Custom bricks. Lego fanatics have apparently been designing and uploading their pictures/diagrams and schematics to Flickr! If you want to design something to upload to Thingiverse, this is a one stop shop of ideas. Thanks to Makezine.com for the link.
Tag Archives: lego
Beco Block limitations
Having printed up and played with a big pile of Beco Blocks, I have come to the conclusion they are only about half of what I was looking for. Mind, they are probably the more difficult half.
The articulated joints you get with Beco Blocks are absolutely fantastic. The connect well, disconnect well, are very moveable, and reasonably poseable. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to build a rigid structure with them. After you play with the parts a bit they become even more mobile and less poseable – but this is to be expected.
So, how would one go about building a system of rigidly connectable blocks? There’s the Construx way – of side/slide/snapping parts together. Then, there’s the snap/push the parts together Lego way.
Something to think about.
Making Blocks II
Lego nubs and underbits
My lego prints connect slightly better to other printed legos than real legos. I suspect this is in part to the ridged texture to both parts. This also makes me think that printing legos is a fool’s errand.
While lego nubs are circular, the parts they fit into touch the circular nubs tangentially. For instance a nub fitting into a corner piece would be held in place by two straight sides and held against a circular tube. The picture to the right shows the underside and nubby bits for several lego (lego compatible?) pieces. This system probably works because of the exacting tolerances of real lego parts. I’m guessing they tested the nub heights and contact points to find an optimal mix of most of the same criteria I have for an interconnecting building block system.
Without tighter printing tolerances, I don’t think three tangential points are going to be enough to hold printed parts together. Thus, it may make sense to have taller nubs on printed parts. Then again, the ridged nature of printed parts may allow them to better fit together without having taller nubs.
One benefit to having circular nubs is that you can make interesting components where pieces pivot. But, this is more of a lego-hack than an actual useful feature. I’m not as concerned about this particular usage because I could always design a printable pivoting part.
So, other than that one narrow usage, why circular nubs? Why not circular nubs with circular holes? Why not square nubs with square holes? Or circular nubs with notches in them?
Leonardo Robot
Leonardo Robot
Freaking cool. This robot was designed by jrombosky by taking the measurements/proportions/ratios from Leonardo DaVinci’s Virtuvian Man. Even if these proportions were all messed up, this would still be super awesome. It’s a little printable robot!!!
Lego Robot Set
It reminds me of a lego set from a few years ago:
MakerBot Ordered!
MakerBot CupCake CNC
Ever since hearing about the RepRap project more than a year and a half ago I’ve been dying to make/build/buy one. This last May I got to see an actual MakerBot CupCake CNC print a lego right in front of my eyes at the 2009 MakerFaire in San Mateo. One of the best parts was getting to meet Zach Hoeken Smith, Bre Pettis, and Adam Mayer.
Well, this morning I finally pulled the trigger.
I just ordered a CupCake CNC Deluxe kit from MakerBot Industries.
Here’s the thing: I have no experience working with electronics beyond putting batteries in the T.V. remote. It’s going to be an adventure!
I can’t wait!!!