Lego Smart Brick Fun

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At the beginning of March Lego launched their new Smart Brick technology. The idea is to make Lego models you can interact with. It’s all based around the “Smart Brick”. This is a slightly taller version of the standard “2x8” Lego brick that contains a tiny microcontroller connected to a battery, a microphone, a speaker, an accelerometer, light sensors and a bunch of lights. The brick also contains a bunch of coils which point in different directions. The coils are used to take power from a wireless charger, talk to external RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) devices and also to detect the position and orientation of smart bricks nearby. It’s clever stuff and it all just works.

I initially pre-ordered a couple of sets that contained Smart Bricks. Then I changed my mind and bought a camera instead. Then I got to take a look at the bricks up close and I changed my mind again and bought some. I’d seen reviews that didn’t like the sounds that the bricks made and the way you interacted with them. But I reckon that they are just fine.

At the moment the only sets you can buy are Star Wars themed so I got an X Wing and a Tie Fighter. That got me Luke, Darth and Princess Leia “smart minifigures”. These contain RFID chips which can trigger a Smart Brick to do things. All the behaviours are character appropriate, although you don’t get any voice clips as such. Instead you get a burbling sound a bit like the way that Animal Crossing characters talk. The bricks are controlled by waving different coloured items close to them. Red seems to make lasers fire, green repairs and blue refuels. And if you shake the bricks or move them around, and they’ve been placed in one of the ships, you will get appropriate sounds. It’s a bit restricting to only have two smart bricks; you have to move them between models. The interactions are a bit limited, but they are there and show a lot of potential.

The models themselves are sturdy and fun to make. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next with the bricks. They can talk Bluetooth to your phone, although at the moment this connection doesn’t do much. In fact, there is a lot of unrealised potential at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be used in the future. At some point you will be able to upgrade the software in the brick and these features will become available. I’m looking forward to that.

Lego's new Smart Brick looks fun

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Lego have just launched a new Smart Play system. It’s based around a Smart Brick that contains an embedded processor which enables the brick to make sounds, flash lights and react to movement. They’ve created a custom ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) to control everything and added wireless charging for the tiny internal battery. The charging coil used to get power into the brick is also used for brick-to-brick communication and to talk to the other two components in the system, plates and minifigures which contain NFC (Near Field Communication) chips. Plus, and this is the really interesting part for me, the charging coils can also be used to allow one smart brick to tell the location of another.

The less interesting part for me is that none of this is programmable, at least at the moment. The bricks run custom firmware which executes built-in routines triggered by external events. This means that you are limited to what behaviours have been hard wired into the devices and so that the kit has much more in common with the Lego Mario smart devices than with Lego Mindstorms. However, there is also a Bluetooth interface in each brick which can talk to an app, so maybe in the future your might be able to string together behaviours to bring your ideas to life.

The first Lego Smart Play sets come out in March and you’ll be able to reserve them in a couple of days. But you’ll need deep pockets. The sets are all Star Wars branded, which means that as well as a smart premium you’re also paying extra for licencing. I’m still tempted though…

Tiny Red Telephone

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Derek put me on to this. It’s a tiny red telephone you can build that looks very like the real thing.

This is not Lego, but my goodness it looks like it

It’s a Zuru Max Retro kit. There are a bunch of them for sale in our local Aldi for knock down prices. They also have a tiny computer, ghetto blaster, instant camera, TV and games machine. They also have some rather fetching food and flower models too. They are very close to Lego in every way. The bricks even fit together with Lego bricks (although they lack their heft). The instructions have the same step by step sequence and sometimes hard to see colours. If you want some cheap construction fun they worth a look.

Lego Ghetto Blaster

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It’s become a kind of ritual. When we go up town in Leeds we visit the Lego store and fill a plastic cup with bricks from their “pick and mix”. I like doing this because you can get a huge number of one particular Lego piece. On a previous visit I got an enormous number of Lego gear levers and we used them to make a brush, among other things. This time we got some funky angled pieces and I used them to make a Lego Ghetto Blaster with six speakers and a sub-woofer. Great fun.

Hull is Awesome

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Culinary innovations at Ferens Art Gallery cafe. We call it the “shot sandwich”.

What do you do if you have a five year old that you want to impress. Why, you take them to Hull of course. We started with a coffee (we had coffee - she had juice) at the amazing café in Ferens Art Gallery. Then on to the next room, where they had a fantastic Lego exhibition. Then down to the Museums Quarter to scoot round searching for robots and dragons. Then back for lunch in Ferens, a look at the fountains and then back home for a rest.

Hull is awesome.

Lego Vidiyo is a good value at knockdown prices

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Lego Vidiyo.jpg

Not everything that Lego touches turns to gold. Lego Vidiyo has not been the success that Lego hoped and figures and sets are now on the market at temptingly low prices.

The idea of the product is very good. Place animated mini-figures in augmented reality pop videos and control the action using collectable tiles that you scan with your phone or tablet camera. Add in some stage sets that can be incorporated into the videos, tie in with the music publishers so that there’s a good range of 1 minute music clips and you’d think they would be on to a winner.

And I think they would have been, if the application that underpins the whole thing had been a bit better. As it is, the program ls clunky to use, insists on downloading stuff when you start it up and has a confusing interface. The videos are great fun, the sharing element is well implemented and safe for kids, but the whole thing is just that bit too painful to enjoy using.

This has of course not stopped me from picking up a bunch of figures and sets at knock down prices. After all, Lego is Lego. Although I’ve not managed to pick up the party llama yet.

Lego say that they are only resting the project for now. I hope this is true. I think it has massive potential once they’ve sorted out the software side.