The Free Universal Construction Kit

http://fffff.at/free-universal-construction-kit/

by danboarder • 13 years ago

191 51 13 years ago

fffff.at

doctorstupid• 13 years ago

The FUCK?

danboarder2• 13 years ago

I see what you did there. (to people downvoting parent, it's the acronym for this kit)

rralian• 13 years ago

Right, that jumped out at me right away, and I wasn't sure if this was a parody or not. Seems like an unnecessary inside joke for something ultimately for kids.

ars• 13 years ago

It's not actually free items, it's free plans.

This is not a good title.

lolnope• 13 years ago

Think free as in freedom, not as in beer.

chousuke• 13 years ago

Maybe they ought to call it Libre Universal Construction Kit instead.

biot• 13 years ago

I bet you were disappointed by the "Free Nelson Mandela" movement.

derefr2• 13 years ago

After the initial reaction of "Neato!" I started thinking what it would mean if when I first got my legos (a big tub, hand-me-down from an older cousin), they had come with a few dozen of these. I can't imagine what I would have built, but it certainly would have been more interesting... and I might have grown up with somewhat stronger convictions about interoperability and the senselessness of walled gardens :)

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

I don't find walled gardens senseless at all. One of the nice things about a box full of Lego (not legos) is that you can take consistency for granted. It's the difference between a language with a clear grammar and a pidgin language.

I'm not against things like this, but there's no guarantee of interoperability producing superior results. You're just as likely to end up with a chaotic mess if you don't build with a plan in mind; one of the other benefits of a single system is that it forces you into more creative problem-solving.

danboarder2• 13 years ago

I agree with your first point that 'walled gardens' or closed systems like Lego provide consistency, however the second video in the linked article demonstrates a kid who I would argue is more creative by thinking beyond one system. ( https://vimeo.com/37778890 ) In the video he is "thinking outside the box" and building a car by connecting three different construction kits. Of course this requires him to have an understanding of all three systems (rather than just one), but the potential is to build things by that would otherwise not be possible. [edit - link to video]

napoleoncomplex• 13 years ago

Taking an analogy to programming languages, some languages are much better at specific tasks than others. Having the ability to use those languages interoperably with others makes it possible to construct a much more efficient system than if you would be forced to use one single language for everything.

derefr2• 13 years ago

> Lego (not legos)

Actually, "Lego® bricks." Lego severely admonishes using their name as a noun, whether pluralized or not. But, due to that admonishment and a thing called reactance[1], I was being purposefully breezy with my language. :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)

eric_bullington• 13 years ago

Ah yes, but after a generation, a pidgin language (if passed on to a speaker's children) turns into a creole language, which is comparable in power, vocabulary, and expressiveness to any other language[0].

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language

unclebucknasty4• 13 years ago

Somehow your comment reminds me of the American public education system. It enforces a rigid, highly structured, linear way of thinking. It is very much rules-based. In fact, we spend much of our time learning rules vs. how to think.

The notion that a single construction system is better fits with this. It expresses a desire to eliminate variables, clearly define the rules, create a very tight system, etc. But, I think the statement that it forces you into more creative problem solving is exactly backwards. It may encourage resourcefulness, which entails some creativity to be sure. But, it asks "what can be done within a confined, limited space?" vs. "what can be done if there were virtually no limits?"

As Americans, I think we need to improve upon the latter style of thinking. It is the source of true invention and creativity vs. mere innovation or improvement upon existing creations as encouraged by the former.

Maybe this is, in part, why we see so many copycat startups and businesses built upon some iterative improvement to an existing process or idea. Instead of always asking, "how can we do something slightly better?", we need to ask more, "what else can we do?"

brudgers• 13 years ago

"forces you into more creative problem-solving."

Dealing with constraints is the essence of good design.

The interface kit creates a new set of design challenges, particularly with regard to color palette and materials - e.g. Kinects and Tinkertoys have map color to dimensions. Lincoln Logs map color to function. The connectors presumably have their own color. The challenge is expressing a design aesthetic rather than making a kludge.

The physical interface isn't enough.

devcpp• 13 years ago

How about a garden with directions on the ground? Like Android, that gives you suggestions with most popular apps. If anything, it fits everyone.

In the example of the legos, you could include a document with examples of what you can build, and note that at any moment you can improve anything here and there.

gcb0• 13 years ago

Heh, also got from older cousins a total of 3 buckets. One of Lego, the other two from non-compatible brands.

It pissed me off that the Lego bucket had tons of pieces, but one of the other two had some custom pieces from a space shuttle that were awesome, but fitted nothing else.

nborwankar• 13 years ago

This is an interface mapper for hardware. V. cool.

mproud• 13 years ago

Whether it was intentional or not, it’s hard to ignore the acronym, when spelled out.

kiba• 13 years ago

I am puzzled by the non-commercial restriction. If someone could produce those kits and sell them at scale, it will make such kits more universally accessible.

reycharles• 13 years ago

"Some may express concern that the Free Universal Construction Kit infringes such corporate prerogatives as copyright, [etc.]. [...] the public is legally allowed to make 3D prints that mate with proprietary parts, especially in cases (the “Must Fit Exception”) where a piece’s shape “is determined by the need to connect to or fit into or around another product”"

Further down he notes that this only holds for private and non-commercial use.

Kliment3• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, the Makerbot is no longer open source, which rather ruins their point in mentioning it (the UCK was first published before MB went closed and evil, MB technology is entirely derived from originally open hardware and software).

jacquesm3• 13 years ago

What's evil about it? You can simply build the older generation makerbot. It's no different than what Apple did with FreeBSD and NetBSD by way of Next, apart from the fact that Apple did not actually make FreeBSD or NetBSD.

Anybody, including Makerbot could make a commercial successor to Makerbot.

Kliment3• 13 years ago

What's evil is taking open hardware and closing it. There is nothing in their machine that is not a direct derivative of GPL-licensed reprap technology, and they give neither attribution nor source back. In addition, they are patenting technology developed openly. It's a pretty disgusting thing to do.

jacquesm3• 13 years ago

I had both Fisher Technik and lego, and combining them in one project required some serious fiddling. I'd rigged my own connector pieces, some lego blocks with the stubs cut off glued to some fisher elements. Even without a 3D printer, if you want it badly enough and you can afford to sacrifice a few pieces there are ways to get what you want.

When I was a kid fisher technik was considered better than lego but far far more expensive. There were analog electronic and logic blocks and it was (far) easier to make functioning machinery with Fisher Technik than it was with lego (back then the lego robotics revolution had definitely not happened yet).

csummers• 13 years ago

So, this is the kid version of The Universal Business Adapter? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIOqOxI0K_I

abcd_f• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn't find this terribly exciting? I mean, it's a neat idea, but I don't see it to be that interesting to actually play with.

The beauty of each set is its self-consistency. If you attached this to that, then there's a good chance that 3rd and 4th will fit right in too. But once you start mixing sets, all the proportions fly out of the window and so to assemble something meaningful you would still need to build modules from the same set and then use these adapters to connect them together. Nice to have, certainly, but it doesn't sound that dramatically more interesting.

spot• 13 years ago

i don't see how this could really work.

the tolerances required for legos to work are quite small. they mention this in the implementation section which says they use 2.5 micron measurement.

but 3D printers are not nearly so accurate. makerbot's page says their latest is 100 micron.

so if you print the design, it will have the wrong measurements.

what's missing here?

Caerus• 13 years ago

It's just a coupling system. If you want to attach Legos to K'Nex, they will work fine in a handful of spots.

Building an entire structure out of an AM construction set would be a disaster. Even professional grade printers aren't even close to 2.5 micron.

nezza-_-• 13 years ago

Is their logo for 'Free Art' just the NBC logo mirrored and with other colors? Even the pecker is in it ...

The Free Universal Construction Kit

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