Month: May 2010

BrickLink is like Craigslist for Legos

BrickLink is like Craigslist for Legos

Have you ever seen any of the amazing custom Lego work proliferating on the internet these days and wondered, “Where did they get exactly the bricks they needed to build that thing?” Sourcing parts can be especially difficult if your model, like Flickr user Legohaulic’s Great White Nautilus, shown above, includes lots of unusual elements. As far as I know, there is, as yet, no site or service in the world that will let you upload a list of Lego elements, in exactly the colors and quantities you want, and then price, pack, and ship you an order containing exactly those elements. It seems like a great idea, but the logistical problems of making that happen are enormous. BrickLink, however, is the next-best thing. Thousands of private Lego resellers from around the world have shops there selling kits, manuals, and individual elements indexed by official Lego catalog number. If you’re sourcing parts for a particular model, you still have to do some manual legwork running down the particular combination of BrickLink sellers that optimize price, availability, seller location, seller minimum order values, and so forth for the items on your list, but it’s still an incredible resource.

Soft sensor kits from Hannah Perner-Wilson

Soft sensor kits from Hannah Perner-Wilson

Hannah, aka Plusea, is something of a legend in the soft-circuits community. We have covered her open-source work in soft circuits and sensors many, many times before. She has no fewer than 37 tutorials published on Instructables, 28 of them “featured,” almost al of which cover low-cost soft-circuit devices of her own design. Now she is selling kits for a few of her more popular soft sensor inventions, none of which will set you back more than $15. Shown above is her Neoprene Bend Sensor Kit.

Maker Faire: Chick-in-a-Box

There’s certainly no shortage of high tech gadgetry and fantastical creations coming to this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area, May 22nd and 23rd at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. But the magic of Maker Faire is rooted in the variety of projects present, everything from science to craft to robots to food makers, and beyond. Take, […]

Backpedaling, but in a good way…

Backpedaling, but in a good way…

MAKE subscriber Steve Hoefer sent us a link to this fascinating piece on retro-direct drives for bikes. Not really sure how practical it is, but the engineering is interesting. And, it’s probably a great way to work different leg muscles. What’s a retro-direct bike? At the beginning of the 20th century, although derailleurs and geared […]