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Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

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Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#61
post #58
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they should be attached and not stacked? https://imgur.com/gallery/W13nR Fwiw: 10.3cm

https://i.imgur.com/zUl5AP8.jpg Measured 10.7cm: https://i.imgur.com/I637r2v.jpg What have you done to me!? Can't stop.

I never considered that the backplane is the same height as the inter dot distance. I thing I can think of as a possible improvement would be to put the single dot side ways, and put a grain of salt on each side. Or find a very slight indentation to put it in.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#62
post #28

One commentator here questioned why is this on HN (and was DVd somewhat) There is the fact that dad teaches stuff to daughter. The lesson is fun and interactive. The concepts dealt with are pretty profound and can be quite deep: constraints, maxima and minima. Well done dad - you've covered some complex stuff in a fun and accessible way. Good skills. If anyone else doubts why this is valid Hacker News, they may want…

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

If novel solutions to trivial technical problems aren't of interest to hackers, I dunno what is.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#64
post #48

To entertain myself, I gave this some thought before I clicked. I assumed exactly what the title says: which 4 lego pieces create the tallest structure that stands on it's own. Well, we need the biggest bricks we can find, my mind went to the ship hulls: https://www.ebay.com/p/?iid=282223262072&&&dispItem=1&chn=ps So how can we connect 2 of these together, and make it stand vertical? Or can we? It might be that we ne…

You could do a tall 1x1 block on the Stern and then attach something as a base, and then an arch attached to the bow (https://www.toysperiod.com/img/cache/67/800x600/d4e4o5g414l4...)

Or three arches, two at the Stern for a base.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#66
post #58
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they should be attached and not stacked? https://imgur.com/gallery/W13nR Fwiw: 10.3cm

https://i.imgur.com/zUl5AP8.jpg Measured 10.7cm: https://i.imgur.com/I637r2v.jpg What have you done to me!? Can't stop.

I really like the thinking of moving the smallest piece to the very bottom!

This would make a great quiz night team challenge or corporate team-building activity.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#67
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetic algorithms? What is this, 1995? Show me the TensorFlow dataset or this post is as good as [dead]. More seriously, though -- I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions. They get you thinking about what the solution might be. Lots of interesting work starts with a problem rather than a particular solution technique. That said, I'd be interested to see your GA solver solution, or…

>I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions Reminds me of an animated shortfilm I saw not too long ago but not that recently either. There's this person that has a box full of questions and s/he encounters an elderly person that has "all the answers", and I'm not going to spoil the rest. I just can't for the life of me remember what it was called and I can't find it with any web search…

I don't, but I bet you can find it if you ask to "stack overflow movies".

link: https://movies.stackexchange.com/

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#68
post #28

One commentator here questioned why is this on HN (and was DVd somewhat) There is the fact that dad teaches stuff to daughter. The lesson is fun and interactive. The concepts dealt with are pretty profound and can be quite deep: constraints, maxima and minima. Well done dad - you've covered some complex stuff in a fun and accessible way. Good skills. If anyone else doubts why this is valid Hacker News, they may want…

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

And HNers wonder "Why do so few people major in computer science?"

Enabling potential CS Majors to encounter technically-unencumbered problems is a great first step!

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#69
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

... and where do you think new hackers come from? Personally speaking, I have no idea what a GA solver is but my initial solution would involve putting all the pieces on top of each other with their longest edges aligned - that's the maximum. Then we look at the constraints: gravity is a bit of a bugger. etc etc Keep your card and open your mind. You might be a bright lad but you can still learn to look at problems f…

> with their longest edges aligned

Longest axes aligned. Longest edges is not the maximum. The article's final solution uses a long axis rather than an edge.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#70
post #53
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetic algorithms? What is this, 1995? Show me the TensorFlow dataset or this post is as good as [dead]. More seriously, though -- I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions. They get you thinking about what the solution might be. Lots of interesting work starts with a problem rather than a particular solution technique. That said, I'd be interested to see your GA solver solution, or…

Bugger GA (whatever) thingies. I've got some super glue - stick all Lego bits together on their longest axis: problem solved as posed but probably not as intended. The large thing between my ears beats the crap out of a GA thingie any day, provided that the problem is loosely defined 8)

Does superglue work on Lego? I found that gluing pieces of plastic together (especially nice plastic like Lego) is the most challenging of all. Wood, paper, rubber, even metal with welding. The best experience I have with plastics is with PVC and the nasty chemical cements that temporarily dissolve the material.

That said it would probably work well enough for this problem.

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