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A 3D Lego Fabricator Made of Lego
eldavojohn writes "Making a Lego printer is pretty cool if you've never seen The LegoMakerBot. The creator has instructions on his site on how to make (out of Lego bricks) a machine that 'prints' Lego models — much like a 3D fabrication machine — after you model them in MLCad. The sped up video is nothing short of impressive."
Next step? Lego C&C machine.
I doubt that a fabrication machine will ever be able to create parts w/ the precision which Lego demands in their molds (tolerances are just 2 micro-meters, molds are discarded when they wear out, they use _tons_ of pressure to force the ABS plastic into every bit of the molds).
That said, so long as the bricks don't infringe on any Lego trademarks (this varies by one's legal locality, see the article on the recent EU case http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/11/lego-loses-eu-trademark-on-bricks-prepares-for-clone-wars.ars ), one would be able to make them (w/in the tolerances of one's fabrication machine).
For an example of what it's like trying to use bricks which are _not_ manufactured to Lego tolerances, just pick up a Mega Bloks set (they're cheap) --- they sort of fit, but not w/ the precision of Lego bricks and they don't stay together as well.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Slow down. He made a pick-and-place machine out of legos, and you're up to time travel and nanobots. It's nifty, but we're not really in the Hawking realm here.