Sorting Lego
Lego. Can you have too much? Possibly. It appears at least to be a question that my family is slowly attepting to answer …
Of course past a certain critical mass, you get to the point where it is almost impossible to build anything, as you have just too much to sort through to find a piece. Couple this with the trend for increasingly specialised parts in a much wider range of colours and you get to the point where you know you have the part in question, but you also know its just one or two of … well … quite a lot, so you tend to give up before you even start.
Hence sorting Lego is kind of mandatory. But it takes a long time and when all is said and done you are basically attempting to reduce disorder and chaos (and everyone knows how fruitful that is!)
So what do to … can Google help? Hmm, maybe. Here are some examples.
This shows some promise – it sorts based on size and shape. It seems quite accurate too. But it is very slow! At this rate bricks would never be sorted faster than they were used, so this really isn’t likely to solve the issue.
This ones a little faster, but doesn’t look like it has a huge range of bricks it recognises. Still sorts on shape and colour – thats quite impressive.
Now the concept behind this one shows some promise. Its not sorting lego, just beads presumably based on colour, but it looks like the kind of design that might scale up.
This is probably the most comprehensive one I’ve seen yet – but with 7 NXTs, 28 motors and 37500 bricks … well, it still only really sorts a subset of bricks. Still its quite amazing to watch.
But you know what? This one is just a work of art. One motor. No programmable brick. Just cogs, gears, differentials and bands … its the kind of creation that one just stares at in wonderment. By far the simplest, most elegant lego creation I’ve seen in a long time. So what if it only sorts 2 by something bricks. So what that it only sorts on length. So what that you have to align bricks to load it. This is pure lego mastery.
So. Can anyone do better? Or are we doomed to resorting to trained chimps (sorting monkeys?) and bribed children?
Kevin.
World of Legocraft
Have just seen the trailer for the new Lego Universe virtual world. I’ve heard various things about it over the last 18 months or so, but the final form seems to be some kind of Lego MMO, a Lego version of World of Warcraft if you will, with customisable characters, quests, building, levels and so on. You will also have to pay for it by a monthly subscription. I had assumed it would be more along the lines of, say, Disney’s Pixie Hollow or a Lego version of Habbo Hotal, but it looks much more a gamey than social virtual world.
The trailer is very impressive, but as its a digital film, it doesn’t really give anything away about the actual game.
Still, looks like it will keep Lego fans old and young busy for some time. For more info, see Wikipedia and www.legouniverse.com.
Nod to Tervicz for the link to the video.
Kevin.
3D Internet Shopping
I’ve mentioned the 3D virtual side of the Lego shop before. Well some people will tell you that the future of the Internet lies with 3D. Forget Web 2.0, go Web 3D!
Well Lenovo, the PC manufacturer who took over the IBM laptop business, have created a 3D virtual shop where you can ‘go in’ and browse their laptop range, walk up to and communicate with sales assistents, take a friend in with you, and so on. All you need to do is go to their ‘elounge’ website, download a plug-in, learn a few basic commands and off you go.
There are a number of people I’ve spoken to that say they would never use such a system, but my view is that if the whole idea of 3D virtual worlds loses some of its clunkiness, and sites like Amazon or Ebay were just using the technology, then people would just use it, just because that’s the way things are.
People didn’t conciously choose to use the web to get to Amazon or Ebay, these companies just used the default technology available, and made it as painless as possible for consumers to use the sites. If they decided that 3D virtual worlds was the way to go, because it was a differentiator, enabled more sales or for whatever other reason, and the technology was mature enough to enable them to make it painless for consumers, then people would probably just get in and use it. I am always amazed at how popular the cartoony virtual world games, like YoVille and FarmVille, are on Facebook.
The issue right now as I see things, is that the technology isn’t quite there yet. Well, maybe experiments like the Lenovo eLounge are starting to lay the groundwork for the tech to catch up.
Kevin.
Lenovo.com eLounge
What to do with grey Lego
Ever wonder what to do with small, grey lego bricks? No? Well, you should! This guy has a great idea – use them to create walls worthy of the most expensive Sci-fi film set. Oh, and if you have a few small coloured parts too, then how about a robot or two?
The design of these walls and robots is great. Very creative use of Lego to very good effect.
Kevin.
Lego Walls and Robots
Augmented Reality in the Lego Shops!
This is super cool! I am reliably informed that the Lego Shop in Milton Keynes has one of these new flashy augmented reality picture booth things.
See one in action here. Got to be worth a visit to see these (and I haven’t been in the Lego shop for ages)!
Kevin.
The Muppet Matrix
I’ve seen loads of spoofs of major films. I particularly like some of the lego ones. However, I’ve probably just come across one of the funniest, The Muppet Matrix. This is a real classic. Almost as good as the ASCII art star wars saga …
Kevin.
Serious Lego …
Now this is serious lego building. I just wonder where he gets his bricks from!
His brooklyn bridge is particularly fantastic.
Kevin.
Lego in landfill sites
Whilst vacuuming the other day, i heard the tell-tale clattery noise that informed me that another piece of Lego had just started its journey to our local landfill site. Lego has such a distinctive noise when you buy it in a box, when you are sorting it and yes, even when it goes up the tube!
It did get me wondering how much Lego there must be in landfills around the world … we must vacuum up the equivalent of a set every few years just in our family. Of course its always the smallest bits, which never used to be an issue when there were only handful of colours but these days with new sets including new shades and sizes of bricks sometimes you end up with a very small number of the right colour of the right brick for that favourite model …
I also wondered (it takes a while to vacuum the hall in our house) what else you would find that has accidentally found its way to the landfill. Reached for google to see if anyone had anything about interesting finds from rubbish sites, but couldn’t find anything really. Lots about effects of landfill sites on health, about the toxic substances that are dumped, about disposable nappies and so on, but nothing about people finding anything interesting. If anyone comes across anything, do let me know.
I can’t believe no one has studied the important question of how much Lego gets thrown away each year 
Kevin.
