Slashdot Mirror
The Star Wars Alphabet Project
An anonymous reader writes "A ship for every *other* letter in the alphabet. Jon Palmer is creating a Star Wars fighter out of LEGO for every letter in the alphabet (minus X,Y,B,A,E and V). He has about 5 to go. Check out the project on From Bricks to Bothans." I have to admit, some of these look even cooler than the ships created for the newer Star Wars movies.
How long before a font set will come out with the fighter characters? That would be quite nice!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Looks like he gave up without even trying on that one....
When you're 40, and all you do every day is build lego starwars ships... you really have to step back, and take a long hard look at your life.
Also, try this one.
'Reserved' for aliens or something?
Or maybe new Operating Systems from Microsoft? Either way, interesting.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Well, now that it's been posted on /., the world will never know what the last 5 look like.
I can't read Lego, you insensitive clod !
These are not the mindstorms you are looking for.. ..Move along
May the Source be with you
...this!
that or a quad damage from quake 1.
Sorry for acting like an old fart, but wasn't Lego more fun when there was a limited number of different pieces in a limited number of colors? Nowadays, the sets consist of like three large custom-made painted pieces that you put together in ten seconds. The point of Lego is that you can build anything from a few simple parts.
He is going to create Imperial fighters for ever piece of formal wear except bow ties...
Why is the X-Wing the only fightewr that looks like an letter from the back?
Well, go look at these photos, I promise you will feel better afterwards :)
NERD!
(i love it, of course.)
This is so exiciting! It's done wonders to break down the public perception of slashdotters!
I would have thought he could have come up with some more original names. A-wing, b-wing, c-wing, d-wing etc. A few f- fighters or q-bombers at least.
I never understood why spacecraft need wings if they are operating outside an atmosphere. However, if they're designed for atmospheric flight they will need wings. None of the Star Wars designs based on letters of the Roman alphabet look particularly practical or efficient. Obviously they're just a gimmick. Star Wars is junk science fiction. It's really fantasy and religious myth. Mind you, it's all good fun, and the muppet characters like Yoda are cute.
Stick Men
And B-Wing and E-Wing don't look like B and E! And the Death-Star looks like a moon!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Someone needs to step outside and fast, get some fresh air and catch up on the world. He may soon be eating Mac-n-cheese and chopped up hot dogs 5 times a day and never get out of his PJs.
And your life enhancing pastimes are?
Goblin
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
And I thought my streetdancing as a 23 y/o man was seen as a weird hobby.
"It is not because no one sees the truth that it becomes a mistake" (Mahatma Gandhi)
I've always wondered if I can rebuild my lego mindstorms into some sort of robotic sex-toy.
Harald
But if I remember right, whenever you see any writing in the Star Wars movies it's all in a strange alpahbet, so how come the ships are named (and shaped!) after the Roman alphabet.
:)
Oh hang on, am I taking things too seriously?
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
You're a registered member of Slashdot !
Lego ought to hire this guy on the SPOT, these are STUNNINGLY good, beautiful designs.
I am the Barber of Seville.
It seems to be missing a few letters, namely å, ä and ö :(
/me ducks
Well that's hardly difficult seeing as they sucked ass. X wings and TIE fighters on the other hand looked like they actually had someone engage their brain before making them.
I think this was a great exercise; at least he was not driving around shooting at people!
I mean, he took a common exercise (Building and designing Lego things is pretty common in western culture) and he added a set of restrictions (the Roman Alphabet, The Star Wars Universe). By denying himself total creative freedom, he forced his mind to solve actual problems, but in a very creative way.
This is what they should be teaching in schools! Creative problem soling is the key to intelligent thought. Hell, I'd seriously consider hiring someone for a job if I knew they were good at building and designing Lego.
I think Lego should be a Required Learning Tool in all classrooms, at all grade levels. Tons of University engineering programs use Lego as a teaching aid.
Something to think about.
Excuse me? Less material to go by? Have you ever seen how many fucking StarWars books there are?
The basic lego bricks may be ideal for very young children, but once you hit 6 or 7 you get very frustrated by the fact that there are no fighter canopies/big wheels/flexible hoses etc. Fortunately, in my case that was exactly when Lego started to produce more of these parts (I had a spiffy train set with quite a few specialized parts). The "old" parts were still useful of course, it's all about balance.
I agree that they have gone a tad overboard on the specialized parts in recent years, but the Star Wars line actually uses a lot of the old basic bricks, simply because they're needed to replicate the arbitrary shapes of the SW universe vehicles. I bought several SW Lego sets and they're loaded with great simple parts.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Peter Molyneaux did his original ideas for the game Populous in Lego, and I think we can all agree that he's done pretty well out of it (Bullfrog, Lionhead).
Creativity isn't something you grow out of, and the mediums you use aren't really governed by age. I'm 28 and if I had the time, I know I'd still enjoy building Lego models.
Keeping healthy...
9 99 93942
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns
No. Which is probably for the best, given that "news that matters" isn't part of Slashdot's remit. "News for nerds" is. "Stuff that matters" is. This story falls neatly into the former category.
If you're looking for news that matters, you might want to try elswhere...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
In the SW universe, cheap (eg. Luke's landspeeder) and ubiquitous repulsor "antigravity" technology has made atmospheric design a lot less important for space/aero vehicles. You just fly atmospherically with repulsors holding you up instead of aerodynamic lift. You'd design space fighters optimally for their space use, and worry much less, if at all, about what to do once they hit atmosphere. I assume there'd still be a niche for traditional fighter planes which could be designed to use "old-fashioned" aerodynamics.
Freedom: "I won't!"
relax... this is all in good fun. lots of the people who read /. are sci fi fans and have fond memories of playing with legos as kids.
At leat if he drove around killing people it'd make a more interesting story.
Oh and he didn't solve any actual problems, he just made some stupid lego ships shaped like letters. This contributes nothing to the world, it's a retarded waste of time.
And I used to wear an onion in my belt.
Any Lego Geeks out there think, like me, that LL487 "S-Wing" is actually one of the earliest of the small Lego style space series? (though done in black, not the classic blue.) :D
Why not X,Y,B,A,E and V. If he says every other letter, why is he skipping some?
And have them blow stuff up (imaginatively, of course).
Ah, to be a child again...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
He's like George Lucas, except talented!
All right, that's mean. I take it back. But you have to admit, he's done an awfully good job, no matter how much he probably cries at night.
this is so depressing...I wanted to be a lego designer when I was a kid, and of course I've had dark ages since then that are still kind of going on, and few of my creations where anywhere near as cool as these.
Lego is coming out with some really cool stuff these days, getting back to their roots a bit, without being too blocky. Designer series come with pamphlets with like 30 or so creations (you can build 2 or 3 at the same time with the bricks provided) and the new Star Wars mini stuff, tiny scale, is really clever (though I've seen fans do similar stuff earlier.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Ask a Star Wars fan about how Han Solo made a voyage in however many parsecs and prepare to boggle at the convoluted thought process behind the explanation.
... an explaination that happens to be true.
I am not a Star Wars fan at all (though I used to be a casual enjoyer of the movies, before episodes I and II), but this point isn't as convulated or silly as you may think.
Remember Einstein's equation: e=m (more commonly known as e=mc^2)? You can drop the c^2 if you chose your units to be such that c=1, meaning that the speed of light is little more than a constant that converts between two sets of units that essentially measure the same thing. Indeed, physcicists have proposed that we adopt more natural units that clarify this relationship.
Distance and time are likewise the same thing (as becomes apparent when dealing with general relativity).
You could measure time in units that describe how far light travels in a given period of time. While saying "just give me 300,000 kilometers, I'll be right with you" is a little more verbose the "just give me a second," the two are, in terms of physics, identical. Alternatively, you could say something is about a nanosecond distant, i.e. that object is one light-nanosecond away from your current position.
The fact that we didn't understand the relationships between space and time, nor that between energy and mass, is why we've ended up with two essentially incompatible units for each (meters vs. seconds, grams vs. Joules) which make the e=m relationship, and the distance vs. time relationship, appear more complex than they actually are.
So, saying one made a trip in x parsecs (which is silly sounding and undoubtably resulted from George Lucas not knowing a thing about physics or the units he was tossing about) isn't really as silly as one would think.
What is silly is that we still have different units for distance vs. time, and mass vs. energy, when in each case they are one and the same.
There, now you've read a 'convuluted' explaination by someone who hates what Star Wars has become and was never a very ardent fan
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Don't forget that there is plenty of good movies, music, books, etc coming out everyday as long as you're willing to look for them.
Well if you love Lego, then you have to check this site out.
Brick Tales and read stories such as Zeke's adventure in organic chem lab and Masterpieces of Lego Literature
That's no moon. That's a space station.
when I was but a lad, Legos required thinking about what one created. Now, there are kits and templates and all manner of things to make creating something a snap. While it's still fun, the creativity is largely left up to the manufacturer.
Who remembers Lincoln Logs and Erector sets? Let's not forget about Tinker Toys. I spent hours upon hours creating entire cities with all 4 sets at the same time. I remember acquiring electric motors and rubber bands and automating the Tinker Toys before this was even an option from the manufacturer. I built a crane and accompanying mine with all the above 4 sets. It took up the entire living room for weeks until finally, one day I finished, played with my creation for all of an hour and then summarily destroyed the lot in a mere seconds with Lego dive bombers designed to break apart on impact.
... After building these things I'd have the urge to go up to a second story window and really make them fly.... ...right into the street in a few hundred pieces.
...to do it all over again.
Then of course start all over again building it or something new...
Legos filled my destructive side as a kid. They were the best breakable toy.
"This contributes nothing to the world, it's a retarded waste of time" All that timne Albert Einstein spent working on random, stupid math work while he worked at the swiss patent office contributed nothing to the world either. This guy could create free, cheap energy systems that change the face of human society, but first he would need to put his brain into the thought Gym that is Lego.
Congratulations on getting posted to Slashdot. A dubious honor, one might say, but still pretty damn cool. Next up will be Gareth, methinks :)
:P
Getting to see the fighters in person at Brickfest last year was a blast, easily one of the highlights of the weekend... Now, finish unpacking and start building those last ships!
Erm... there is a S-Wing.
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
The S-Wing is a deliberate homage to the origin of Legos in Space-the first Classic Space sets released, back in the late '70s. The S-Wing is a deliberate re-make of the 918 .Space.
http://guide.lugnet.com/set/918_1
One of the most famous sets ever made, the 918 was one of the original three classic spaceships released by Lego. Jon did not "give up", he built a deliberate homage to the Holy Grail of
http://news.lugnet.com/space/
Space. Forever!
It's self-indulgent, irrelevant to the real world, has a SF connection, and reeks of geek. I'm surprised the guy didn't do two more ships--a "/" and a "."...
Kickin Rad.
...the guy did a pretty good job.
He seems to be quite artistic!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The Force Is Strong In This One
But seriously, seems like a strange thing to spend your time doing but if it makes him happy why not? I saw a few comments above along the lines of "hehe, lego, he'll never get laid". Well, the thing is, kernel-compilation or getting in a funk over Microsoft aren't exactly activities known for their pulling power either.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
a small preview of a friends project. SWAFT
His server is strong in the force!
goodness me, yes! i had the same problem and it really aggravated me. i remember the happy day that i discovered the skinny transparent pieces so i could at least use only skinny pieces to create ships...of course, trying to create missiles was another story...
ah, the good old days when i could reconstruct the argo from the big blue 2x8 bricks...i never did have enough pieces to make appropriately scaled fighters...
[waxes nostalgic]
32 years old and here i am waxing nostalgic about freaking legos. this is telling. i'm not sure if it's in a good or bad way, but it's definitely telling.
[sighs]
ed
This guy's site sure puts mine to shame: Don's Lego Creations (click on Don's Space Lego)
Anyway, these krauts aren't too bad, you know? They gave me a laptop with an interweb connection. It even came with my favourite chatline!
This is the first Lego-related article that hasn't immediately been slashdotted. Apparently the Lego community has learned not to host web sites on servers made of Legos...
Indeed. Lego is Danish, so it'd be fun to see what he could make with æ, ø and å. :)
The umlauted letters are in Swedish, Finnish, German, etc.
Anyway, I'm glad these people are taking the time to do nerd-friendly hobbies. I'd rather look at this than some garden.
I remember I used to do doodle sketches on my notebook in the ninth grade for ships based on the other letters. I actually drew an S-Wing though!
PS NOTHING beats the Y-Wing. That thing rocks.
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
I have second cousins who are in the "play with lego" age. Should I post what they make on /. too?
Seems to me this is "news for dorks who still play with legos". Grow up and get a mechano set like the rest of us.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The O wing is vewy dangewous; one of them bwought down the shuttle Chawwenger.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What the F?
Yes, but what about rich Corinthian leather?
I once heard someone compare the bump on top of the Lego to a well designed API. He said that later generations of Lego blocks became very specialized, but the interface (the bump) remained the same.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Why would it need to be aerodynamic? With powerful engines (also ubiquitous in SW) and antigrav, you could fly a washing machine in atmosphere.
Freedom: "I won't!"
This really is sad...
So, one day, on a website devoted to Nerds, someone asks why the spacecraft have wings.
Someone else has to point out that they do fly through the atmosphere, which means, wings are a good thing to have, unless you enjoy making craters on every landing...
AND SOMEONE HAS TO MOD THAT POST AS INSIGHTFUL.
Which, lets be quite honest, it isn't very insightful at all: "Things that fly-wings helpful."
No offense intended to p3do, because it needed to be said. And props to the moderator who found it important to mod up, they were right.
Its just damn scary someone drug things down to the point that a statment of the obvious becomes insightful.
*grin*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
You might have wondered why B-wings are called B-wings, they certainly don't look like a B...
Well, aparently they developed two new prototypes for George Lucas to take a look at, and they called one A and one B. They realized that the A model actually looked like an A, so A-wing felt very natural.
Whne George picked both, the B sort of stuck to the other one also.
Tor
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.... weenie macs.
OR
Comparison: S-Wing
Lego Space Cruiser circa 1979
Busted.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
The writing in Star Wars that you usually see is called Aurebesh. It is remarkably similar to the Roman alpabet in use in the english langauge of today. Here is a chart of aurebesh characters and their english counterparts.
It always surprised me that they took letters (and shapes) from the Roman alphabet for their ships. I guess it's just easier for the fans (read:kids) to remember. The 'X' in aurebesh looks like a triangle.
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
This guy could create free, cheap energy systems that change the face of human society, but first he would need to put his brain into the thought Gym that is Lego. >>>>>>>>>>>>
and then he would be promptly shot in the head.
Because its all about the cabbage, baby.
I think this one looks the coolest... anyone think it looks a little like those killer craft in Terminator 3?
...Space station monorail.
That rocked. It did have quite a few custom pieces, but a lot of it was the original multipurpose stuff, and most of the custom pieces (like the canopies and base sections for the monorail) could be reused in plenty of other ways.
</nostalgic> :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Come on, an O wing fighter?
That S-Wing reminds me of Lone Star's Winnebago from Spaceballs :)
Now all they need are the hiragana wings, the katakana wings, the 3000 or so kanji wings, the Arabic wings...
If I can create a map of my companies network using lego's and string can I get my site posted on slashdot?
Ave Molech Setting
Makes me wish I had kept my lego. THis models are seriously sweet as. THey look like they are proper kits. I have to say though he must of spent some serious cash on these lego its really cheap. Might have to go buy some lego, I used to love and now I am no longer a too cool for school teenager (havn't been for a while) I could probably give it ago. Wonder if I still have the skills?
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Trust me, Lucas isn't an expert in quantum physics or anything.
He just found a cool-sounding word, used it in error, and has to live with it for the rest of his life.
It's called "people who make movies aren't necessarily PhD's in particle physics, faster than light travel, xenobiology..." syndrome.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
At takes a lot more guts to admit what you like as opposed to what you don't like.
I like the logo ships. They look pretty damn good. I wish I had 'em, I'd be wooshing around the office right now.
And the Death-Star looks like a moon!
That's no moon....It's a space station!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
But what must his kids think of this project? Oh, wait... How could a man of such obvious social experience have kids? That would require having spoken to a woman.
He could add a little gun or some sort of sensor off the side of the C-wing to make a ç-wing variant. :)
Any kid that would someday be an engineer probably played and was obsessed with Lego some point in their early life. In some ways, I can see a correlation between my Lego age and the start of my programming age (as a matter of fact, they overlapped). They both satisfied an innate desire to simply create things, whether there was any purpose or not. Furthermore, some of us never followed the instructions and just wanted the pieces to build and challenge ourselves to make something complex out of something simple. That's the beauty of Legos. Then there was the times of endless tweaking to make the creations stronger, more stable, or more complex... Good times.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Nice pieces that still fill me with lego envy. Maybe someday I'll actually get around to building that big gunship? Yeah... no.
Man, some moderator sure has a stick up their arse over this thread.
That's some very seriously convoluted logic to explain away George's ignorance. Care to explain how the Ewoks are not mutant ripoffs of Teddy Ruxbin designed to sell dolls at Christmas?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I think the Kwing looks like a Star Fury from Babylon 5.
Don't believe me compare and cantrast:
His K wing.
A picture of a Star Fury I found on the interweb.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
The letter Ø looks almost like how some computer systems draw a zero. A Zero-Wing, or "Zig" for short, looks like the craft pictured on the cover of this book.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I would like to see him build one fighter for every traditional chinese character in existance.
So what are YOU doing for the rest of your life?
My rights don't need management.
Yeah, but if Lucas called it a Death Moon, it would sound like a teenage prank gone horribly wrong.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
Wings have curved surfaces that produce lift. The "wings" on Star Wars fighters look more rectangular to me. Also, they don't seem to have any movable control surfaces. I don't see how they could be of any benefit to flying in an atmosphere.
Making that many characters out of Legos must have taken a really long time. I think that is awesome...can't wait to see them all completed!!
I SAID it was INSIGHTFUL
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I weep and lament that this garbage made it to the front page. Some guy makes spaceships with legos, and it's a newsbreak?
*sigh*
"It is not something we speak of"
-Worf, DS9. "Trials and Tribble-ations"
For several years, I have measured the distance to my friends in milliseconds. Usually, the distance is no longer than 50ms, but it can climb to 80-90ms on a bad day. Been much better since I switched ISPs, though.
Seriously though, I have thought about how time (as in latency) is becoming the only relevant distance. It's not the point you make, but a slightly related one.
Thoughts?
"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs."
I imagine that the Kessel run is from one planet (or space station, or "BASE") to another. Planets are constantly orbiting their stars, and there is a lot of other interstellar material floating around. Maybe Han was just lucky enough to make the Kessel run when the 2 planets were closest together, or maybe he sucessfully navigated an asteroid field. What are the odds of that?
Complete with carbon-fiber spoiler, 3' diameter fart-cannons, and gigantic "Type-R" stickers on the cockpit.
Also, take notice of the Sith Quake-Wing. Wonder if it's Quad-Damage enabled?
When Star Wars dosen't give you enouch material appropriate it from somewhere else and call it "Star Wars".
http://www.i-war2.com/ships_db10.htm
look down at the "Spider Class Tug" then look at the G wing.
Speaking of Independence War, I'm surprised it hasn't been on slashdot before. It allmost makes up for not having a B5 game. (and can probably be found in a bargain bin for under $10 now that it's more than a year old)
And now the women will come. Oh yes, the women will come.
Does anyone else think it looks like a Kilrathi Drakkhari? (or "Dralthi", the newer version's called)