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Comment by ryukoposting | Hacker News Reader

> offering both fame and a small fortune — 1 percent of net sales — to anyone who can convince 10,000 peers and The Lego Group that their set deserves to exist

This isn't entirely true. Plenty of LEGO Ideas designs get to the 10k threshold, then LEGO vetoes them for one reason or another. The decision process is completely opaque; more often than not, they basically just say "the design didn't pass internal review." Never mind that most Ideas sets get a significant design overhaul before reaching production anyway.

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This is literally what the whole article was about. Not only does the quote itself contain that context "and the lego group", but the very next paragraph is "And then… nothing. The Tintin votes dried up, and Lego rejected both his fan-favorite Avatar and Polar Express ideas. The company never says why it rejects an Ideas submission, only that deciding factors include everything from “playability” and “brand fit” to the difficulties in licensing another company’s IP."

That’s why it says “and the Lego Group” - you have to do the 10k and pass internal design review.

"Lego is 'proud' to announce Lego McLegoface Mark XVI. Apparently you guys still think this joke is funny."

"Convincing" the Lego Group implies that there's dialogue.

I don’t think it implies that. The 10k votes, parts list, photos, impetus, and lore/background is the “convincing”.

A speech, a monologue, can be convincing.

There is, but it seems like it's between Lego and the rightsholder.

But then the 10k is meaningless.

"Anyone who can convince the Lego Group", that could be said of any product/company!

It's like saying "anyone who can convince Netflix can launch a new TV Show".

It's just screening the clearly not-good-enough designs so that Lego employees don't have to review everything.

it also shows the market potential: 10000 people would buy this set. sure not all of them will buy it, but it's certainly a useful metric.

It’s not meaningless, it’s just an initial filter to show there’s at least some amount of interest in it.

No sense reviewing proposals for sets that can’t even get 10,000 people interested.

I'm still waiting for my Saturn V Gantry. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/a88109ec-9970-4fe1-98b4-9bd5...

BTW: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=1603... or other, similar models there.

Bricklink is perhaps secretly (or perhaps not) owned by LEGO itself so they can have their hand in the pocket of the used / resale market. People will upload full MOCs (My Own Creation) there and you can purchase the sets piece-wise. Usually even more expensive than if you wait and buy a set through LEGO but for stuff like this it's worth it.

Bricklink has been acquired by Lego 4 years ago, I don't think that's a secret at all !

which was one of the better things that could have happened after Daniel Jezek passed. lego has been a good steward of it since.

Some of that is due to reasons they cannot say. They've developed a policy of "no current IP currently produced by the Lego Group". So even if a set gets past the 10,000 mark, if it's a minifig scale Death Star, it's not being made.

So if it's a set they currently have IP rights for, but have not announced sets for, they'll generally turn it down. But they can't say it's because they've recently acquired the IP rights to Sonic the Hedgehog.

They also have a loose "no contemporary war toys" policy. I say loose because the Indiana Jones line kind of pushes on that a bit. But that's right around the cutoff for them. But you definitely won't see an F16 fighter jet anytime soon.

They did recently produce a set loosely based on the F-35 Lightning ("Blue Power Jet").

Exactly. It kinda, sorta is close to one and there's no ordinance.

Not too long ago, they yanked a V-22 Osprey set because of their "no military vehicles" policy.

I'm still baffled that the Coast Guard didn't go all-in on that --- maybe if they had, it would have been acceptable in that livery.

Nothing baffling there. The Osprey isn't very good for its design use case that happened once in 1980, but it makes up for that by being even worse at everything else.

According to gpt-4, a minifig scale Death Star I would be over 2 miles in diameter

Seems reasonable to me. Let’s start building.

The problem is that according to Science™ (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20578627) with a tower of 2.17miles you start to get materials failure on the bricks. You might be able to engineer around this, but I suspect that the minifig-scale deathstar would cause the bottom bricks to melt.

Bummer.

Maybe in this hypothetical we could reduce weight by making it the 2nd Death Star? A lot of that was skeletal superstructure.

The second Death Star was also about 33% bigger in diameter, though.

That's true if you build the station on the planet, but I think the station is designed to be constructed in orbit in the first place. Its self-gravity should be negligible. Problem solved!

That's no moon...

That’s your mother!

I think we can get support for a 2 mile large Lego Death Star hauled up by NASA and assembled in orbit - write your congressman now !

We just need 10k votes, right? Or is there more to it than that?

If I do my math correctly, the mass of the structure should be dominated by the surface, if it is constructed mostly hollow. There will be plenty of room to add individual rooms to play with inside.

The mass of the LEGO would be on the order of 113 tons assuming you build the surface out of 8x16 base plates. This is comfortably within range of a single Starship payload. It is much tougher to say how long LEGO would take to manufacture them, but I think it is safe to say that they could spin up additional manufacturing capacity for such an important national project.

It should pay for itself - you'd have a very long line of LEGO nerds buying tickets to help assemble it.

Whoops, dropped some zeroes. It'd be on the order of 800-900 launches.

even so we should do it ! :-)

I'm really starting to run out of space in my home for these big Lego sets.

a 2 mile deathstar gives you the chance to flip this around - get space for your home in a big lego set

And at some point you're going to be standing there trying to figure out if it still brings you Joy

I had the same thoughts when I was thinking of "how can I make myself an Enterprise 2 years back. I hope that a Lego AI* will help me get the individual parts needed AND the manual to build it myself, and to work around the IP issues name it "Green Spaceship" (and I will simply order the Grey pieces instead of the Green.

I see on my bookmarks I got a https://ideas.lego.com/projects/a056ebf2-163e-4aa0-b005-02b0.... I remember finding out who that C3Brix is and contacted him, but never got a response.

People will have better chance coming up with their own generic design than an IP-owned.

> But you definitely won't see an F16 fighter jet anytime soon.

Considering some Lego AI* that will be 'smart' enough when fed the full library of Lego bricks dimensions, it should be able to build ANY 3D design or using 'many' 2D (photos/drawings) of a 'thing' and generate the 'shopping list' and the manual.

I don't know how happy would Lego be then (as Lego bricks must be somehow their IP), but it would be GREAT if someone built that.. I would happily pay $100 to generate stuff some some Star Trek iconic designs (Dyson sphere, all the Enterprises, the Voyager, etc.)

Space Fights are good, but Space Trips are better!!! (https://xkcd.com/1563/)

*ACTUALLY, now that I'm thinking about it I will try with Bard and ChatGPT and see what comes out

EDIT: I saw others had the same idea in other comments.. I'll add a reminder on my Calendar in 6 months from now to see what's been going on for this topic

EDIT2: I just asked Bard and it came up with 5 suggestions, listed below:

1. Mecabricks Mecabricks is a web-based software that allows you to create LEGO models from scratch or import photos and dimensions. It has a large library of LEGO bricks and pieces, and it can generate step-by-step instructions for your models. Image of Mecabricks website Opens in a new window www.stonewars.de Mecabricks website

2. Rebrickable Rebrickable is another web-based software that can help you create LEGO models from photos. It has a similar interface to Mecabricks, but it also has a feature that allows you to search for existing LEGO models that match your photo. Image of Rebrickable website Opens in a new window www.reddit.com Rebrickable website

3. Brick-A-Pic Brick-A-Pic is a web app that converts photos into LEGO mosaics. It can be used to create custom LEGO artwork or to recreate logos, portraits, and other images. Image of BrickAPic website Opens in a new window wired.jp BrickAPic website

4. Art4Bricks Art4Bricks is a company that specializes in creating custom LEGO mosaics. You can upload a photo to their website and they will create a custom design for you. They will also sell you the LEGO bricks and instructions you need to build the mosaic.

5. LEGO Mosaic Maker The LEGO Mosaic Maker is an official LEGO product that allows you to create LEGO mosaics from photos. It comes with a set of 4,702 LEGO bricks in 5 colors, and it includes instructions for creating 15 different mosaic designs.

I will start checking them out later today..

The idea of a Lego AI sounds amazing... just thought of what might happen if you took a photo of your pieces then said "I like original Star Wars, make me a series of spaceships from that" and it outputted step by step instructions to create them. So cool. Sure, something seems a bit lost in the creative flailing that is the growth path of young Lego-ists, but it would be really cool.

As for the IP around lego bricks, an instruction set would be copyrightable, the brick system is patentable (but the patents on most of the bricks would be expired now which is why there are generic brick sets available), and they can do a trademark that would provide limited protection, but mostly for the brand, not for the bricks themselves (I remember being at the Lakland workshop back in the 90s and they were talking about how the Fender lawyers came and told them how they needed to redesign their headstock as to not violate Fender’s trademarks/design patents on the headstock shape, and there would be some similar protection potentially available to Lego, but again, the existence of generic bricks tells me that it doesn’t apply to the bricks).

So the bottom line is that Lego cannot keep you from publishing plans and parts lists for your own Lego sets. Heck, you could even, if you were sufficiently funded, manufacture the set yourself. You just couldn’t use the Lego brandname at all.

I don‘t know if you‘re interested but this company makes Star Trek sets

https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/sets/star_trek?gad_source=1

I assume they don’t have infinite capacity either. So even without rights conflicts, if they can only ramp up say 10 sets at a time, and they’re working on eight for a new campaign, they’re going to be pickier about the final two.

Lego may sell a hundred different sets at the same time, but if they run out of one they aren’t going to get more tomorrow. It’s on a manufacturing schedule. They may have all of the yellow 1x6 bricks you could ever need, but they still have to fire up the part picker, the bag sealers, and order new boxes and booklets from the printers. Plus there’s that weird part that is only in three current sets, they have to make more of them, and the first gap in the schedule is next Thursday.

I think it's possible you did not continue reading the article. This is all covered.

> most Ideas sets get a significant design overhaul before reaching production anyway.

Often it's an improvement, but lots of people are disappointed that the new Orient Express[0] is nothing like the original Ideas design[1].

[0] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/the-orient-express-train-...

[1] https://ideas.lego.com/projects/568ee861-3b62-413a-9432-ce1d...

"Never mind that most Ideas sets get a significant design overhaul before reaching production anyway."

You've answered your own question -- selection criteria extend beyond physical design.

Also the final product often looks very different (usually a lot smaller) then the submission.

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