3D-Printed Connectors Let Your Lego Bricks Talk to Your K’Nex, Settle Their Differences - alvarezralmy1981

[Photo: Free Art and Technology Collective]

I'm sometimes downright covetous of how much ice chest it is to be a kid these years. Not lone do 21st-100 get cooler video games than we did and RC toys with integral cameras, but they've now got a high-technical school solution2 to a problem that plagued my entire childhood.

The On the loose Universal Connectivity Kit is a limit of 3D-printable models available for free on 3D role model depository library Thingiverse that allows 10 different mental synthesis toys (Lego, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears!, K'Nex, Krinkles (Bristle Blocks), Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, Zome, and Zoob) to connect to each other.

If you need your Tinkertoys and Duplo pieces to work together, you just find the corresponding connection good example, download IT, and then publish it out happening your 3D printer.

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The Connectivity Outfit is the bring of the guys at the Free Art and Technology Agglomerate–likewise titled FAT–who are clearly fans of devious acronyms.

This is breathtaking word for toy enthusiasts who don't rich person their own Makerbot, too. You nates upload the models to Shapeways or another 3D printing service, and have them printed professionally for a relatively inexpensive cost. Printing a connector through Shapeways appears to melt about $10 $15 dollars, but you should only need one or two to make your hybrid toy dreams a reality–and to gain a long-standing compatibility problem a thing of the past.

[Editor's note: I totally pauperization a a few of these. Now where'd I put my Tinkertoys…?]

Update: Adam Savage at Time-tested points out that these connectors could fall into a legal gray area when it comes to right of first publication. Give it a read if you let a few moments.

[Disembarrass Art and Technology via Make]