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Hardware

Legos for Hackers 133

Posted by Hemos from the i-want-the-new-o'reilly-book dept.
rde writes "Everyone's favourite free-subscription-needed paper, the New York Times has an interesting piece on Lego's appeal to programmers and inventors, amongst others. " I still have all of mine from childhood. I could construct an industrial park out of all of them.
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Legos for Hackers More

Legos for Hackers

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  • Steve Jackson's _Pirate Game_ (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look up Steve Jackson's home page (www.io.com/~sj/) for a link to The Pirate Game, a neat miniatures battle played with Lego ships.

    Stefan

  • I dunno if they mentioned this in their lame subscription-required 'zine, but the first disk array that Google! ran offa was built half out of legos. It was a work of mad genius.

    Mark

    "Open Source Security -- Demand It."

  • Re:ps (Score:1)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    i'm not a media lab (or even MIT) person, so i can't speak for them. But check out their web site for contact info -- I'd think you can work something out.

    --

  • It's true that it's a pricey toy. But the quality is far higher than any of the competition.

    I'd prefer they keep the prices as they are and maintain quality * rather than making simpler sets with fewer and more specialized pieces. Or (worse) making poor-quality bad-fitting pieces.

    * or increase quality -- recent set design has really slipped in the past few years.

    --

  • See my other post in this thread. "Lego" is technically an adjective. (Typical with trademarks, I think.)

    --

  • ps (Score:1)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    If you think that you've got a lot of Lego, wait until you've seen the Media Lab's collection. You'll never want to go home.

    --

  • ANSI C only has 27 keywords (C++ has 29 - class and :: being the new ones).

    I'm going to have to be pedantic and point out that in fact ANSI C has 32 keywords, that ANSI C++ has 74 (some of which correspond to macros or typedefs in ANSI C), and that :: is not a keyword.

  • According to my wife, many countries sell Lego "cannons" that actually work, i.e., fire (I'm weak on the specific details). Naturally, this is Horrible and Evil and must be banned at our borders to protect us simple-minded Americans from blowing ourselves and each other up. So we're reduced to doing the job with Duplos.
  • Hey, you! Leggo my Lego. =)

    In all seriousness, I loved my Legos when I was a little kid. I created my own virtual world to play in. Sparked my imagination. Now, I'm programming virtual worlds. Same kid, only bigger toys.

    A highly recommended habit for all parents to encourage their children to get hooked on to. The rewards are endless and eternal...

    Later,
    Justin
  • My point is that people say Kleenex regardless of how many tissues they're talking about.

    I say we don't try to make sense out of the english language.
  • I saw a television interview with the Lego company last year sometime, since LEGO Americas is located in Connecticut, where I now live.

    They declared that it is offensive to the LEGO company to call them Legos, although the guy being interviewed admitted that in the USA they don't generally care all that much.

    I grew up in South Africa, I've always believed the plural of Lego is Lego. I've been a member of the Lego Club since 1982... not once have I seen "Legos" written. Sometimes "Lego's" when talking about the company, but that's it.

    I don't see any reason to butcher the name though. We don't butcher other brands:

    Kleenex - "I need a Kleenex", "Toss me the Kleenex", "Hand me a bunch of Kleenex".

    You can substitute a lot of words there besides Kleenex.
  • I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of someone dying from Lego injuries?

    There may have been strangulation incidents with small children inhaling pieces. I haven't heard about any specific incident though.

  • Technics weren't around then and, quite frankly, most of the functionality you talk about could be gained by using a combination of the hinged nuts, and the full, half, and quater sized pieces. And their's still ease of use, and speed of construction. And, I believe that (and I could be wrong about this), per piece, Technics are considerably more expensive then Construx were (can you even buy them anymore), even when factoring in inflation.
  • Well, having bought 4 or so Star Wars Lego sets this year, and looking forward to the 2000 catalogue, I would say that I've never been embarassed as an adult (28) buying Lego.
    There's usually nobody in the store anyways!

    Fondest Lego memory: growing up, I had a friend, Jim, who was a few years older than me. We had a lot of fun playing with our various Lego sets. He decided that when he turned 14 that he was "too old" to play with his Lego, so he gave all his to me, essentially doubling my collection.
    Sniff.
    Thanks Jim, I miss ya!

    Ooh... now I have bags and bags of the stuff, all divided by colour. It's in my parents' basement right now, but oh lordy! When I get ahold of it....

    I will need a new apartment :)
    PPoE
  • And we have PEZ here too! wooooo
  • I hate the New York times for forcing you to "Become a member" before you can read a fraggin' story. How about adding a user pref. so that we can screen them from our Slashdot? I disagree with the notion that we should be forced to divulge personal information just to get access to something as basic as a newspaper article. What's next? Please become a Yahoo member before starting your search. Just submit your name, age, race, and yearly earnings.

    ~Jason Maggard
    "People who live in glass houses undress in the basement."
    -Joey, Age 4
  • My website has been a shrine to Lego for most of 1999. The only thing I find that I can focus on longer then programming is building with Legos.

  • Anyone here read Microserfs [amazon.com] by Douglas Coupland?
  • Where can I get more info on this?
    ---
  • ...on lego scanners. I already know all about Turing.
    ---
  • Now if I'd go to the counter to buy those cool new legos I'd be greeted with more embarassment than a guy buying a full case of condoms and adult diapers.


    You should see the looks that you get when you go into a store and buy 150 of the same set!

    (Hey, it was on sale, what cn I say!
  • According to Lego, and they should know, it's their name, it's "Lego".

    "I play with Lego."
    "I have lots of Lego."

    or you could say,

    "I have lots of Lego bricks."

    I always thought "Legos" sounds wrong. It's like that car named "millenia", which is a plural word. It just sounds wrong.

    Of course my 3-year-old says "Legos". I'll have to start correcting him. :)

    Rick (who has lots of Lego... some over 30 years old!)





  • Actually, since the plural of index is indices, and the plural of the appendix is appendices, then the plural of Kleenex would be Kleenices. JFK
  • I find it interesting how the Lego concept kept up with the times. Once upon a time we had simple motors, and even pneumatically operated sets. The kids of today now have access to sophisticated robotics in which all the programming can be as simple as drag and drop on the computer screen.

    This is not to say, however, that they are only for kids. We find that "hackers" are using to make sophisticated robots such as ones that can make a copy of a simple picture.

    When MIT Professors and six-year-olds are using the same toys, something has gotta be up ...

  • Re:ps (Score:1)

    by angio ( 33504 )
    Wanna show them off some time? :) (Actually, a more serious question - does the media lab have times when people can drop in and peer around? Even if those people might, say, happen to work in different lab which happens to be located in tech square? :)
  • On Turing-completeness? Any textbook on computability and/or complexity should cover the topic. Sipser has a pretty good one that I've used personally.

    You should also check out the AMS's website explaining turing machines [ams.org]

    -Dave

  • Lie. Or do what a few other privacy groups have done in the past - pick a username and password (like, say, "slashdot" and "slashdot") and have all of your friends use it.

    The NYT will probably have the guys in black show up at my apartment for suggesting this, of course. :)

    -Dave, who uses something similar for his own NYT access...

  • "Do not attempt to stop chain with hands, or genitals"
    I've NEVER seen that on a chainsaw. May i ask what kind of chainsaw you saw it on?

    matisse:~$ cat .sig
  • Yeah, how would you like it if some other busybody thought athletics was so goodfor you that it should be part of the curriculum
    too? Mandatory little league, basketball, etc.

    does gym not ring a bell somewhere in your head?

    matisse:~$ cat .sig
  • Legos are possibly the most wonderful thing that ever happened to the young geek-to-be. Who amongst us didn't grow up building construction after construction with these little multicolored chunks of creativity. Say what you will about Legos, but the world would be a much different place without them.

    Here's to the guy who invented the Lego!

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Thanks for the information about Technics.

    They're definitely a step above Lego in serveral ways (surprized I hadn't seen them on thee discussion yet, Capsella(sp?), too.)

    Blocks still seem purer to me, but like you say, these actually do have an attractive connetion mechanism ...

    timothy
  • I will not knock legos -- I like them a lot.

    But I always felt somewhat constrained by the tiny nubbins (nipples?)in-slots design. Yes, they make things liftable, but at the expense of some flexibility. And it's a farily small number of lego-blocks high that becomes unstable in other than totally-vertical orientation ... (Towers are strong, but multi-piece crossbeams aren't.)

    I enjoy blocks (the nice heavy finished-hardwood variety) for their infinite adjustability. My family (long story) a few years ago built several towers taller than any of us out of such blocks ... it would take a lot of legos to match the scale.

    Blocks also tend to come in rectangular, triangular, cylindrical and sometimes even conical (well, "knappy" at least). To get other than 90-degree angles in Legos always requires some sort of workaround (or is this no longer the case? I guess I've seen a few angled bases and roofs, but they always seemed like set-pieces rather than "normal" pieces ...)

    What I'd like to see is a system of blocks extensible (a system of locking pegs, maybe?) like legos, but without giving up smooth inter-block surfaces. With stretegically-placed little holes and matching hardware, you could selectively get the benefits of lego (like wheels!) without having to use tools to attach / detach them.

    I never thought this would be a topic on Slashdot, but it's one that's been on my mind for a little while. Does anyone know of better block system?

    (Note: Lego is also very protective of it's trademark and design; Sort of "closed source" if you think about it that way. The proprietary design is anothe thing that bothers me about legos; I like the fact that blocks are "compatible" with household objects, books, dominos, etc.)
  • I'd suggest that you don't be too hard on people for posting this. It's good to get the word out to newbies. I would assume that ('twould be bad if not) slashdot's readership is continuously growing. With growing readership comes new readers.

    Also, while I admit this will rarely be the case, I'm glad they were discussing shared accounts, because the one I used to use (l/p:cypherpunks) is no longer working.
  • no no no, youve missed the point. the whole idea here is that when children build things with legos they learn invaluable problem sovling and engineering like skills that will be an asset to them their entire lives! building the 'Mega-Castle-Fortress-set-including-the-black-knig ht' is not necessarilly the best activity for developing these skills, but it can help get a child interested in these things which can then lead to them learning so much more.

    the same can not be said at all for athletics. of course it's important to exercise and keep the body in shape, and for that reason we have phys. ed. classes. much in the same way one could argue that classes like these should be offered, not necessarily with lego, but some sort of problem solving classes. rather then teaching kids to regurgitate dates from a book, teach them to build their own worlds, use their imaginations, and solve the problems that the world is going to need solved when they become adults.

    perhaps schools are not the best place to do this either. parents should at home encourage more intelligent play for their kids, in addition to healthier play (like sports).

    okay, im done now
  • ...
    cant we say the same for OOP ???
    ...
  • I'll admit Capsela has lego beat as far as OO is concerned, but it cannot compare in other aspects. First, capsela models are simply huge. To build anything remotely functional, your model would have to be a foot long. Sure, you might like buidling life size robots and things, but capsela gives you very little functionality for the size. Second, It seemed like those nice features you mentioned make it more limited and much harder to use. It may be good for rapid prototyping, but of what? Only very simple models. You could build things with legos that would take a room full of capsela to have equal functionality.
  • I made a small bow out of my technics kit. It shot bamboo skewers with a rubber band. It had enough force to travel across the room and stick in the drywall.
  • When I was a kid, there weren't (at least not in my neck of the woods) pre-built Lego computers.

    At one point, I built myself a complete set of logic gates out of Technik parts. Unfortunately, accumulated friction prevented anything deeper than a two-level logic circuit, and even those often took such a hard push to operate that they broke under the strain.


    Sanity For Today
    Farley Flavors (of Fabulous Fast Food fame)
  • Then the
    slashdot slash
    dot
    account that I set up shouldn't be shared?

    (BTW, there's a space b4 and after the dot pswd)
  • While I've heard "legos" alot more since I got older, when I was young enough to have my own, they were "lego" to me and everyone I knew.

    Best thing about Phantom Menace: Gave me an excuse to buy some lego. I've got an X-wing sitting on top of my tower.
  • Pretend that you are buying it for your younger sibling /nephew / niece / etc.

    I am looking forward to my 1 year old son being old enough to play with lego, as I will then have the perfect excuse (until we start fighting over who gets to play with it). Luckily I will have a size advantage for the next 15 years or so.

    Darren Schlamp
  • yeah, there are those kids. they prefer playmobil.
    weird... ;)

    Van Lego kun je alles maken!
    (You can build anything out of Lego, dutch lego ad)

    //rdj
  • Technic rocks.. I still remember building entire themeparks out of it (and running the rides on my turbocharged lego motor, I ran the thing on a 9V transformer instead of the normal 4.5V batteries. It never failed or burnt through, although I wore the axel through in the end)

    //rdj
  • stepping on them is fun too, it means you carpeted your room with lego, and I often did that. now what's a whole lot less funny is treading on a d4, those things are KILLERS!!

    //rdj
  • Ummm, the plural of "Octupus" is "Octopuses".

    Andrew.
  • Well thanks for the suggestion, I did.

    the WWWebster dictionary says...

    Main Entry: octopus
    Pronunciation: 'äk-t&-p&s, -"pus
    Function: noun
    Inflected Form(s): plural -puses or octopi /-"pI/

    ... which seems to mean we're both right.

    But after searching some more (thankyou very much by the way, now I know loads about erm, 'more than one octopus'!) I found this page. [is.dal.ca]
    Essentially, 'octopus' comes from a Greek root, not a Latin one, so it's totally incorrect to change -us to -i. The "correct" Greek plural is 'octopodes' which no-one uses. The accepted English word is 'octopuses'.

    Andrew.
  • >a 2 m long star destroyer (or whatever they are
    >called) for a convent of some kind... A dream,
    >isn't it?

    What would a bunch of nuns want with a 2m long star destroyer?
  • I'd guess someone some time has choked on them. Notice that warning labels never show up until someone has done something that is listed on the label....

    Though I personally prefer to make BFGs out of my lego pirate ship, using the mast bases as heavy ship guns :)
  • Hmm...

    in the last few years lego has added all kinds of specialised pieces slowly reducing the potential level of creativity by having more and more larger pieces with specific purposes. Now with robo-lego, we can expect to be very much like some familiar software. You can do lots of cool stuff with it, but your imagination is more or less limited to the imagination of the people who developped the system, and with only one or two sets you will not be able to build a completey creative model. Though until I can control it through my firecracker its no good anyway :)
  • Heheh..the 7-12 sign doesn't stop me.

    Though my gf's parents gave me three small boxes of lego for my birthday, not sure what to make of that............... :)
  • Yeah its good. Wakes me up in the morning :)

    crontab calls /root/lightflash which flashes my desklamp, and turns on my speakers - to add an air raid siren :) - and a police cherry light (rotating red) on my shelves flashes. You don't wake up to that you're probably dead. :)
  • I dunno about you guys, but I wanna see Hemos build a Lego industrial park.

    That'd be neato.
  • Yeah, how would you like it if some other busybody thought athletics was so goodfor you that it should be part of the curriculum too? Mandatory little league, basketball, etc. Or another thinks religious education has to be taught at school.

    Maybe for you Legos were great fun, but not every kid wants to spend 42+ hours building the 'Mega-Castle-Fortress-set-including-the-black-knig ht.' Creative kids will gravitate towards creative hobbies while other kids do other things. Forcing children to do something you approve of doesn't make them love it. If we listened to every faddish crackpot who knows what good for kids we'd have a curriculum that includes pyramid power, creationism, theraputic touch, etc.

  • Oh come on now. I could make a MUCH better analogy corellating Legos and future architects. 10 pieces and 27 keywords? Thats your comparison? Not only is that not close, I don't know if more that a dozen types of interconnects is practical. Look at a brick building, even with the cosmetic bricks its still not up there.

    What this aricle is trying to sell you is the idea that legos have a great deal in common with programming. No way, thats just too much of a stretch. The connection they're not making is programming is a creative act as is legos, so creative kids grow up to be creative adults.

  • Personal information? Ha. Currently I'm a 90+ year old woman who makes over 100k a year and never graduated from HS. I screw up EVERY little survey I take. Sorry, I don't approve of your corporation knowing what/who/why I am.

    And a big 'yes' to the self-righteous people who are going to ask me if I know its part of the 'agreement.' We have to draw the line somewhere if we want to keep our online rights. Its protest, and once they realize EVERYONE or almost everyone is lying they can either open up their site for public/anon use or they can take it down. Don't I sound like revelotionary tonight?

  • Sure it does, take my argument as an addition to gym or a criticism of it, or both.

    and of course, because its already part of the curriculum doesnt mean its right.

  • I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of someone dying from Lego injuries? The other day my friends and I were on the long busride home and we were talking about how much it hurts to step on them and stuff, and how it's be funny to slit your wrists with a Lego. Have Legos ever been the cause of death?

  • Funny to slit yoru wrists with Legos?

    it's absolutely hilarious...
  • nothings fun when it's a part of a 'curriculum':

    "lesson one kids. the history of legos. they'll be a test on this next week, and it'll cover chapters 1 and 2 of your Holt Guide to All Things Lego"
  • I played with legos when I was a kid, but I hadn't even seen em' for years, until the cafateria at my work started putting them on all the tables. The first day they were there I saw to older and respected programs arguing over pieces. It was the funniest thing ever.
  • When I was in sixth grade my friend's older brother would load his crossbow with the long skinny pieces and shoot us with them. I got many a nasty cut from them....... Does that count?

    Jas
  • from the article: But it is in the Mindstorms and Droid sets that the old Lego principles fully come into their own: the use of the blocks and the creation of the programs are interwoven activities

    Interwoven. an interesting term. We stand at the bring of the 21st century while mechanical form and electorinic function merge. Imagine a generation of kids that know nothing of a mechanical construction without the use of computer control. A generation of kids that are as at home in vi as they are at home in the sandbox.

    Interwoven. an interesting term.

  • legomindstorms.com [legomindstorms.com]

    lugnet.com [lugnet.com]

    www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics [crynwr.com]

  • God I love legos! I've played with those things in my childhood years, and they provided hours of endless fun. I'd still be spending hordes of money of legos if it wasnt for the blasted "Recommended for ages 7-12" sign that graced every package. Now if I'd go to the counter to buy those cool new legos I'd be greeted with more embarassment than a guy buying a full case of condoms and adult diapers. I think we should petition to have that evil sign removed from every box of legos so closet lego collectors can buy lego products in public without feeling any shame or recieving any scrutiny from others. Now if you excuse me, I must go shut the windowblinds and lock myself in my room so nobody will find out my secret lego habit. :)
  • I've seen a chain-saw with a label mentioning hands. But not genitals. This is Internet forward-lore. I seriously doubt if it could be tracked down to an actual chain-saw.
  • Well, I don't know if it's a regional thing or what, but I grew up referring to a collection of Lego building blocks as "Lego" not "Legos." I see and hear "Legos" being used as the plural fairly often and it really looks and sounds wrong to me. Does anybody know the official word on which is correct? (And if it's Legos I don't want to know!) ObLegoTestament: I largely credit all those hours building with Lego for leading me to an engineering degree.
  • i just looked up the article in App. Opt.: amazing! they assembled some custom parts such as screws for precise adjustment. and lots and lots of picture for your viewing pleasure, unfortunately in bw: i wonder how they address the age-old LCP (LEGO Color Problem) issue. does matching color matter in LEGO contruction? hm, i somehow regret now that i went for theoretical physics instead of applied. __hnc
  • yep, i read it and i know what you mean. the analogy between the modularity of LEGO and programming is very true IMO, it really struck me when i came across that paragraph. what i would like to know: where did Coupland get this idea from? how old is this idea anyway? Considering that MIT people and LEGO people have been cooperating for some time now according to the NYT article, the LEGO-programming analogy might be old indeed. __hnc
  • If there's one thing I've learned from the ridiculous number of Legos I own, it's that the universes one creates with them can be infinitely more interesting than reality. You control all the variables... except, if you're a little kid, you don't have much control over the number of bricks you have, barring any exceptional parent-manipulation skills.
    I remember, one of my favorite uses of Legos was anachronisms. I'd take a pirate ship and integrate it with my tech sets... and give the Knights command over a couple of lightsaber-wielding spacemen. (There were no actual lightsabers when I did this, I had to use a 1x1 round brick and a translucent red rod...) But I think Legos served a purpose similar to that of sci-fi and fantasy books, and movies, and such. They let us step into a different reality, and even control it with the hand of God.
  • Know what ya mean - after buying my mindstorms set this weekend (the previous /. article having fueled the hunger to no end) I went to my parents to fetch my old Technics and Space Lego stuff. Had to walk a few hundred meters along the street... Still, one's gotta stand up for one's convictions... Bought a hacker friend some Star Wars lego for his birthday. He came out of the Lego closet after Doug Coup's Microserfs. Pretty sure that book did a lot of good for all those repressed lego-freaks :) Philip
  • Thanks for the idea. I've never read online NYT articles because of the stupid registration. Now that's no longer a problem. (BTW, the login_hater login worked fine for me.)

  • People do.

    From the October 27, 1999, issue of America's Finest News Source, The Onion [theonion.com]:

    If Area Dad Steps On Legos One More Time

    DARLINGTON, SC--According to loud reports from within the Kaminsky household Tuesday, if area father Russell Kaminsky steps on one more goddamn Lego, man, forget about it. "Gaaaaaaaaaa!" shouted Kaminsky, grimacing as he extracted a blue, two-peg Lego brick from his right instep. "I've told you a hundred times. This is it, this is the last warning: I step on one more Lego, and no one will ever step on another Lego in this house ever again, I promise." Observers are questioning Kaminsky's willingness to actually follow through on the threat, citing his failure to deliver on his Lincoln Logs ultimatum of last March.
  • Um, skip the AC post below (#4); it is just a bunch of blank space.

    I.e., scroll down.
  • According to the LEGO website, loosely paraphrased, the name LEGO is formed from the Danish words "LEg GOdt" ("play well"). (In Latin, it happens, LEGO means "I study", "I put together".)

    The LEGO company began in Denmark building Automatic Binding Bricks, a forerunner of today's LEGO bricks (and sold only in Denmark).

    Before long, the bricks were called "LEGO Mursten" ("LEGO Bricks") rather than "Automatic Binding Bricks".

     Thus LEGO is a foreign word and American English-speakers can (and probably should) add an 's' to pronounce the word in the plural.

    Unlike octopi v. octopus, data v. datum, etc., this word LEGO does not come from an English-predecessor language.

    ---
    I have to be right. I have to be right.
  • Are you referring to the x10 firecracker? Do those things work well?

    ---
    Leggo my legos you microsoft minds.
  • Sorry, I'm pretty sure it's legos.

    That's how me and everyone I've ever known has referred to them. As in, let's go play with legos. I like legos. Legos you're hurting me. (Well, not the last one.)

    Anyone else care to chime in?
  • There's no mistaking that hackers love LEGOs. I'll focus on the programming-type hacker here, but I think it applies to anyone in pursuit of knowledge about particular systems. So, what parallels exist?

    Well, for one thing, LEGOs are a system with a bunch of rules. Just like programming languages - you can only connect blocks in a limited number of ways. In fact, there are (if I remember correctly), no more than 10 (probably fewer) types of inter-connections that can be made. ANSI C only has 27 keywords (C++ has 29 - class and :: being the new ones). However, both systems, despite their limited set of rules and constructs, allow for great amounts of creativity.

    LEGO becomes an easy and very fun way to see what can be done within a very limited scope. And speaking of limited scope, I remember trying to make stuff with as few blocks as possible - if for nothing but to save the stress on my fingers breaking the thing apart afterward.

    Also, LEGO is another way for people to learn modularity at a very early stage in life. I liked the fact that I could rip off the wing or the leg of something I built and just stick it on the next thing. Also, "upgrading" my stuff was a lot more fun - I just ripped off what I didn't need and replaced it.

    But now I program. Is it more fun? Sometimes... but I definitely think building with LEGO would be much more fun as a full time job... And, it fits the description of programming, doesn't it? We should all become LEGO developers...

    - Shaheen
  • Yeah, it is unfortunate that the original software lego shipped is very limited. (The 1.5 version is supposed to be better, but I haven't seen it.) But it's all okay -- there's a lot of reverse-engineered alternative development environments which are all far more powerful. (And yes, a lot of them work under linux.) Check out Russell Nelson's Lego Mindstorms Internals [crynwr.com], and of course the ultimate lego fan site, LUGnet [lugnet.com].

    As for X10 + lego, it wouldn't be hard to do at all: use one of the utils you can find at the links above + your linux x10 tools, and you're all set.

    --

  • Ok, first, there's Lego Shop @ Home. No internet ordering, and no official web page yet, but check out this one at LUGnet [lugnet.com]. Prices are about 10% higher than retail, but shipping is included.

    Second, remember that you're not alone [lugnet.com].

    And finally, the Mindstorms robotics sets are labelled "12 yrs and up".

    --

  • Good point, but: two standard 2x4 bricks of the same color can be connected in 24 different ways. Three (again same color) bricks in 1,060 ways, and six in 102,981,500. (more [lego.com]

    --

  • You're right, "lego" as a plural noun is very common, especially among the lego-geek set. I think it stems from the common warning from the lego group to not refer to the product as "Legos, but rather Lego-brand building blocks or the Lego building system". People have misinterpretted this to mean that "Lego" is okay and "Legos" is not. Really, they mean that "Lego" is an adjective, not a noun -- so both are incorrect. ('Course, day-to-day usage is a different story. *grin*)

    And of course, these days, LegOS is something else [www.noga.de].

    --

  • Check out the stuff in the technic line recently. The traditional stud-type connectors are still there, but getting more and more scarce. The new system relies a lot on a peg system just like you describe. Check out these sets [lugnet.com] for some examples (or of course, your local toy store -- if you're in the boston area, I recommend The Construction Site [constructiontoys.com]). Also have a look at the "Thoughts" section of Eric Brok's Lego site [fcj.hvu.nl].

    --

  • Technic Lego can connect in different ways -- you can make things that are far more sturdy than Construx. Construx is cool too, but it's not as versatile.

    --

  • Good timing -- the MIT Media Lab's Mindfest [mit.edu] is going on right now. It's basically a huge Lego event. You all should come next year. :)

    Seriously, it's very cool -- almost everyone involved in the reverse engineering project [crynwr.com] is here, plus a bunch of cool Media Lab folks, plus all sorts of wonderfully creative people from all over the world. Plus actual official lego people -- hopefully they'll hear some of what we're saying [lugnet.com].

    And of course, there's NELUG [nelug.org].

    --

  • The Lego system is defintely fun, and has unmatched versatility, but it's too low-level for rapid prototyping. On the other hand, my Capsela collection prepared me for object-oriented programming at an early age.

    Think about it... Capsela embraces many of the concepts of OOP:

    • First of all, of course, encapsulation: Capsela's fundamental concept.
    • Abstraction: Capsules have a uniform shape.
    • Polymorphism: Many capsules function differently but have the same interface to other capsules.
    • Reuse: You can plug multi-capsule systems into existing structures.
    • And finally, the ultimate OOP feature: it readily lends itself to use of the car metaphor.
  • There is a nice paper "Optomechanics with LEGO"
    in Applied-Optics Vol. 37, p. 3408-16, 1998

    The even did some interferometry experiments!

    I prefered "Fischer-Technik" when I was a chield
    and I also used it in the lab for some quick & dirty setups.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I remember having fun with my Legos as a child, but they weren't nearly as fun as Construx.

    With Construx, you could build things faster, and the end result was much sturdier then what you got with legos. You could actually play with it (which wasn't nearly as fun as building it). Legos always have the weakness in that all the pieces attach in the same direction, and makes the end result quite fragile (at least on the edges). It was possible to build things with Construx that could survive a trip down the stairs, w/o falling apart!

    I recall making an R2D2 out of them, with motor and all. Those were the days.
  • It seems everyone else was playing with Legos when they were a kid, but I was young I was playing with Fichertechnik [hyperbot.com].

    This was a great system of parts, that let you do a lot more than Legos at the time - they had various motorized kits, and a LOT of differnet parts like different angled connectors and very clever chains that you could build out of snap together links to make any length you desired.

    It was also a lot sturdier that Legos. While Lego constructions tend to shed peices frequently, you could take something you built with Fichertechnik and roll it down the stairs if you liked (I did many times) without harm.

    The only downsides were that they didn't tend to look as "finished" as Lego constructions do, and the parts were always a bit more expesnive (they originate in Germany). Some would say they were also harder to assemble, but I would dispute that based on my very limited experience with balky Lego parts sticking together or not sticking together, depending on which was the most annoying for you at the time.

    They also had a robotics kit developed a long time ago, which they appear to have advanced since last I looked at it - but sadly it is still way more expensive than the Mindstorms kit, which means I'll probably have to go for a Mindstorms kit now. Still, it would be cool to be able to integrate pneumatic parts into a robot or use the solar power assembly to send a robot off on it's own forever armed only with the code you provided it ...

    Check out thier website [hyperbot.com], especially the programming part - I found the name of thier programming langauge quite humorous. You haven't programmed at all until you've programmed in Lucky Logic!

  • As long as we're grousing about lego shortcomings, how about durability?

    I run a web site using some lego motors and the things aren't good for more than a million reversals under moderate load before their bearings seize up.

    Thank goodness MIT published hints on how to retrofit regular cheap motors for the mind numbingly expensive Lego brand motors. (Expand shaft with layers of heat shrink rubber tubing until you can cram an 8 point gear or worm screw onto it. Probably a worm screw if you have a high RPM low torque motor.)
  • When I was finishing my undergrad CS curriculum, we had a final "software engineering" course. The final project that we (a group of four of us) choose to do was building a scanner with legos. The scanner was a "pre-designed" thing that the Lego folks had come up with, but even then, it was absolutely incredible to see what you could do with them -- especially to those of us who had grown up building hand-moved spaceships out of Legos. (The best part was that we were scanning decent images at 150dpi b&w -- with LEGOS. It was boggling)

    The moral of this post is really that you shouldn't underestimate the power of the lego philosophy; in computer science, one turing-complete language can do just as much as any other turing-complete language (with different levels of human pain!). I suspect that there's a vague analogue to legos - with the right subset of actuators, sensors, and infrastructure pieces, you can build just about anything with legos.

    Drooling to go play with some legos,
    -Dave

  • if lego lowered the cost of legos their sales would go up dramatically. 'nuff said.

    matisse:~$ cat .sig
  • I don't mean to insult Construx,
    I had some when I was little, and played with
    them alot. They were great for building large
    structures. But the reason I don't have any
    anymore (and the main thing I didn't like about
    them) was that the connectors had a structural
    flaw in the plastic such that they would split
    down the center when put under structural stress.
    So, all my Construx broke by the time I was 9.
    Course, I was building things like catapults,
    ones that were able to fling small bricks, etc.
    ( I had a LOT of Construx ). Anyone else notice
    that flaw, or was it just me?
    BTW, Lego blocks integrate better into a structure
    built with Capsela than with Construx, IMHO.

  • Construx was very limited compared to Legos. Sure, you could build bigger things much faster, so it had the gratitude factor, but at the cost of 90% of the freedom and challenge that Lego's offered.

    If Lego's are C, then Construx is Visual Basic.

    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
  • I've been a lego freak since I was 10. I was playing with them sooner than that, but around 10-11 I was building more and more elaborate projects out of boredom. The first was a guitar with a whammy bar(only whammied one string) using rubber bands for strings. Even hooked up a small earpiece, using it as a microphone and it sounded(faintly) like a real accoustic guitar. Then a few yeras later I pioneered a 3 speed transmission out of it, and have been doing more bizarre projects ever since. Some bits of it is on my website.
  • This sounds a little too much like, "Makes your kids listen to Beethoven and they'll be smart!" Well smart people listen to classical music so they MUST be right. *BUZZ*

    If anything, kids that choose to play with legos do so because they're inclined to be creative. Can we please end the brain-donor suggestions of 'legos should be part of the curiculum' crap, how would you like it if some busybodies took away your lego time because you HAVE to play little league.

    Bad analogy of the year:
    But this notion of Lego technology is not just metaphorical. What is being learned in classic Lego construction is a kind of digital language. The use of block accumulations to create illusions of smoothness is not unlike the way discrete numbers become waves of sound in the playing of a CD.

    Oh man, what a stretch. The guy who wrote this is the same kind of guy that gets his computer theories from GUIs in Hackers, Net, and ideas from way-out-there SF. The rest of the article is such a pedant mess its not worth reading. Would it kill the media to admit two things:

    1. A majority of "computer people" are creative people. Because they're not pounding out power-chords or painting murals no one has seemed to make the connection.

    2. Programming/Engineering etc. are creative professions that require lots of technical and analytic skills. The same way Jimi Hendrix would be a terrible guitar player if he didn't have an extended knowledge of music thoery.

    Knowing this, it isn't such a surprise that IT types were lego kids. Then the NY Times can spare us their 'lego binary language' theories.

    Well, I better get back to building my 'lego miniprogram' with my 'legolanguage compiler!' The 90's indeed!

  • Yeah, how would you like it if some other busybody thought athletics was so goodfor you that it should be part of the curriculum too? Mandatory little league, basketball, etc. Or another thinks religious education has to be taught at school.

    Maybe for you Legos were great fun, but not every kid wants to spend 42+ hours building the 'Mega-Castle-Fortress-set-including-the-black-knig ht.' Creative kids will gravitate towards
    creative hobbies while other kids do other things.

    Forcing children to do something you approve of doesn't make them love it. If we listened to every faddish crackpot who knows what good for kids we'd have a curriculum that includes pyramid power, creationism, theraputic touch, etc.

  • I believe that legos help develope the creativity that is later applied to the engineering field rathar than just appealing to children predisposed to these places in our society. I mean, what creative kid do you know hasn't loved legos... lol. I personally believe they should be an integrated part of the school curriculum... maybe inspire creativity in school for once rather than crush our childrens' imaginations. Oh well, back to the play pen.
  • I went to a private middle school, and one of the electives (sadly, they only let me take it once) was "Lego Logo". We'd build sets using a system similar to Mindstorms, and program with our computer. The only difference between our Dacta Lego systems and Mindstorms, besides possibly different types of motors and sensors and such, was that we actually had to have a wire going to each component.
    Anyway, we used a language faintly similar to Logo to control our machines... I remember one person, who had had some experience with the program, trying to make a scanner from a light sensor and some motors. The idea was that the dark areas reflected less than the light areas. It worked in theory, but figuring out how to use the output was a different matter entirely, and one I don't think she ever solved.
    My school had the foresight to see that such a class would be invaluable to some of us. That and the StarLogo class they offered propelled me headlong into my love for programming.
  • I hadn't seem what angio said yet when I posted the above (apologies).

    Here's the fake username/pass I just set up:

    name: login_hater
    pass: login_hater

    Let me know if these work and enjoy the lego article!

    Btw, I'd suggest against a username/pass like slashdot/slashdotted/etc. since these tie all of us back to here.

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