Why all that circuits? Couldn't he have used mindstorms?
I don't think Mindstorms would allow him to write a printer driver to control the motors.
Lego printer
21–30 of 33 posts
Re: Lego printer
#22This is just too awesome. Makes me jealous as all my lego went to my cousins many years ago. :( Anyone a good idea where you can get cheap lego stuff? (maybe china @ bulk order?)
This isn't really an answer to your question, but my co-founder's brother works as a designer at Lego HQ in Denmark, where they have a huge warehouse filled with every block/piece/component in every colour available... That's what he used to make lego versions of us, which we've used on our website ( http://wemakewebsites.info/about ). I'm sure you can get a lot of stuff on mail order.
I bet they still have Batman Lego as well :( sob
(Batman Lego is incredibly rare. Expect to pay a few hundred $ per set at least). Lego lost the license to sell it, but they still sell the Lego Batman video game.
Re: Lego printer
#23I had assumed the link would be about a 3D printer that cranks out lego pieces. This is way, way more awesome.
Well, why not combine a 3D printer AND lego? Since I've got a long summer, I'm now really tempted to make a RepRap ( http://reprap.org/ ) with lego like this. Imagine how cool it would be to show that to kids: A lego-robot making lego!
I've thought about a Lego-building robot made of Lego before, but mostly in the context of an illustration of why atomic assembly by nanobots is probably impossible.
I'm thinking specifically of the "sticky fingers" problem, which says that if something binds strongly enough to an atom to "pick it up" then it's going to be very difficult to get it to "drop" it again. I imagine you'd have the same problem with Lego... although at least with Lego you can usually pick a block up by its sides, which you can't do with atoms.
Re: Lego printer
#24I had assumed the link would be about a 3D printer that cranks out lego pieces. This is way, way more awesome.
I was thinking of a 2D printer which builds pixel-mosaics out of Lego blocks. That would probably be a lot easier than the 3D Lego printer.
Re: Lego printer
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, why not combine a 3D printer AND lego? Since I've got a long summer, I'm now really tempted to make a RepRap ( http://reprap.org/ ) with lego like this. Imagine how cool it would be to show that to kids: A lego-robot making lego!
I've thought about a Lego-building robot made of Lego before, but mostly in the context of an illustration of why atomic assembly by nanobots is probably impossible. I'm thinking specifically of the "sticky fingers" problem, which says that if something binds strongly enough to an atom to "pick it up" then it's going to be very difficult to get it to "drop" it again. I imagine you'd have the same problem with Lego...…
> I've thought about a Lego-building robot made of Lego before, but mostly in the context of an illustration of why atomic assembly by nanobots is probably impossible.
Bacteria are proof that nano-assembly is possible, if you define assembly broadly enough.
Re: Lego printer
#26This is just too awesome. Makes me jealous as all my lego went to my cousins many years ago. :( Anyone a good idea where you can get cheap lego stuff? (maybe china @ bulk order?)
From Lego. For generic blocks, you cannot really beat their "brick buckets" -- the deluxe version ( http://shop.lego.com/ByCategory/Product.aspx?p=6177&cn=2... ) has 650 blocks for 30€. From the supermarket, you can hardly get a 50-brick model for those 30€.
You can get used Lego pieces on eBay for cheap. Just put them in a sack (e.g. pillow cover) and wash them in your washing machine, when you get them.
Re: Lego printer
#27Rad!
Now he needs to do a color version. Remember pen plotters? They had a carousel of different colored markers and it'd draw (raster or vector) with one color and then pickup a different color and output that color. Loved watching those things work.
Re: Lego printer
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've thought about a Lego-building robot made of Lego before, but mostly in the context of an illustration of why atomic assembly by nanobots is probably impossible. I'm thinking specifically of the "sticky fingers" problem, which says that if something binds strongly enough to an atom to "pick it up" then it's going to be very difficult to get it to "drop" it again. I imagine you'd have the same problem with Lego...…
> I've thought about a Lego-building robot made of Lego before, but mostly in the context of an illustration of why atomic assembly by nanobots is probably impossible. Bacteria are proof that nano-assembly is possible, if you define assembly broadly enough.
Sure, it's most definitely possible with a limited palette. Anything you can build out of proteins is easy. Other stuff is either harder or impossible, which is why I believe that nanotechnology will enable all sorts of great things, but a "universal assembler" will not be one of them.
Re: Lego printer
#29This is pretty cool.
I tried to do something similar in high school with some friends. We tried to make a lego robot that would draw like a hand does (not like a line printer). The difference in velocity between a drawing and raised marker created too much error for our robot, but we probably could have fixed this if we had spent more time tweaking variables.
Re: Lego printer
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't really an answer to your question, but my co-founder's brother works as a designer at Lego HQ in Denmark, where they have a huge warehouse filled with every block/piece/component in every colour available... That's what he used to make lego versions of us, which we've used on our website ( http://wemakewebsites.info/about ). I'm sure you can get a lot of stuff on mail order.
God, a warehouse full of lego. That's what heaven is like.
All mixed together.
That is what hell is like.
I too was looking forward to a printer that built objects out of lego. Would be a great project to work on.
Nevertheless, this is great. The printed sheet turned out much better than I had imagined. Shouldn't be too hard to put in different colour pens.