Want to build your own Lego bot to swiffer your floor? That’s what PlastiBots did with the Pulito shown above, a Lego Mindstorms NXT sweeper equipped with a bunch of sensors to navigate around furniture and a Swiffer pad. The charging dock has an infrared beacon to guide the it home for a charge when needed.

It’s programmed to automatically seek out that invisible light and charge up after a hard days work.

Engadget

More here:
Pulito, The Lego Mindstorms Swiffer Bot

Most robots don’t get off the ground without a safety line, harness or other means of keeping them protected, but the X-4 “Sloth” robot liveds life on the edge with no safety line. It can climb a human scale ladder vertically, and travel hand over hand horizontaly, all while untethered. It relies on the strength of its grasping ‘toes’.

It was made from Lego NXT Mindstorm components. Watch the quadruped bot slowly climb in the video. And I mean slow. This video is ten minutes of slow. They don’t call it the Sloth for nothing.

Singularityhub

Read the original:
Sloth Robot Climbs Ladders

During their visit to the 2010 Nuremberg Toy Fair/a>, the guys over at Hobby Media/a> snapped this pic of some awesome new LEGO Star Wars minifig alarm clocks.

Each 8-inch tall maxi/minifig sits on your bedside table, and includes an oversize LCD alarm clock in its squared-off chest. I can’t decide if I’d want the Stormtrooper or Anakin to wake me up every morning. I love the hand detail on Anakin/Darth. Very clever. The only thing it’s missing is a LEGO lightsaber. I guess you could try and stick one of these/a> in his hand.

No word on when or where these will turn up, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find them in a galaxy far, far away sometime later this year.

See original here:
lego star wars minifig alarm clocks ready to wake you up/a>

Will we ever run out of creative uses for those primitive little LEGO bricks? I think not. Brickfan (Reasonably Clever) Chris Doyle/a> has created a functioning LEGO remake of the infamous Picture of Dorian Gray. Chris actually retitled his version A Portrait of Dorian Bley, a reference to a “controversial” blue-grey LEGO color that replaced “Classic Slate,” oh my.

At first glance, the image just looks like a giant portrait of a smiling yellow Minifig. But as you move past the face of the portrait, the dark (blay) side of LEGOland comes out.

Doyle managed to achieve an effect similar to those lenticular moving images by using alternating blocks of angled LEGO wedges/a>. Check out the video below to see the illusion in action.

strong>Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Chris, I’d say that was more than reasonably clever.

via The Brothers Brick/a>

Originally posted here:
dorian gray gets lego-fied: legos go lenticular/a>

If I didn’t have my glasses on, I’d probably be fooled, but you won’t. This LEGO Big Mac Combo was created by the Japanese LEGO artists Sachiko/a>.

It’s kind of cool to think that LEGO artistry is actually a profession, or maybe more of a hobby. Either way, this LEGO Big Mac Combo isn’t fit for consumption. It’s kind of amazing the amount of details he was able to add to this LEGO sculpture.

The designs for these LEGO builds were made to scale and only standard LEGO bricks were used. There’s the infamous Big Mac, with even some melted cheese and a sesame seed bun.

French fries and pop accompany the Big Mac, as they should.

via DesignBoom/a>

Continued here:
lego big mac combo: and no, you can’t eat it!/a>

Japanese retail store Muji has teamed up with LEGO for a special line of toys that combine the world famous bricks with… paper.

Basically each set consists of basic rectangular and square LEGO bricks and a bunch of colored paper – I also saw translucent paper in one of the sets – and templates for cutouts. It seems a bit gimmicky to me, but then again it does make a good gift for kids, because it exercises their creativity. The paper lets them create complex shapes or objects without the need for the non-basic LEGO blocks.

I’m a bit disappointed though that the special puncher – which makes holes that are compatible with the nubs on LEGO bricks – is sold separately;  how else are you going to connect the blocks to the paper without punching holes? Glue? There are currently three different themed sets for sale at the Muji online store/a>; price for each set varies from ¥2,300 to ¥2,900 (appx. $26 to $36 USD). The puncher costs an additional ¥1,200 (about $13).

via Josh Spear/a>

See the original post here:
lego and muji let you create toys out of brick and paper/a>

In yet another LEGO-related post/a>… I found a bunch of different landmarks that were copied using LEGOs. Some of them are merely passable, while others look amazing.

There isn’t much information about who exactly made these LEGO facsimiles, but they look pretty close to the original structures to me.

The ones featured here are the ones I like best. You can check them all out here/a>, though the site takes a while to load – but not nearly as long as it would take you to build your own LEGO landmarks.

via Coudal/a>

Read this article:
famous landmarks turned into lego landmarks/a>

For many of us, LEGOs are just plain cool, or at least they were when we were kids. Now brickfans can add another item to their collection of blocky stuff with these cool LEGO wallets.

These LEGO wallets are pretty nifty, and the ones with the baseplates on the side can actually be customized with any bricks you care to attach.

While I think these are fun, I don’t know how comfortable they are since they look pretty bulky and stiff. I’ve actually stopped carrying a wallet anyhow. I don’t like having them in pockets and leaving a wallet in a backpack seems like a bad idea.

LEGO wallets will set you back between £15 to £20 (appx. $24 to $32 USD)  depending on the style, and are available from ColorByNumbers.

[via Oh Gizmo!]

Go here to read the rest:
keep your money in a lego wallet