Slashdot Mirror
Move Over Lego, Enter Atollo
FortKnox writes: "Through the blessed portal memepool, I stumbled across the new arcitecture toy, Atollo. These new building toys can build any type of shape with only two pieces. The two pieces can be connected in many different ways allowing both rigid and flexible connections. " MMmm. Toys. Anyone else remember Construx? I loved those things too.
Anyone else remember Construx?
Somewhere, probably still in my parent's attic, I have a huge box full of Construx. When I was a kid I made little carts and buggies, hooked them to my Chihuahua, and made him pull them around the house. Great fun, that Chihuahua was...
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
All these new fangled toys.. kids have it nice today. When I was young, I had to build my own computer out of a pile of sand and some scrap metal!
Anyway it's always nice to see toys whose instructions don't consist of "Attach the Cockpit module to the Wing module. Your new F-16 model is now complete! Enjoy!".
loved it. What about robotix? That stuff was really damned cool. You could build all sorts of mechanical things that would do stuff. My friends and I used to have wars where we'd build stuff with different brands and then war it out. construx usually always won.
Man, back to the good old days. Anyone else remember some others? I can't remember them all. I remember one that actually had screws and metal bars that you could bolt together in all different shapes and sizes, and motors too, but I can't remember the name of it.
If God gave us curiosity
I'm not banking on the massive success of this...
For one, half of the fun of Legos was all of the different pieces. If you just have two pieces, your creativity is impaired.
Besides, all of the different pieces keep kids buying more and going back to the store, which bodes well for the future of the company creating said parts.
*sigh* I miss construx. The difference in construction abilities between construx and legos was cool. You could construct different sorts of items with different attributes in each set. And both had mechanical/motorized/lit up capabilities.
What happened to them, anyways?
Gentoo Sucks
Don't forget, Atollo is lego compatible. So you can have your dodecahedrons and robotize them too.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
I am a big kid so i still play with Lego. It appears as though atollo.com was slashdotted though, so a quick google search found this link:
0 0a.htm
http://kidscience.about.com/library/weekly/aa1110
Enjoy!
I loved LEGO as a kid. I spent countless hours making computers, houses, all manner of gun, and, of course, the ubiquitous robot.
Now that I have kids of my own, they play with LEGO, and I don't even recognize the toys I grew up with.
I mean, sure, it's cool to have the Star Wars sets and what not, and the little lego men look really cool and all, but where's the creativity? Unless you have serious cash to drop on the Mindstorms, the sets are so specialized that you can only make one thing out of them.
I think that Atollo is a paradigm shift in construction-based toys, returning the focus to the user's creativity, rather than ability to follow diagrams in an instruction book.
Ahh.. Construx... That stuff was fun. I remember looking through the little booklets that came with the sets and seeing that you could buy sets with enough parts to build huge bridges and the like. Construx was cool in that the stuff you made was very rigid, so dune buggies didn't shatter when they flew off the curb... :)
SIGFEH
Personally I think the reason why Legos remain the king of building toys is because they appealed to both kids who enjoy technical stuff as well as kids who just want to play. Toys like connex, capsela, robotix and even erector sets always seemed to appeal to more technical kids (like myself), and Atollo seems to be stuck in that same market. These toys may require more technical thinking, or dexterity than the average child may have. On a side note, is anyone else bothered by Lego's apparent need to make 200x the custom, one use only, decorative pieces? I bought the latest super car (8448) and have to order the silver champion only because I have an addiction, but I really don't like all these new pieces that are just for looks. It seems like their technic models are becoming less substantial.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
Yup. I loved those damn things. I thought about them recently and went looking on eBay. I saw 3 or 4 different sets (all mostly complete) for around $50...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
I still have all of mine. Really, the best part of building anything with Construx was to see how much punishment it took to destroy it.
Dyolf Knip
Yeah, who needs electronic CPUs for mindstorm like projects, and why use chemical batteries? I want to see a fully mechanical robot that stores energy as gravitational potential.
This was one cool toy from the early 80's: Capsela. Had hours of fun making boats, tanks and cars, all from the same kit. Each item was a spherical module that could be attached to other modules such as motors, various gearing mechanisms, pumps, clutches....a really good variety of devices.
Now I wonder what happened to that kit that was under my bed?
BTW, I think I would have liked these much more as a child. Some people might think that Legos are better because they have more variety of pieces. I think the reverse is true: the reason I liked Legos as a child was because I figured out how to build things that were not drawn for me. I NEVER attempted to build the demonstrations they had pictured on the box. With these things, I would have been able to express even more creativity.
I think Legos were a significant contributer to my geek status: now I put together code in much the same way that I put Legos together. I enjoy building things that nobody has ever thought of.
Am I wrong trying to pass these values onto my niece? I think I would rather buy her geek things that stretch the mind rather than clothes or dolls, but then, am I just passing my values onto her?
If you guys want to find great new or classic toys, check out Dr Toy's site. Written by a Dr that specializes in toys.
I agree with you, these are lacking. They are lacking the same thing every other construction toy lacks. Simplicity. Sure there are only two pieces, but way too many ways to connect them.
The advantage of Lego is that it is SIMPLE. There may be a lot of different pieces, but conceptually they are all the same. You always connect them the exact same way. That is their appeal, you can sit down and put them together right away, starting to explore the construction and creativity involved immediately, instead of having to first explore the ways to put them together and how they interact. Lego is a classic. It is simple. Anybody can pick it up and make stuff.
So while this looks like it has possibilities, I don't see it replacing Lego, just like other things have yet to replace lego.
Now if just Lego would go back to the basics instead of doing all these specialized kits.
Perhaps they built their Web server out of some of their own toys?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Oh my god that thing was so much fun... probably gave me irreperable finger damage from wrangling the tracks and grippers, but man...
A toy is not a toy unless you can take it into the bath tub with you....err... hopefully you are familiar with capsela lest you think I had some other sort of pseudo-submersible toy... er.. ah never mind...
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Now thats being open minded! Most of the Lego models that you are talking about require the use of many unique custom made pieces. That that to the extreme, and for each model, you have one custom premade piece. What is the fun of that?
When I was a kid, I never got the designer lego kits with all those custom pieces. I just got one of those HUGE bucket-o-legos that contained tons of various sized rectangular pieces. Thats where the creativity is at, and in fact, Atollo's is interesting for the same reason that electronic computing is interesting: two bits.
I wonder if these still aren't available somewhere and relatively cheaply.
These were absolutely great!
A friend built an 8 foot told humanoid construct. It didn't quite move a great deal, but it was fascinating at the time.
I myself constructed a small two foot electric chair. I took the aluminum from cans and took strips along the arm rests and legs to for conduction. Then later cut the leads from the lights and battery construx thingie. It was quite interesting... mom didn't agree. It was dismantled later to end her shouts.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Would this be pronounced boring old "Ah-tole-oh" or exciting hispanic "A-toy-o"? =)
It's got "toy" right in the NAME, it has to be good! =)
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Is it a man or a woman?
Just recently I came across a toy with little rods with magnets at each end (edges) and ball bearings (verticies.) This looks great for playing around with polyhedrae, latices, etc. There were three disadvantages: It was pretty expensive for what it was, there is only one length of edge, and there is insufficient room for 12 edges to come from one vertex, which rules out some latices. Sorry, I can't remember the name of the toy.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Sorry the site is clogged, but none the less you can get kits at a few stores around the US, and soon at Discovery Channel Stores.
Some basic info for those that couldn't make it to the site... yet.
Yes there are initially only two pieces and the system is LEGO compatible.
The pieces are currently made in Scotland ! Yes, amazingly other things do come out of Scotland other than single malt !
One person nailed our intent on the head in an earlier message, we hope to introduce a new creative building system for all ages.
You can build anything from dinosaurs to geometric space structures !
Hope some of you manage to make it to the site,
and thanks for the "constructive" feedback.
Technical site? Supposedly technical site? Not THIS slashdot!
/. reader. If you don't like it, then don't read the bloody article!
/. is "News for Nerds." Playing with kids toys is very nerdy, or at least very geeky. Just look at Lego Mindstorms sales figures for the first two years. (Summary: They sold ~10 times as many sets as they expected, and the largest purchasing demographic was 20-35 year old men, NOT 10-15 year old kids)
Apparently this matters quite a bit to the average
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I'm personally somewhat younger, and my IQ, as if it matters anything, is somewhere in that range. And I agree wholeheartedly.
I grew up in such a way that everything looked like a building set to me. My favorite toys age 11-14 were solderless breadboard and 7400-series TTL logic. I've had virtually all the major building sets, Construx, Meccano, Robotix, Capsela, Lasy (that's a little obscure), used Lego considerably (my brother had some). I had a half-dozen Radio Shack lab kits. I've programmed since I was five.
Any parent thinking I'm a special case should reevaluate how they perceive their children. Intelligence is learned, during (generally) the first 6 years of life.
And is it any wonder I ended up in Engineering?
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I've got boxes of Lego and Construx at home sitting in the basement. Haven't opened the boxes in years, but I still remember using Super Glue to allow perfectly stable cross overs. :)
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
I have always wanted to see someone make a nice accurate software kinetics simulator where all kinetic calculations preserve kinetic energy (hence no friction), and then populate it with artificial purely-mechanical life... and like you said, the life forms would compete for kinetic energy of any kind, even energy stored in other objects as gravitational potential energy.
I mean, you guys saw the WTC buildings fall. It takes allot of energy to shoot dust and other junk the distances it was shot from those buildings. Its all because of the massive amount of energy stored in those buildings in the form of gravitational potential.
If such life is possible, then the system would keep some level of order, as opposed to decaying into chaotic moving pieces... and who knows, more sophisticated life forms might evolve.
Lego is all very well and good, but it doesn't beat Meccano. You've gotta love something you can build a working orrery or a working vending machine out of.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I'm sorry, but LEGO blocks are much more sturdy (especially with epoxy). These things are nice toys, but suck for prototyping anything.
If all you care about is shape, clay is a lot more creative. If you care about function, both Lego and Atollo seem pretty boring to me. Bring back ErectorSet or give FischerTechnik a try--that's a much nicer engineering construction set.
Inspired by their web site copy...
Once the ball is in the socket
There are many ways to rotate the brokit
In these two examples the brokit is locked
Safe in the neighbouring socket slot
Rotating a brik by 90 degrees,
Joining two brokits becomes a breeze.
Join them up, socket to socket,
This is the way to make columns of brokits.
(Hinges will also fit back to back,
To create a double socket stack)
-----
It doesn't have to. Take a look at this page of their website. It will connect to "leading brands." In other words, LEGO. So, you buy a Mindstorm kit, and you fasten the Atollo Brokits onto it to make even cooler stuff. It looks like they can ride on LEGO's back.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of lame old-timer jokes?
Drifting back to the topic...
My favourite short-lived lego-competitor was called Capsella - anyone else remember that one?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Hey, don't forget about IRN-BRU!
The toys are neat, but I fear for anything that doesn't have pointy bits that look like guns. What good is making a model star ship if I can't arm it to the teeth? Mass destruction, that's what sells toys.
The minimalist approach is also really nifty in a geek sort of way, but is it going to be a marketing hit? Even Lego seems to have lost the "generic block" approach and has gone over to making very specific pieces. Presumably this is because they can sell 10 times the number of "Bionicle" kits if you need the unique parts to make each model.
When is Atollo going to be available in my kids' Happy Meals? :-)
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
For all these "alternative" construction toys, nothing has ever beat LEGO. I don't think that it's necessarily because LEGO has a head-start, although that's sure an advantage for them. No, I think LEGO has the simplicity factor nailed down better than anyone else.
I mean, come on. BRICKS. How much simpler can you get than a plain rectangular prism, except for the alphabet cubes everyone gets as babies? You stack them, they get taller, and its easy to visualize how several of them combine. Right angles and multiple planes and voila, you have a house. A little more creativity, and you have a car or a plane. And so on.
The sets get more "multidimensional" as you progress, but that's the beauty of LEGO. They can stay simple or get increasingly complicated depending on your preferences. At one end, you have Duplo bricks; at the other, Technic Star Wars droids that you can program with MindStorms. LEGO is only as complicated as you want.
Every other type of construction set, however, seems to promote flexibility at the expense of simplicity. Sure I can use these two pieces to build (supposedly) anything I want, but I can't really visualize how that's supposed to work. And I'm a grown adult with a talent for abstract visualization; how's a child supposed to accomplish it? Once you've built everything in the booklet you're given, you're left to your own imagination, and with these pieces I don't have any.
I'm convinced that many of these "alternate" construction sets are purchased by teenagers and adults, people who like construction and who want to "wow" their friends and family with elaborate creations. They're supposed to be sold to children, but they don't have the visualization skills to make a dinosaur or a Formula-1 racecar with them. All they really want, upon opening the package, is to be able to build a house.
It looks a LOT like 'Zoob', but with a better idea for a hinge/crosspiece, and with the lego compatability. My friends who run Waltham, MA's all-construction-toy The Construction Site haven't heard of it yet, but knowing them, they probably will have it in stock as soon as it's available to general retailers.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
hey, Scotland is also where you get IRN BRU - the most virulent, awesome soft drink ever.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Hey, any freebees to the guy that brought atollo the attention it deserves??? ;-)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Ah, the old "nowadays Lego has too many specialized pieces" complaint. In a few cases justified, but doesn't anybody remember what their early Lego creations looked like? I'll answer that: "crap". Yes, they looked like crap. The basic rectangular bricks are versatile, but if you are trying to make more sophisticated creations or "model-quality" recreations of actual vehicles or buildings, they're not sufficient. Even as a kid I *loved* all the specialized pieces, because without them you couldn't build a Cylon raider or an X-wing fighter or a dump truck that actually dumped. If you're still unconvinced see Brickshelf to see how creative one can be with the "single-use" parts.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I've always loved this kind of thing, from Lincoln Logs to the old erector sets with the metal girders that you could slice your fingers open with.
Another one in that market that most people don't know about is ZomeTools. I've used these things to model molecules, build small pieces of furniture, explain 4d geometry, and decorate my party spaces with cool sculpture.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
These would make a good desktop toy for the office. Just have a bowl with a couple hundred of these guys in it. Great ice-breaker too... like a geeks way of bonding.
Meccano is similar. My erector sets were plain metal colored (may have been galvanized, but I seem to recall a little rusting, so who knows). I also remember thikning that they should have spent some time grinding down the edges of the girders so that they wouldn't be so darned sharp. As it was, it was easy to cut yourself on the stamped-out girders. One more reason I liked construx and Lincoln Logs (aka, the toy most easily converted to a lever/fulcrum laungher-of-everything-small) - they couldn't cut me unless something very wrong was being done. :)
Pretty sure it was Meccano. This was like 15 years ago folks =). I can't remember what I had for breakfast a week ago nevermind what toys I played with when I was 8.
But from the sounds of everyone's posts, yeah it was Meccano. The edges on everything was round, and I never had much trouble with the screws.
If God gave us curiosity
ZAKS!!!!!!!!! OH my god!!!!
... the days... Man I'm old now! =(
Wow. I used to have a lot of those too. Oh man that stuff was fun... Not nearly as mechanical as Meccano or even Lego could be, but it was damned cool. And when you hit them really hard they just shattered, much better than lego did =P. The cool parts was that due to the shapes you could have cool things happen by pushing on certain parts of them, which would cause others to move. Umm, closest anaolgy I can think of would be something like oragami. Anywyas, that stuff was cool. Oh
If God gave us curiosity