick

YouTube user gloomyandy demonstrates how to stream 8-bit audio through a NXT brick's crappy speakers via Bluetooth and USB. The trick is to use leJOS, Java-based replacement firmware for the brick. [via The NXT Step]

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February 9, 2010

Brickarms molds

These are the molds custom Lego armorer Will Chapman of BrickArms uses to make his gats. BrickArms was recently mentioned in Chris Anderson's genre-defining Atoms Are The New Bits article in WIRED, cited as an example of an amateur turning his or her hobby into a profession. I wrote Will to find out more about his molds:

2.5" x 2.5" 6061 T6 aluminum
Cut using 1/16" roughing ball nose cutter, and finished with 1/32" ball nose cutter.
Cut using a Taig 2018 CR mill, with NEMA 23 steppers, driven by Gecko 201s via Mach 3 on XP.
Parts are injected with ABS resin - some of it is ground up Lego bricks.

LEGO PCB Agitator

Etching your own PCBs can be a time consuming chore to say the least. Anything that automates the process or cuts down on the time it takes is usually appreciated. Maker Rui Cabral of Oporto, Portugal pieced together this handy PCB agitator out of LEGO to help him speed things up a bit. The project initially took him only 20 minutes from start to finish.

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