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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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February 8, 2010

Lego Solar Dynamics Observatory kit

One of the great things about being here at Kennedy Space Center for the launch of STS-130 is getting to meet some of the other space enthusiasts who are also here for the launch. The Space Tweep Society has proven to be a great resource for connecting with fellow space geeks (specifically those active on Twitter), and it was through this group that I met John Knight. John is a SmartGrid Program Manager for Whirlpool Corporation who describes himself as a maker, geek dad, space enthusiast, and Lego fanatic.

"I've been building since 1976," he said. "I have a lot of Lego and an entire room dedicated to them. My favorite building theme is Classic-Space."

Last year, John created a 7-foot space ship and moon base for an exhibit at an art gallery in St. Joseph, Michigan. His latest Lego project is smaller in scale, but has reached a much larger audience. He used Lego's Digital Designer, a tool that lets people create virtual sets, to create a set based on the Solar Dynamic Observatory that will be launched this week from Kennedy Space Center. SDO will study the solar atmosphere to help us better understand the sun's influence on Earth and near-earth space. John's set is a scale replica of SDO, and after working with the SDO team and representatives from Lego, the set was accepted for a much larger order than standard virtual kits (that can be ordered three at a time if parts are in stock) and is now available for purchase through the Lego web site*.

John described the experience as the perfect overlap between space geek and Lego enthusiast in the geek Venn diagram, and already has ideas brewing for his next project. His last non-Lego project was a working steampunk globe utilizing RFID tags and reader (Touchatag) to remote control Google Earth on a steampunked tablet computer.

* To Purchase this limited edition Lego set, follow these steps from John:
Step 1) Download the latest version of Lego Digital Designer.
Step 2) You should see a link to purchase the set. You will have to create an account with Lego.
Step 3) Please be aware that your SDO set may have different graphics than some seen on the web. Those were special "limited" edition sets.
Step 4) If you have ANY problems ordering please call Lego Customer Support at 1-800-838-9647 (US) or see Lego.com for other numbers.

February 6, 2010

LEGO smartphone gaming rigs

These are fun enclosures for your iPod or other smartphone. I made a simple one for my G1, and now need to find some driving/biking games to try it out on. It was fun and frustrating to stir the bin in search of just the right part. So often, when kids build with them, they make wildly complex designs that are at times of low structural integrity. Is there any formal LEGO design curriculum out there?

This is a great way to test out your rapid prototyping skills. Once you get a decent iteration, then the hunt is on for a more permanent solution.

February 5, 2010

Lego hexapod bot

YouTube user GusJanss made an awesome Mindstorms walker that uses only 3 NXT servos to move six legs. Nice hack!

The Hexapod Walker is a six legged LEGO NXT robot walker. It uses a gait that causes very little slippage at the feet so can walk well with rubber tipped feet all the way around. The left and right motors control their respective sides corner legs. The motor in theback controls the middle set of legs so that either left or right corner legs can be lifted. When left middle goes down, left corner legs go up and right middle goes up.

First program just walks in a simple pattern. The second program was for a walking robot race and uses the small LED lights as navigation aids. Light sensor, mounted in the back but looks forward, sees the light and with every step adjusts step size to aim for light.

[via the NXT Step]

February 2, 2010

Nokia-based Rubik's Cube solver

Mindstorms Rubik's Cube solvers are a dime a dozen, but David Gilday's bot offers two cool twists (sorry) -- first, it solves a 4x4 cube rather than the classic, ordinary 3x3 cube. Second, and cooler, rather than relying on the NXT Intelligent Brick to do the heavy lifting, it uses a Nokia N95 mobile phone that sits in a cradle above the cube, scanning it with its camera and solving the puzzle.

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January 31, 2010

Lego iPad

As soon as the iPad was announced, Lego fans wondered what it would look like in brick form. Check out the homage by Joe Meno, editor of AFOL bible BrickJournal.

January 24, 2010

Lego 1:40 USS Intrepid

Ed Diment is working on a minifig-scale aircraft carrier. The picture above shows an anti-aircraft battery -- imagine the detail on the entire ship!

January 23, 2010

Sean Kenney, professional Lego builder

Kenney was featured in a Japanese public television show, New York Wave.

The crew followed me for several months and created this full-length episode that shows how I work and what I do.

Watch as I create a giant LEGO model of Times Square, play with kids at events, and take on my biggest project ever!

The video, while not embeddable, may be viewed on Kenney's website.

[via Brothers Brick]

January 19, 2010

Awesome Mindstorms tank video

The model itself is extremely sophisticated. It packs, among its other components, a HiTechnic gyro sensor, presumably to help it stay vertical, Segwaylike. As an added bonus, the video itself is very slick and engaging. Both are the work of Greek Lego fan NeXTSTORM. [via TheNXTStep]

January 17, 2010

CRAFT weekly recap

This week on CRAFT we saw:

Interlocking LEGO Rings

Lost Camera Digital Summoning Spell

Flashback: SketchUp 101

Lego Newton, apples not included

I liked how this Lego vignette by Flickr user Kubik-Rubik doesn't show the classic Sir Isaac Newton scene with the apple, and instead shows one far more grounded in fact -- his prism experiment where he split visible light into its component colors. [via the Brothers Brick]

Lego router works!

Too cool - Luke rehoused his WRT54GL's PCB in an entirely Lego-built enclosure. He was also kind enough to provide downloadable instructions on his blog. Anyone out there been using Lego for their DIY electronics projects? [via Byphenyl's Twitter feed]

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

1981 ad for Lego

Photo from Flickr user Moose Greebles

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]

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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]

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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.

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