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New Lego smart-play system

lego.com

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Re: New Lego smart-play system

#11

Post by everyday7732 »

mg wrote: post #6

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing. It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms. I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own. Would there b…

Printed pieces typically only have a single purpose, and lego-like snap together tolerances are hard to get working right with a 3d printer. Hell, they're hard to get right for the mass produced lego no-name duplicates. It can be fun to design shapes in tinkercad, but not as accessible for small children as just putting plastic bricks together.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#12

Post by dmonitor »

spankalee wrote: post #7

I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does . With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?

Looks like it has an IMU built in, so if it has wireless it could easily integrate with some kind of software system like those. Seems like right now it's just so your space ship can make vroom sounds

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#14

Post by redkoala »

spankalee wrote: post #7

I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does . With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?

It’s a 2 x 4 Lego brick with a speaker/lightsand custom ASIC built-in, with light and sound sensors, reacting to IOT beacons that allow different sounds or light sequences. And it’s rechargeable like an electric toothbrush. It also has accelerometers that change the sounds as you twist and turn them around. The sounds themselves are generated, with the speaker driven by an onboard synthesiser.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#16

Post by dmonitor »

mg wrote: post #6

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing. It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms. I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own. Would there b…

3D printing would be good at making figurines and such, but you can't easily replicate the Lego system's modularity without their high tolerances.

That being said, it should be feasible to make something that allows easily programming Arduino and raspberry pi to interact with legos, similar to how their Mindstorms line worked. That would be the best of both worlds.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#17

Post by stravant »

weli wrote: post #9
mg wrote: post #6

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing. It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms. I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own. Would there b…

> It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together I have some news for you. Lego piece tolerance is nuts. I think it is down to 2 micrometers. You can't achieve that in consumer 3d printers. Now, you can make something that kinda works like lego but it wont have the structural integrity for advanced builds.

You can easily print bricks that work. They will just require more force to assemble than normal because you have to make them slightly undersized to make up for the lower tolerance.

Just think of how many 3d prints you've seen that consist of multiple parts friction for together.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#18

Post by afavour »

mg wrote: post #6

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing. It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms. I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own. Would there b…

There are off-brand budget Lego blocks available and they're (in my experience) all awful. Legos are very precisely manufactured to fit together smoothly, if the off-brand ones made in a factory can't replicate that then I don't have much hope for small-scale 3D printing.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#19

Post by crtasm »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #10

It looks like this works without a phone now I'm reading more into it, when I saw the announcement on social media I assumed it would just be a brick that can signal to or be tracked by a phone which is far less interesting. Good to see a move away from trying to bring a tablet/phone into this kind of play.

Yes, they made this explicit in the "fact sheet"

>... LEGO SMART Bricks can talk to each other directly - no app, central hub, or external controller required.

Re: New Lego smart-play system

#20

Post by newsclues »

Is this going to be augmented reality?

Like physical bricks that can be moved IRL and then you have it synchronized with a virtual environment.

Lego used to have kits with electronics and motors but were always too expensive for me to afford…

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