Lego is interesting, because on the other hand it is very accessible (to a degree), but at the same time it tends to shift projects from making a thing to working around the limitations of Lego. Kinda reminds me of bash programming, it has similar characteristic of being attractive because it is there, but then actually engineering around the limitations of bash becomes quite the exercise once you start implementing stuff.
Excellent. I do feel like there's been a bit of a rejection of the polished, streamlined, "Facebook/Reddit" internet of late, and I love reading articles like this.<p>"I wonder if I can do..." ponderings, followed by a wonderfully absurd, but still mostly functional way of doing it, that involves going down all sorts of fun little rabbit holes to work around nonsensical but entertaining constraints like "Lego gears don't exist in an infinite number of forms."<p>Though as much as it doesn't <i>need</i> to be https, I still think random personal sites should be https. It makes it harder to inject random bonus conntent in the responses, and I include any form of modification there, not just malicious - ISPs have been known to make changes to add their own little ad banners in the past. Denver International is <i>particularly</i> bad at this, or at least used to be.
The author mentions they were inspired by the Veritasium video on the same topic (without the Lego). [1] I thought I'd link the previous HN discussion. [2]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgF3OX8nT0w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgF3OX8nT0w</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29645610" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29645610</a>
I'm a big fan of "mechanical solutions to computer problems." I think it's extremely interesting to see how hard it is to encode logic pre-transistor, and makes me feel spoiled today (in a good way).<p>My favorite example is the writer automaton [1]. It's something that never stops to impress me, just because it's something that wouldn't be <i>that</i> hard nowadays, but must have required effectively PhD levels of understanding to do pre-computer.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/OehTO9l1Hp8" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/OehTO9l1Hp8</a>
To save you some typing: this is the first hit if you google antikythera mechanism lego:<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk</a>
And in a couple centuries they're going to find this at the bottom of the sea and wonder what went wrong. (In reference to the "greek" computer that tells tides/lunar cycle and planets.) If plastic will last that long, (I think it does?<p>But still, It is fun and I like these lego projects! I want to buy a few sets and recreate it.
In the video comments he posted a link [1] to his blog where he explains the design process using simulated annealing. Amazing how close he got to the targeted final ratios using only a sequential gear train.<p>[1] <a href="http://pepijndevos.nl/2022/01/30/predicting-the-tide-with-an-analog-computer-made-from-lego.html" rel="nofollow">http://pepijndevos.nl/2022/01/30/predicting-the-tide-with-an...</a>
Reminded me of this talk by Charles Petzold: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-N5DuEUap8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-N5DuEUap8</a>
This was an excellent video on how this all works,<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgF3OX8nT0w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgF3OX8nT0w</a>