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We’ve seen automated Rubick’s Cube solvers before, but never one that has garnered as many awards as [James]‘ popsicle stick and LEGO Rubick’s Cube solver.\ To keep the project complexity down, [James] opted not to use a webcam to detect the color pattern on each face of the cube. Instead, he wrote a little Python [...]

Tags:  lego rubick cube james project-complexity popsicle-stick arduino hacks  

This LP player is made entirely out of LEGO parts. It plays the songs encoded on each record, but not by using a stylus in a groove. Instead, each LP has a color code on the bottom of it which is interpreted by the optical sensors underneath. In addition to its functionality [Anika Vuurzoon] made [...]

Tags:  lego player record lp-player optical-sensors news  

It’s very subtle, but if you saw [Greg]‘s 3D printed stone to Lego adapter while walking down the street, it might just cause you to stop mid-stride. This modification to real objects begin with [Greg] taking dozens of pictures of the target object at many different angles. These pictures are then imported into Agisoft PhotoScan which [...]

Tags:  lego blending stone greg target-object 3d-prints photoscan printer hacks  

Some people claim that the sound of vinyl is superior to digital playback. While this hack wont win any awards for audio quality, [Ryan]‘s LEGO Record Player is a unique use of one of our favorite toys. Most of the components including the tone arm, counterweight, and base, are built entirely of LEGO. A large gear from an educational construction set [...]

Tags:  lego player record ryan digital-playback educational-construction favorite-toys musical hacks  

You’re certainly not going to sneak up on anyone if using this LEGO motorized wheelchair. The high-pitched whine of all those tiny motors sounds like an army of robotic mosquitoes out for blood. Six of the LEGO Mindstorm bricks are used to drive the motors, with a seventh acting as the master. It’s not pictured [...]

Tags:  lego wheelchair motorized lego-mindstorm lego-pieces pitched-whine toy hacks  

[Eric Steenstra], from the Netherlands, decided to build a GoKart entirely from LEGO Mindstorm parts. Tested at being able to carry just over 100Kg in weight, a 16 stone man(224 lbs). This GoKart can easily carry a child and propel him along. Eric used 48 stock Mindstorm motors, geared down,  and 16 battery packs to provide a balance [...]

Tags:  lego gokart mindstorm ericsteenstra eric the-netherlands lego-mindstorm stone-man toy hacks  

[Brane] built an underwater ROV from LEGO mindstorm parts. Look closely at this image and you should notice something missing. The tether that normally carries power and control lines from an ROV to the surface is missing. This is a wireless solution that lets him control the device using an Xbox controller. The video after [...]

Tags:  lego rov tether lego-mindstorm underwater-rov xbox-controller robots hacks  

The Mars Science Laboratory hasn’t had her wheels down for a day and already the Curiosity-inspired builds are rolling in. [Will] and [Doug] built a LEGO model of the Curiosity rover for the Build the Future in Space event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Everything on this scaled-down version of Curiosity is completely made out of LEGO, including the four powered wheels, motorized [...]

Tags:  space lego curiosity doug kennedy-space-center lego-version lego-model toy hacks  

We’ve seen a lot of interesting MIDI controllers, but this one uses some unconventional materials. The World’s Coolest Keystroke, built by [Audiobody], is made from a combination of tennis balls, Lego bricks, servos, and switches. When a tennis ball is lifted up, a Lego arm is actuated. It looks like a servo is used to [...]

Tags:  lego music tennis lego-bricks tennis-balls midi-controllers musical hacks  

Sure, as a very powerful and influential LEGO dictator you’re more than able to make the trains run on time, but how do you make your LEGO citizens realize the benefits of living under your regime? With an OLED LEGO train schedule, of course! [Dan] over at Adafruit put together a great guide to interfacing a [...]

Tags:  lego dictator oled dan lego-train train-schedule toy hacks  

2012 is the 100-year anniversary of [Alan Turing]‘s birth, and to celebrate the centennial, [Jeroen] and [Davy] over at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in The Netherlands built a Turing machine out of LEGO. A Turing machine is an extremely simple device, but is still able to compute everything your desktop can. The machine is generally described [...]

Tags:  lego machine centennial alan-turing alan the-netherlands turing-machine wiskunde Hardware  

[Matt] sent in a set of YouTube videos walking us through his LEGO Mindstorms controlled brewery. [Matt] is using a RIMS brewing setup that recirculates and heats the mash to extract more starch from the grain. This results in a Maillard reaction in the mash and creates a richer, maltier flavor. To control his RIMS setup, [Matt] [...]

Tags:  lego rims brewing matt lego-mindstorms maillard-reaction brewing-beer beer hacks  

When Lego announced that they were going to do a series of “Lego for girls”, many of us didn’t get it. When we were kids(get off my lawn!), legos were completely asexual. At least, that’s how my mind saw them, being a caucasian male. While the idea itself makes sense in marketing terms, the products [...]

Tags:  lego limor series caucasian-male marketing-terms news  

Modern society owes so much to medical research, though what happens behind the scenes in a laboratory is usually far less than glamorous. A group of scientists at the University of Cambridge are working to develop synthetic bone tissue, but the process to create the samples used in the study is incredibly tedious. To make [...]

Tags:  lego laboratory mindstorms laboratory-tasks university-of-cambridge bone-tissue chemistry hacks  

This Lego watercraft uses drinking bottles as pontoons arranged in a pattern that make it look very much like a Water Strider, the insects that dance on the surface of a lake. After the break you can see a video of the rig gracefully navigating a local pond, along with a raft of ducks. It’s [...]

Tags:  lego water strider water-strider-robot pontoons watercraft toy hacks  

[Maximilien] sent in a networking protocol built out of a LEGO train set. Unlike IP over Avian Carrier this system won’t be killed by plate-glass windows or birds of prey, but we’d hate to step on [Max]‘s work in bare feet. The system uses a USB flash drive to carry data around to different nodes. At each node, [...]

Tags:  lego carrier train max maximilien plate-glass-windows lego-train usb-flash-drive toy hacks  

So you’re really looking for that [Norman Rockwell] Christmas and want to set up your train to encircle the Christmas tree this year. The problem is that all you’ve got is an old LEGO train set and not enough track for it. You can’t just buy some more, because the technology has changed; or can [...]

Tags:  lego christmas train norman-rockwell lego-train-set norman-rockwell-christmas retrofitting toy hacks  

The folks at Dexter Industries have just wrapped up a week of Lego NXT projects, most of which centered on the use of their NXT WiFi sensor. Developed over the last few months, the group has been hard at work refining their design and getting some of the kinks worked out, so now you too [...]

Tags:  lego nxt wifi lego-nxt kinks dexter news  

Here’s an interesting take on a Lego clock, it uses rotating squares to change the orientation of the black and white tiles to display the needed number. As we see one of the digits cycling to the next number in the video after the break, a couple of different things pop into mind. This seems [...]

Tags:  lego number clock time-twister different-things hacks  

Looking to spice up his living room with some modular plastic pieces, [Quentin] came up with a way to take digital pixels and convert them to LEGO building plans. The end result is a coffee table top that uses a font complete with anti-aliasing. The first thing he did was figure out physical dimension and [...]

Tags:  lego spice turning quentin lego-pieces physical-dimension plastic-pieces home hacks  

[Arthur Sacek] has really got something with the 3D Mill he built entirely from LEGO pieces. As you can see, it uses NXT parts to control the cutter head along three axes. The drill bit that acts as the mill’s cutting head is not a LEGO part, but that’s [Arthur's] only transgression. The demo sculpture [...]

Tags:  lego head mill d-mill arthur arthur-sacek lego-pieces cutter-head drill-bit cnc hacks  

[Jochem] wrote in to share a neat time lapse camera dolly he constructed out of Lego bricks. He is a big fan of the two-axis panning time lapse effect where the camera moves while recording images. He figured it would be easy enough to construct one of his own, so he dug out his pail [...]

Tags:  lego lapse time lego-bricks camera-dolly time-lapse-camera digital cameras hacks  

[M-byte] wrote in to tell us about the Lego Synchro Drive. Although not a new hack, this autonomous vehicle is quite amazing in it’s simplicity.  Using only one motor turning at a constant speed, this device is able to navigate obstacles by simply turning. As [m-byte] was quick to point out, this is a simple [...]

Tags:  lego synchro drive new-hack autonomous-vehicle news  

[Mark] was playing around with a small GPS sensor when a light bulb lit over his head. He imagined it would be pretty cool to replicate one of Google’s Street View cars at a fraction of the scale using Lego NXT parts. He figured it would be easy enough to rig a few cameras to [...]

Tags:  lego mini view mark google-street google-street-view lego-nxt view-cars digital cameras hacks  

It always blows our mind to see the things that people dream up when playing with Lego. Given enough time, you could likely replicate almost any mechanical device with the right amount and type of blocks. [Friedemann Wachsmuth] recently wrapped up construction on a very impressive Super-8 movie projector with the help of his friend [...]

Tags:  lego movie projector lego-technic movie-projector mechanical-device video hacks  

Smart people don’t put their toys away, they build machines to do it for them. Case and point: this NXT project which can sort LEGO pieces. Just dump a bucket of random blocks in a hopper on one end of the machine. One slice at a time, these plastic pieces will be lifted onto a conveyor [...]

Tags:  lego machine nxt lego-pieces lego-blocks plastic-pieces toy hacks  

Put a case around it and it would be a grandfather clock but for now it’s a pendulum clock made from LEGO pieces. The video after the break shows a great overview of the build. You can see the workings at several different angles, as well as a clip that has been sped up to [...]

Tags:  lego pendulum clock pendulum-clock lego-pieces grandfather-clock hacks  

[Todd] recently completed completed his biggest LEGO project, and its pretty wild. The Mystery Box is an 8 compartment LEGO brick puzzle box, covered in a psychedelic pattern of interconnecting question marks. The question mark pattern was inspired by a few things, the book called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” contained [...]

Tags:  lego mystery box todd lego-brick lego-project mystery-box toy hacks  

Here’s a guitar wah-wah pedal that [Christian Munk] built. Inside you’ll find a circuit board that he etched and populated based on this design but he chose to build the housing out of LEGO. The video after the break gives you an idea of what it sounds like, but for those who’ve stepped on a [...]

Tags:  wah-wah-pedal munk lego musical hacks  

[Bshikin] built a pinhole camera out of Lego pieces (translated). It is a fully automated unit thanks to the integration of the NXT pieces. It took a bit of careful calculation to get the film spacing adjusted to match the focal length, and quite a bit of tape was necessary to keep light out of [...]

Tags:  lego camera pinhole pinhole-camera lego-pieces careful-calculation digital cameras hacks  

Hidden behind the white face plates of this machine are racks of gears that make up a replica of one of the oldest known mechanical computers. This is a working model of the Antikythera mechanism made from Lego pieces. In the video, which you absolutely can’t miss after the break, The machine is disassembled into [...]

Tags:  lego machine hidden lego-pieces mechanical-computers antikythera-mechanism pcs hacks  

When [Dave] installed hardwood flooring in his house, he needed a solution to help automate the monotonous task of routine sweeping. Rather than go out and buy one of the many existing automated sweep robots out there, he decided to use his passion for LEGO Robotics to design and build a NXT based Swifferbot he [...]

Tags:  lego pulito roomba dave lego-robotics hardwood-flooring toy hacks  

This is a ball mill used for refining materials into a fine powder. [Jpoopdog] built it in two parts, a base and the tumbler chamber. The base itself is build using LEGO wheels as rollers. The motor and controller from an NXT kit is used to drive the rotation, with programming to stop the mill [...]

Tags:  lego ball mill tumbler rollers chemistry hacks  

Playing store just got really, really fun because you can now build your own LEGO barcode scanner. As you can see after the break, it works well and it’s fast like a real barcode scanner. Unfortunately it doesn’t scan real barcodes. Or at least not traditional ones. As we learned in the Barcode Challenge, standard barcodes [...]

Tags:  lego scanner barcode barcode-scanner barcodes toy hacks  

With 2400 LEGO bricks and a lot of patience, [Will Gorman] built a LEGO 3D printer. It’s similar to a RepRap or a Makerbot, but instead of extruding plastic, it uses pre-extruded building blocks (aka LEGO bricks).  The grey wall extending far above the unit itself is a feed magazine which holds the raw material. [...]

Tags:  lego printing lot lego-bricks grey-wall 3d-printer toy hacks  

[AviatorBJP] is building some impressive automatic transmissions using LEGO parts. Your best bet is to check out his YouTube channel as he’s got a slew of videos related to topic. We’ve embedded test footage of first and second generation vehicles as well as the most recent flywheel design after the break. But we’re getting ahead [...]

Tags:  aviatorbjp lego bet flywheel-design automatic-transmissions generation-vehicles toy hacks  

[Deadbird] decided to use a LEGO 8880 Super Car as a host for all of his electronic tinkering. Throughout his blog (translated) you’ll find the vehicle with an Arduino MEGA interfacing various prototyping bits. It starts with the motors for locomotion, closely followed by a servo for steering. From there we see the addition of [...]

Tags:  lego deadbird host lego-8880 prototyping-projects servo toy hacks  

CubeStormer solves Rubik’s cubes and it does it quickly! Made entirely out of LEGO, a Mindstorm web camera is used to scan in the cube with four mechanical hands for manipulation. The device is capable of solving a random cube in less than 11 seconds. That’s quite a bit faster than the last Minstorm solver [...]

Tags:  lego cube cubestormer mechanical-hands quick-solutions web-camera misc hacks  

Over 100,000 Lego pieces, 4 people a year to create, and a 12 foot by 12 foot chess board make this the largest most awesome Lego hack we’ve ever seen. Take that Lego Printer. For a mere $30,000 you too can have such a setup. Not a lot of information is out yet, but we [...]

Tags:  lego chess foot lego-pieces chess-board toy hacks  

[David Hyman] built this device to control a LEGO claw. One one end of things is the part you wear, that measures movement of two fingers and your thumb. On the other end of things is a LEGO claw with three opposing digits. You move, it moves. The claw uses light sensors and a gradient [...]

Tags:  lego end claw david-hyman opposing-digits light-sensors robots hacks  

[Squirrelfantasy] built a printer using LEGO pieces. It’s not a Mindstorm project but instead depends on some type of development board and some auxiliary components on a protoboard. We couldn’t get a good enough look to tell exactly what makes up the electronics so start the debate in the comments. We feel this is a [...]

Tags:  lego printer nxt lego-pieces auxiliary-components protoboard peripherals hacks  

Turn your volume down and take a look at the brick sorting robot in the video above. It’s built using LEGO and powered by four different NXT modules. It sorts differently colored bricks on the intake conveyor and places them on three output conveyors. The build is solid and was [Chris Shepherd's] impetus for starting a [...]

Tags:  lego volume turn chris-shepherd conveyor impetus robots hacks  

We know LEGO is a very versatile medium to build with but this is beyond what we considered possible. Seven speeds and a reverse gear were built into the gearbox for this LEGO vehicle. It’s not completely an original design, but adds to the five-speed design found in a ten-year-old LEGO set. See it demonstrated [...]

Tags:  lego design gearbox versatile-medium speed-design five-speed toy hacks  

[Yoshi Akai] built a sequencer that is part steampunk, part injection molded plastic. The LEGO sequencer MR II has eight steps in a loop that is manipulated by adding the colorful blocks to a green base plate. Each color corresponds to one particular sound which can be modified by building skyward. On the other side [...]

Tags:  lego sequencer sound yoshi-akai injection-molded-plastic eight-steps digital audio hacks  

[TomTheGeek] built a LEGO tank with a PicAxe controller. Locomotion is supplied by a Lego Power Function motor controller. He cut an LPF extension wire in half so that he could patch into the PWM signals without altering the motors themselves. You can make out the control circuitry and a small breadboard in the tank’s [...]

Tags:  lego tank picaxe pwm-signals control-circuitry toy hacks  

[MkMan's] LEGO spider robot combines pieces from a Mindstorm kit with a few milled plastic parts. The legs are a locomotive concept called a Klann Linkage. They operate in pairs and convert the rotational force from one motor into movement for two legs. Here, a total of four rotating gears moves eight legs, besting the [...]

Tags:  lego mkman spider spider-robot eight-legs rotational-force robots hacks  

Here’s a double-dose of Lego NXT goodness; a robotic tank and an automatic aquarium heater. The image to the left is a robotic tank powered by the popular Lego Mindstorms NXT kit. The brains rest inside of a tube, including the controller brick, ultrasonic range finder, a gyroscope, and a compass. Two sets of treads surround [...]

Tags:  lego tank nxt lego-mindstorms-nxt ultrasonic-range-finder robotic-tank toy hacks  

Here’s a collection of little LEGO oddities. Some of them exhibit a purpose, such as this interesting take on a line-following robot. Others, like the four seen above, are just automatons built to bring a smile to your face through their motion. There are dozens to choose from, with several pictures and a video of [...]

Tags:  exhibit lego collection line-following-robot oddities toy hacks