Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the but-will-it-run-under-wine dept.
BHS_Turf writes "Check out Lego's version of
CAD , and give your kid everything you never had (like unlimited Lego)... or you may find that it's something cool for you to do in your spare time! "
Oh, NOW you've done it. Have you NO idea what this is going to cause? You've just tempted some geek to use this program to design a jet propulsion engine using only legos...
There's your answer. If it's an educational software, geared towards schools, it goes through 'distributors' and buyers and such... I bet it sells for HUGE bucks too...
I worked in a middle school for a couple of years as a LAN tech (yeah, 50+ workstations, 2 labs, Novell 3.xx - lucky brats.:) We played Doom and Descent after school, for hours.). The software that the school system was buying was horrible. Buggy, badly written, amateurish and terribly expensive. It's like buying Aspirin at a Hospital.
Now, if Lego was to retarget this software for public consumption, they'd sell MILLIONS at $39.95 at Fry's, E.B. and CompUSA.
--
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Just a warning, Lego Datca used to be for educators only and is still sold primarily through educational resellers (unlike Lego Technics). These resellers vary in their willingness to sell to non-educators. Quite annoying.
Why does the site seem to make it sound like this can only be used with a couple of Dacta sets (specifically 9630/9645)? No where does it mention using it for other sets, though it seems to imply you could "design" your own parts, hence building a Lego component library...
But why should you? Why not just use LDraw or LeoCAD for modeling your Lego creations?
Another popular win32 lego CAD is MLCad, which is compatible with LDRAW. http://www.user.xpoint.at/m.lachmann/MLCad/MLCAD .htm
-- Peace, education, prosperity, and a clean environment: find out how the free market does it right.
Shipped on two 3 1/2" disks
by
Refried+Beans
·
· Score: 3
Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've seen a application that is shipped on floppy disks. Kudos to Lego for showing you can do something really cool without using hundreds of megs of storage.
Now if they could just port it to Linux, I could play with Legos without losing the pieces.
I've personaly made some molds that make Logo, conectix (and countless other "toys of the year" that don't make it past prototype).
The only missing link in your idea is a means to make the open sourced lego CAD data into an actual lego. Currently, they're running in 24 and 36 out Plastic Injection Molds . These machines are the size of a buss and the price of a few sports cars and not exactly a "desktop solution" for turning open sourced lego CAD data into a viable part.
If you're interested, there is a process called stereo lithography that can "grow" your custom designed lego parts using a UV laser to cure a resin. This process can be had for a little better cost (~50k-100k). The definition and consistancy (they wouldn't snap together, they would 'mush' together) isn't nearly as good as you would get with the presure and heat being used in a PIM, but it could work.
There is a similar rapid proto-typing process that uses a powder sprayed from a inc-jet printer nozzel that hardens after being sprayed. The kewl thing is, you just add water, and your lego crumbles, allowing you to re-use the powder. This makes for a rather weak structure, but it's even more cost effective. ~25-50k.
If more work can be done to the Stereo Lithography process to bring the cost of ownership down, and some material research to increace rigidity, it could be your very own lego factory. _________________________
LegoCAD, a joint venture with AutoDesk by the way, only features parts from the simple machines set. This set, used for teaching engineering principles, has a very limited number of components. Also, it doesn't do animations. (Well, if you want to keep moving the parts and rendering over and over...) Instead, I use LeoCAD or, the even better, MLCAD. Both are based on LDraw, but provide a graphical interface instead of a text based one. More parts than you'll ever need, including old versions of parts.
--
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Just about every kid loves Leggo, so taking advantage of that in the educational arena is a perfect idea! Not only can kids learn about computers and CAD (and computer animation??) but they get to do it in a way that they will like. I think that applications like this will eventually help to eliminate alot of the apathy that is present in our education system (both in the students and the faculty) today. Getting kids excited about learning is the wave of the future!
Ah...it's appears you've confused "Legos" with "L'Eggos", the snap-together waffle breakfast. I can remember many enjoyable hours making fun toys out of these otherwise inedible breakfast treats, asking my Mom to toast just a few more so I can finish what I was building.
Or maybe it was just me.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
But that's not where the fun of Lego is!
by
(void*)
·
· Score: 4
I hate to sound so critical. After all, this is cool. One can really let one's imagination run wild, unlimited by the physical numbers of bricks available. But all CAD software is like that.
The fun of Lego is to build, within the constraints of the number of bricks, and the constraints of physics and engineering, that cool toy you want to have! Half the fun is determining things like "What size of car can I build, since I have only x bricks?". Stuff like that. This teaches a kid mental planning. It's wonderful how such a thing can build tactile and physical experience for small kids!
Not really opposed to this, mind you. Just wondering what it is for. The kid in all of us, I guess.
Another Lego site to check out
by
Grant+Elliott
·
· Score: 4
If you want more information on CAD programs for Lego, go to lugnet They have all sorts of stuff for Lego freaks (like me). You'll probably find the CAD section informative.
--
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Or turn on frustration mode so that the kiddies have to search through 15 minutes of menus just to find the last damn bendy piece, then they find out its stuck to a little black flat piece and they have to wiggle the mouse, then bite one of the buttons for 7 minutes to get it off.
Lego should be covering my medical expenses, I estimate I lost 70% of my tooth enamel as a child trying to free that last damn bendy piece, and there's no way my kids are going to have it any other way.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, NOW you've done it. Have you NO idea what this is going to cause? You've just tempted some geek to use this program to design a jet propulsion engine using only legos...
There's your answer. If it's an educational software, geared towards schools, it goes through 'distributors' and buyers and such... I bet it sells for HUGE bucks too...
:) We played Doom and Descent after school, for hours.). The software that the school system was buying was horrible. Buggy, badly written, amateurish and terribly expensive. It's like buying Aspirin at a Hospital.
I worked in a middle school for a couple of years as a LAN tech (yeah, 50+ workstations, 2 labs, Novell 3.xx - lucky brats.
Now, if Lego was to retarget this software for public consumption, they'd sell MILLIONS at $39.95 at Fry's, E.B. and CompUSA.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
You can't do anything without plans!
Just a warning, Lego Datca used to be for educators only and is still sold primarily through educational resellers (unlike Lego Technics). These resellers vary in their willingness to sell to non-educators. Quite annoying.
- bridgette
Why does the site seem to make it sound like this can only be used with a couple of Dacta sets (specifically 9630/9645)? No where does it mention using it for other sets, though it seems to imply you could "design" your own parts, hence building a Lego component library...
But why should you? Why not just use LDraw or LeoCAD for modeling your Lego creations?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Another popular win32 lego CAD is MLCad, which is compatible with LDRAW.D .htm
http://www.user.xpoint.at/m.lachmann/MLCad/MLCA
--
Peace, education, prosperity, and a clean environment:
find out how the free market does it right.
Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've seen a application that is shipped on floppy disks. Kudos to Lego for showing you can do something really cool without using hundreds of megs of storage.
Now if they could just port it to Linux, I could play with Legos without losing the pieces.
The only missing link in your idea is a means to make the open sourced lego CAD data into an actual lego. Currently, they're running in 24 and 36 out Plastic Injection Molds . These machines are the size of a buss and the price of a few sports cars and not exactly a "desktop solution" for turning open sourced lego CAD data into a viable part.
If you're interested, there is a process called stereo lithography that can "grow" your custom designed lego parts using a UV laser to cure a resin. This process can be had for a little better cost (~50k-100k). The definition and consistancy (they wouldn't snap together, they would 'mush' together) isn't nearly as good as you would get with the presure and heat being used in a PIM, but it could work.
There is a similar rapid proto-typing process that uses a powder sprayed from a inc-jet printer nozzel that hardens after being sprayed. The kewl thing is, you just add water, and your lego crumbles, allowing you to re-use the powder. This makes for a rather weak structure, but it's even more cost effective. ~25-50k.
If more work can be done to the Stereo Lithography process to bring the cost of ownership down, and some material research to increace rigidity, it could be your very own lego factory.
_________________________
LegoCAD, a joint venture with AutoDesk by the way, only features parts from the simple machines set. This set, used for teaching engineering principles, has a very limited number of components. Also, it doesn't do animations. (Well, if you want to keep moving the parts and rendering over and over...) Instead, I use LeoCAD or, the even better, MLCAD. Both are based on LDraw, but provide a graphical interface instead of a text based one. More parts than you'll ever need, including old versions of parts.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Just about every kid loves Leggo, so taking advantage of that in the educational arena is a perfect idea! Not only can kids learn about computers and CAD (and computer animation??) but they get to do it in a way that they will like. I think that applications like this will eventually help to eliminate alot of the apathy that is present in our education system (both in the students and the faculty) today. Getting kids excited about learning is the wave of the future!
The fun of Lego is to build, within the constraints of the number of bricks, and the constraints of physics and engineering, that cool toy you want to have! Half the fun is determining things like "What size of car can I build, since I have only x bricks?". Stuff like that. This teaches a kid mental planning. It's wonderful how such a thing can build tactile and physical experience for small kids!
Not really opposed to this, mind you. Just wondering what it is for. The kid in all of us, I guess.
If you want more information on CAD programs for Lego, go to lugnet They have all sorts of stuff for Lego freaks (like me). You'll probably find the CAD section informative.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
This might be a good time to mention LeoCAD, a similar program which has a Linux version.
Or turn on frustration mode so that the kiddies have to search through 15 minutes of menus just to find the last damn bendy piece, then they find out its stuck to a little black flat piece and they have to wiggle the mouse, then bite one of the buttons for 7 minutes to get it off.
Lego should be covering my medical expenses, I estimate I lost 70% of my tooth enamel as a child trying to free that last damn bendy piece, and there's no way my kids are going to have it any other way.
Hotnutz.com - Funny