When I play with my kids, (now 8 and 10), I find that the key thing is not what pieces we have (admittedly, we have a lot of pieces), or instructions, but developing some theme or challenge.
The theme could be ‘space’ or ‘under water’ or ‘I’m going to build the taller possible leg structure’ or ‘I’m going to build a vehicle that can be blown across the floor with a fan.’ Once they have a theme, they will do amazing stuff.
Also, I believe it’s important to have a big slush pile of pieces. It’s amazing how much builds change when your are scrounging for piece X, and you see piece Y and think, actually…
I see that this app is technologically interesting for the developer, but it doesn’t address my core problem: inspiring kids to get started on free creativity. For that, I’d more like a Lego theme of the day app, maybe slightly inspired or guided by the kids ages or genders. If I did that, I’d have the kids submit pictures of their results, and use those over time to assess and improve the quality of my suggested themes at different ages and Lego piles sizes (there is your AI, if you must).
The pitch would be ‘inspire your kids to new creativity.”
So I realized a basic truth of pretty much all skills and hobbies: guided play or formal training are not enemies of free creative play, quite the opposite, they fosters creativity by opening many new avenues.
Every musical composers or great jazz improvisers started by playing someone else's music.
I guess my point here is, you’re right. The fundamentals are important. Both the guided and the free.
I wonder if the specialization of bricks since then has contributed to that "totally lost" feeling. I look at our pile and it's mostly specialized doodads and widgets for who knows what Star Wars thing a few years ago.
Guided building is basically filling that archive with ideas that can be used or changed
"Theme of the day" or just "pick a theme for me" might be interesting, but so is just getting some random schematic that might not even fit in what you'd search for in the first place
Now that I'm old, I'm not in the mood to build custom LEGO structures anymore, and I have some builds (e.g. ISS) that are exactly by the manual and just sitting, looking pretty on furniture. I think my younger self would be disgusted. :)
It can be turned into a super supa parenting tool, for lame parents like myself.
"Lego is like minecraft, but with a hard limits on the number and type of available blocks."
OTOH, I love to build Lego kits with directions. I could do it for hours... it becomes meditative.
The app identified 400 pieces (of the 800) and unfortunately the resulting ideas were not possible to be constructed because it required pieces we don't have. Of the 50 ideas I was only able to construct 1 or 2 that had very few pieces.
I tried it a couple of times with diferent layout in pieces or lights, nothing really changed.
Sorry but it doesn't work, at least with my kind of bricks.
I think that the image detection algorith is not working that good; however there is a very simple solution to that: Allow me to enter the IDs of the sets I own (for example the one I mention is the 10696: https://www.lego.com/en-gr/themes/classic/building-instructi...). Get the bricks my sets have contains , for example, for my set https://brickset.com/inventories/10696-1.
Then it should be easy... No computer vision needed :)
Now what I want is something that will scan a pile of rocks and tell me how to put them together to build a wall with minimal space between them.
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/stone-wall-texture-pict...
Or better yet, tell my robot how to do it.
Now what I want is something that will scan a pile of socks and tell me how to put them together to have a perfect match.
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/socks-pile-texture-pict...
Or better yet, tell my robot how to do it.
Now what I want is something that will scan a pile of stocks and tell me how to put them together to have a perfect portfolio.
https://www.tradingview.com/heatmap/stock/
Or better yet, tell my robot how to do it.
Now what I want is something that will scan my life and tell me how to put it back together properly.
Or better yet, provide a robot to do it for me.
The magnum opus of such a project would be something that could produce the circuit from the text "a guitar pedal that makes a guitar sound like wet blankets and dry pickles in the washing machine."
The extension of your idea would be a piece of software that could generate the BoM and gcode to assemble the circuit, or in your instance the bricks.
The meta of that would be the circuit that could build circuits that build circuits.
https://www.ethanrosenthal.com/2020/08/25/optimal-peanut-but...
Brrrap! A tree shredder!
Ahead of him, everything was empty bookcases, skeletons. Robert went to the end of the aisle and walked toward the noise. The air was a fog of floating paper dust. In the fourth aisle, the space between the bookcases was filled with a pulsing fabric tube. The monster worm was brightly lit from within. At the other end, almost twenty feet away, was the worm's maw -- the source of the noise. Indistinct in the swirling haze, Robert could see two white-suited figures, their jackets labeled "Huertas Data Rescue". The two wore filter masks and head protectors. They might have been construction workers. In fact, this business was the ultimate in deconstruction: first one and then the other would pull books off the racks and toss them into the shredder's maw. The maintenance labels made calm phrases of the horror: The raging maw was a "NaviCloud custom debinder". The fabric tunnel that stretched out behind it was a "camera tunnel". Robert flinched from the sight -- and Epiphany [smartglasses] randomly rewarded his gesture with imagery from within the monster: The shredded fragments of books and magazines flew down the tunnel like leaves in tornado, twisting and tumbling. The inside of the fabric was stitched with thousands of tiny cameras. The shreds were being photographed again and again, from every angle and orientation, till finally the torn leaves dropped into a bin just in front of Robert. Rescued data.
- Rainbows End, V. Vinge, 2006
Oh it's _Lego_ bricks (:
I found a "Manage subscriptions" link in the app, and it points to the Play Store app. I can't find an "unsubscribe" button there. If I try o uninstall the app I'm explicitly told "Your active subscriptions will not be canceled". I spent ten minutes looking for this, and I'm a web developer. How on earth will regular Joe be able to unsubscribe this?
Also, can anyone point me in the right direction?
Edit: for me it's Play Store, round profile button/account switcher in top right, Payments and Subscriptions.
This is normal. My parents do not understand the iOS settings app at all, and it confuses them that they have to leave their app to manage their apps in a different app. I don't think Apple (or Google) got this right, there is definitely room for improvement for average user UX
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm
This kind of thing is cool, but seems like it robs us of an opportunity to practice something important.
Maybe we will replace it with some other skill?
I would be very curious to know how many AI/ML researchers played with Legos and whether this free play was vital in their development. I would assume it is.
I have already moved to the mountains, stopped practicing UX/UI design, stopped digital drawing and painting, minimized smartphone usage and use internet only for work and casual browsing.
Already archived a lot of media, movies, books and OSS software, just in case.
Moved all the work focus towards frontend implementation with clear understanding that the window of opportunity will close in the next 5 years.
Suddenly I understand, completely, the Amish position towards technology.
This is how technology should be helping us.
Goodluck.
This is pretty neat and I would definitely play with it, but I'm not willing to front that kind of cash on something that might be terrible.
It seems like the ideas are all user submitted -- I was expecting something ML here, like imaginary builds of cars. Cool nonetheless but there's a lot of untapped opportunity.
My first thought was that this would be very useful for part co-mingling or something not-Lego related.
I’m working on a jigsaw puzzle and hit a bit of a dry spell and was hoping there might be an app that could help find the pieces in a pile and where they go. Nothing exists yet that I could see. I imagine with a completed picture and a view of a piece it would be possible to show where in the picture the piece goes to reduce the burden. Extra pints if you can give it a view of the current progress and it could show you where the pieces should go.
I think there's a trial period, but yeah the pricing is steep ($45/yr). Probably worth it for enthusiasts, but much less appropriate for kids.
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This seems neat, and if there were some basic functionality (only smaller projects, or a limited number of complex projects per month), I would give it a try with my kid. But there is zero chance I'm going to introduce a subscription that costs $7/mo that would likely be used a handful of times each month.
Seems like they could run a CourseHero-style business model, where you get access for X months in return for uploading Y creations. Some people would submit junk, but you would get enough good stuff that it would be worth it. Also, you could make the default value for submissions low, but give big bonuses for submissions that reach a certain level of popularity.
Barely a year ago. I thought it was maybe 5 years ago. Time itself must be accelerating.
I need an app that can scan my hard drives, connectome and biochemistry > bleep bloop > tell me what I can still do with my life.
However, sorting by part can be frustrating. Imagine only 1x1 tiles/plates (i.e. the pieces which are 1/3 the height of a regular brick), to my knowledge there are:
* 1x1 square plates (i.e. with a stud on top), * 1x1 circular plates, * 1x1 circular plates, with a hole running through, * 1x1 square tiles (i.e. with a flat top), * 1x1 circular tiles, * 1x1 arch-shaped tiles, * 1x1 quarter-circle tiles, * 1x1 circular tiles with a nubbin on top
To me the interesting part is you can buy brick buckets and still allow unexperienced kids to build something cool following instructions.
They’ll still do modifications and evolutions from there, the important part being that they know how it was built and can break it and rebuild again.
Snap picks of every shelf and drawer then just allow me to ask where is it and get a pic with circled in tool.
Post read edit: Facepalm. This is about Lego bricks!
There's a store near me that sells Lego-like sets of their own distinctive building and the box states "Quality Blocks - Compatible with other brands"
Other trading websites for Lego sets and parts use the words "bricks" or "blocks" in their names instead.
I'd hope no one lets their kids use this, or they'll just get good at assembling IKEA furniture instead of designing the furniture.
Each new Lego boxed set gets built from the instructions exactly once. Admired for a while (days to months), then duly ripped to bits and the pieces are used to build much better things that then can - and do - change on an hourly basis.
I'm not about to interrupt my kids' creativity by even telling them about this app. They need less screen time, not more.
I kinda wonder if it’s us who needs to catch up. I mean I watch city skylines videos, FPV videos, and gun videos. All those are inspiration for my hobbies. What’s the difference between that and a Lego or “LOL surprise” video my kid watches?
Dunno dude. Kinda think we are the old geezers in this one.
The world will be a better place once we outsource everything to our machine overlords, can't you see?
Why waste precious time thinking when you can get your answers right now? Thinking don't lead you nowhere, the machines will do it better than you anyway.
Touching actual reality with your own meaty paws and wet eyeballs is just upsetting.
