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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.

13 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Fonts? by T-Kir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How long before a font set will come out with the fighter characters? That would be quite nice!

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  2. the q wing reminds me of the quake Q by cyrax777 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    that or a quad damage from quake 1.

  3. All from the top and side... by 91degrees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why is the X-Wing the only fightewr that looks like an letter from the back?

  4. Wings In Space by turgid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. His employment status should change ..... by fleppir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lego ought to hire this guy on the SPOT, these are STUNNINGLY good, beautiful designs.

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  6. Re:For those who think this is a stupid waste of t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  7. depressing... by kisrael · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.)

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    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  8. Matter=Energy and Distance=Time by FreeUser · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    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 ... an explaination that happens to be true.

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    1. Re:Matter=Energy and Distance=Time by sql*kitten · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      That may or may not be true - but the explanation you will get from a hardcore fan involves Solo being such a skillful pilot that he was able to fly closer to debris fields or black holes or something than any other pilot in the galaxy, so in fact flew from A to B by a shorter route. That's why I mean about obsessively retrofitting details - they had to invent a route, places, hazards, etc in their "universe" to make all that plausible. In other worse, one Han Solo sentence created vast swathes of cartography that are far beyond the scope of "canon".

      Other scifi fans - for example, Babylon 5 fans - simply don't think like that.

  9. Re:Do all those pieces actually exist? by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The great thing about Lego is that you can make stuff like planes and cars which literally smash into pieces when you crash them.

    My parents' staircase was the proving ground for many doomed dragsters and nuclear bombers.

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    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  10. Re:limited fun by turgid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They were obsessed with making me grow up quickly. It was considered shameful to be playing with Lego at the age of 12. It was "baby-ish". When I think about it, my grandfather left school at 12 to earn a living.

  11. Re:S.... by kisrael · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Re: the original comment....Yeah, well, it's not like the "B"-wing is very B-ish either... (what does that stand for, bomber maybe?) it goes from I shape to T shape...

    Anyway, according to Star Wars lore, the rise of the Emporer was a time of great increasing boxiness in the fighters and such, as hand-tooled craftsmanship gave way to more factory friendly designs. So an old ship should look more organic (ala the Naboo fighter) and not less.

    Or not. I'm sure there would be tons of exceptions either way, and of course it has more to do with F/X technology than anything else...

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    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  12. Re:Poor guy. by Mr.+Self+estruct · · Score: 0, Interesting

    I'm not knew to slashdot, i've been reading it for years, but i'm fairly new to posting in it. I don't 100% understand the entire karma/moderation point system. My karma is terrible... and i'm not really sure why. Oh well, i'm just gonna try and post something funny once and a while, and hope to get a chuckle.