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LEGO Tech Still Going Strong

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the snappy-sculptures dept.

zimage writes to tell us that Andrew Carol has designed and built a working Babbage Difference Engine out of LEGO. From the article: "Before the day of computers and pocket calculators, all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes. In the mid-19th century, people began to design machines to automate this error prone process. Many machines of various designs were eventually built. The most famous of these machines is the Babbage Difference Engine. [...] Babbage's design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits." In related, but not quite as functional, news DigitalDame2 writes to tell us that PC Magazine has an interview with LEGO "brick-artist" Nathan Sawaya, creator of their commissioned LEGO PC. There are also several pictures of the creation in addition to a contest to win the snap-together sculpture.

7 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Next Gen of MindStorms by Biul · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's real integration of LEGO and computing, the first rev was MIT's Brick, now this...

    http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69946-0.html?t w=wn_tophead_1

    1. Re:Next Gen of MindStorms by Biul · · Score: 2, Informative

      check this out! BTW - they actually encourage hacking their product... http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/01/0 5/4006.aspx

  2. Re:Amazing by Kaptain_Korolev · · Score: 0, Informative

    Sorry to be pendantic but the plural of Lego is also 'Lego' and not 'Legos'*. This ranks up there with certain folk refering to the slang term for Mathematics as 'Math', when it is infact 'Maths'. Again, sorry for this unrelated and some might say, childish, interlude. * Legos, or LegOs rather, is actually the former name of BrickOs. A C / C ++ Programming environment for Lego Mindstorms.

  3. Computers by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 5, Informative
    Before the day of computers and pocket calculators, all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes.
    The job title of the people who did all the math? Who got up and all day every day did these same calculations over and over and over to build these tables?

    Computers.

    Note also that ENIAC's inended design purpose was to produce ballistic firing tables for Army artillery during WWII.

    --
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  4. Re:Wow by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Informative
    If memory serves, babbage did get his difference machine working.

    Well, yes and no

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  5. Re:So much for the "imprecise mechanics" theory by hcdejong · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Science Museum built a Difference Engine no 2 using materials and techniques that were available in Babbage's time. They succeeded, so that was that theory out the window. The other theory is more likely.

  6. Mirror by brickballs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Mirror: http://mirrordot.org/stories/ba3df8895f34d0ddecd77 28b1be0320b/index.html

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