Please, Lego, let this engineer bring your computer brick to life
theverge.com
theverge.com
As far as general resources "the art of electronics" by horrowitz and hill is still a gold standard for all-around electronics knowledge, and is written with good pedagogy.
Here’s two beginner friendly options:
Chris McVeigh (aka Powerpig) had a website selling custom sets he designed, including retro computer sets, and a line of “brick sketches”. He’s now a designer at Lego. His Brick Sketches are official sets, and he’s designed retro computing adjacent sets too (including the new Atari 2600 set).
There’s also the very successful Lego Ideas program.
Maybe he can work with one of those companies.
To note, it's really a plea for Lego to not kill them. The author's quote:
> There’s a difference between doing something that is acceptable and being able to actually fight if they decide to throw their weight around.
https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/powered-up shows some examples of the connector and socket.
There's also the discontinued "Powered Functions" connection scheme, which can be seen on this model: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/power-functions-motor-set... . It appears to be post-brick contacts and pre-"powered up" connectors.
There have been many electrical connection schemes over the course of lego's history.
Also, I think they would need a design-patent instead, as there is nothing technologically new about it (except perhaps the battery contact).
Inventions that are already publicly known are not patentable because they're copies of existing ideas; not inventions.
The only exception is that in some jurisdictions, the creator of an invention can wait up to a year between making their own invention public and filing a patent for it.
In a strange way, game theory with no patents dictates a first mover disadvantage, because the first mover has to waste all the money figuring out how to build these things quickly before they are copied by a fast follower who puts the first mover out of business. So the likelihood that these things stay craft projects is a bit higher with no patents.
Designed a novel ordnance for the military? 30 year patent grant. Designed a new ziptie with RFID? 5 years. Patented a rounded corner button on the iPhone? Outright reject with no refunds and a penalty for wasting time.
I do see value of a patent-free society that can produce things fast and cheap, i.e. Shenzhen/Guangdong. I don't know if there is a way to have both systems co-exist in some form of a hybrid society without eliminating free markets.
I also don't get the hate packaged in the form of the term "Capitalism". Usually, they mean "Crony capitalism".
that's not even touching surplus value. I recommend reading the first chapter or two of Capital if you want more info.
I played with mindstorms and turned out fine. There were plenty of imagination involved all around.
>Incredibly, the whole thing is powered by actual Lego bricks, too — the vintage 9V battery box and bricks with electrical contacts that Lego discontinued back in the ‘90s
It's just eye candy.
Lego structures are largely composed of general-purpose blocks, but many kits also includes some special-purpose ones as well (or specialization through stickers)
> It's just eye candy.
I think you do see why somebody would want this
I’ve seen this as a bit over my career doing engineering. The decision maker for product innovation is not an engineer. Not to say engineers aren’t generally innovative, but a company is not set up for an engineer to take an idea and execute it, but rather to take a vision and build it.
When engineers, hungry to build, realize this, they end up building outside company boundaries - sometimes creating new companies.
To take these bricks to market, independent distribution (and a patent) would be worthwhile. I don’t generally believe in patents for software, but for hardware, it provides a counterbalance to the aforementioned culture of modern work.
(The same holds true for marketing, distribution, etc.)
Of course custom hardware goes well beyond the average set, but Lego is definitely not as myopic/Not Invented Here as your average megacorp.
E.g. https://brickset.com/article/47293/the-lego-group-acquires-b...
I’m talking more about the origination of companies.
An acquisition of one engineer to go lead a new program at a major company is just not realistic.
I can see real value in more interactive builds, teaching kids about machinery and logic. However this display that can only show simple animations and is too small to use as output for any sort of machine is not that.
Replacing batteries all over the place is already annoying enough as a parent, I don't think anyone is looking forward to buying Lego©® Mini Batteries ™ so that the fake computer screens keep showing a fake computer screen.
It’s very cool, they’ve got little metal clips under these special conductive bricks.
If you’ve ever played with MindStorms, you’ll know how bloody cool it is.
So you don’t have to worry about ‘Lego(c)(r) Mini Batteries’ - if you’d read the article; you’d see, that brilliantly - this is actually already the way the pieces are powered!
They have no batteries in them.
If you can’t see the value of working displays in especially a collector’s (adult) edition of, say, the X-Wing with that Death Star trench thing, then it’s not a product for you - but I assure you there are thousands of us who will happily say ‘shut up and take my money’ for such a thing.
> He tells The Verge he probably won't sell them — at least not without legal consultation and a small enough battery!
I know the 9V batteries exist but this is not the author's goal.