Brickit scans your pile of bricks and gives you ideas, with instructions

To be honest, what I love about legos is the free play aspect.<p>When I play with my kids, (now 8 and 10), I find that the key thing is not what pieces we have (admittedly, we have a lot of pieces), or instructions, but developing some theme or challenge.<p>The theme could be ‘space’ or ‘under water’ or ‘I’m going to build the taller possible leg structure’ or ‘I’m going to build a vehicle that can be blown across the floor with a fan.’ Once they have a theme, they will do amazing stuff.<p>Also, I believe it’s important to have a big slush pile of pieces. It’s amazing how much builds change when your are scrounging for piece X, and you see piece Y and think, actually…<p>I see that this app is technologically interesting for the developer, but it doesn’t address my core problem: inspiring kids to get started on free creativity. For that, I’d more like a Lego theme of the day app, maybe slightly inspired or guided by the kids ages or genders. If I did that, I’d have the kids submit pictures of their results, and use those over time to assess and improve the quality of my suggested themes at different ages and Lego piles sizes (there is your AI, if you must).<p>The pitch would be ‘inspire your kids to new creativity.”

I just tested it on my kids lego clone bricks; there are like 800 of them but they are almost exclusively basic shapes (1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4 and 1x4) in red&#x2F;black&#x2F;blue&#x2F;green&#x2F;yellow&#x2F;gray. This is a picture of the box: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;static-v3.e-jumbo.gr&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;resources&#x2F;137879&#x2F;2016110417209-enlarge.jpg?lm=1F886D428C96838F582A5A472CF4E9D9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;static-v3.e-jumbo.gr&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;resources&#x2F;137879&#x2F;201611...</a> ; you&#x27;ll see they are exactly like legos.<p>The app identified 400 pieces (of the 800) and unfortunately the resulting ideas were not possible to be constructed because it required pieces we don&#x27;t have. Of the 50 ideas I was only able to construct 1 or 2 that had very few pieces.<p>I tried it a couple of times with diferent layout in pieces or lights, nothing really changed.<p>Sorry but it doesn&#x27;t work, at least with my kind of bricks.

Very cool.<p>Now what I want is something that will scan a pile of rocks and tell me how to put them together to build a wall with minimal space between them.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;media.istockphoto.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;stone-wall-texture-picture-id154416206?k=20&amp;m=154416206&amp;s=170667a&amp;w=0&amp;h=Cg1QjtTxKhJXhamTsNrugwzj396lJRHm8v7WwTvqanc=" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;media.istockphoto.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;stone-wall-texture-pict...</a><p>Or better yet, tell my robot how to do it.

I’ll just put this here…<p>Brrrap! <i>A tree shredder!</i><p><i>Ahead of him, everything was empty bookcases, skeletons. Robert went to the end of the aisle and walked toward the noise. The air was a fog of floating paper dust. In the fourth aisle, the space between the bookcases was filled with a pulsing fabric tube. The monster worm was brightly lit from within. At the other end, almost twenty feet away, was the worm&#x27;s maw -- the source of the noise. Indistinct in the swirling haze, Robert could see two white-suited figures, their jackets labeled &quot;Huertas Data Rescue&quot;. The two wore filter masks and head protectors. They might have been construction workers. In fact, this business was the ultimate in deconstruction: first one and then the other would pull books off the racks and toss them into the shredder&#x27;s maw. The maintenance labels made calm phrases of the horror: The raging maw was a &quot;NaviCloud custom debinder&quot;. The fabric tunnel that stretched out behind it was a &quot;camera tunnel&quot;. Robert flinched from the sight -- and Epiphany [smartglasses] randomly rewarded his gesture with imagery from within the monster: The shredded fragments of books and magazines flew down the tunnel like leaves in tornado, twisting and tumbling. The inside of the fabric was stitched with thousands of tiny cameras. The shreds were being photographed again and again, from every angle and orientation, till finally the torn leaves dropped into a bin just in front of Robert. Rescued data.</i><p>- <i>Rainbows End</i>, V. Vinge, 2006

I have this giant pile of old recycled bricks in my back yard and I was thinking &quot;wow, this is oddly specific and useful to me...&quot;<p>Oh it&#x27;s _Lego_ bricks (:

Would be awesome if this app contained all Lego sets ever (including the Rebrickable ones) so you know which sets you can build when you just bought bulk Lego at a flee market. But it seems it only contains their own designs and some user submitted content. Yes, it also finds pieces in a stack, but I&#x27;d rather do that part myself. Sorting Lego manually is fun!

I subscribed to the free trial for the Play store app, tried it a bit, and now I&#x27;d like to cancel my subscription.<p>I found a &quot;Manage subscriptions&quot; link in the app, and it points to the Play Store app. I can&#x27;t find an &quot;unsubscribe&quot; button there. If I try o uninstall the app I&#x27;m explicitly told &quot;Your active subscriptions will not be canceled&quot;. I spent ten minutes looking for this, and I&#x27;m a web developer. How on earth will regular Joe be able to unsubscribe this?<p>Also, can anyone point me in the right direction?

I&#x27;ve been wishing there was an app where you could point your phone at a pile of scrap lumber and it would tell you things you could make with them. This is a step in that direction even if it&#x27;s just for lego bricks right now.

Scan the inside of your fridge — list all the dishes you could make.

Taxi drivers enlarge their hippocampus by navigating around and learning routes. I definitely feel like Google Maps has affected my ability in certain somehow tangentially related areas to my detriment.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;2&#x2F;hi&#x2F;677048.stm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;2&#x2F;hi&#x2F;677048.stm</a><p>This kind of thing is cool, but seems like it robs us of an opportunity to practice something important.<p>Maybe we will replace it with some other skill?<p>I would be very curious to know how many AI&#x2F;ML researchers played with Legos and whether this free play was vital in their development. I would assume it is.

I have already accepted the notion that we as a workforce and creativity input will become irrelevant for corporate overlords in the next decade.<p>I have already moved to the mountains, stopped practicing UX&#x2F;UI design, stopped digital drawing and painting, minimized smartphone usage and use internet only for work and casual browsing.<p>Already archived a lot of media, movies, books and OSS software, just in case.<p>Moved all the work focus towards frontend implementation with clear understanding that the window of opportunity will close in the next 5 years.<p>Suddenly I understand, completely, the Amish position towards technology.

This is one of the most ingenious use of modren technology.<p>This is how technology should be helping us.<p>Goodluck.

What&#x27;s next? Finding a needle in a haystack?<p>This is pretty neat and I would definitely play with it, but I&#x27;m not willing to front that kind of cash on something that might be terrible.<p>It seems like the ideas are all user submitted -- I was expecting something ML here, like imaginary builds of cars. Cool nonetheless but there&#x27;s a lot of untapped opportunity.<p>My first thought was that this would be very useful for part co-mingling or something not-Lego related.

I had a similar idea, but swapped the Legos for the ikea replacement parts catalog. What’s the cheapest standing desk you can build with these cheap and easily available parts?

Is there any free functionality aside from the time-based trial? It looks like this is $45&#x2F;year (or $84&#x2F;year if paid monthly!), which seems pretty steep.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=27693560" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=27693560</a><p>Barely a year ago. I thought it was maybe 5 years ago. Time itself must be accelerating.<p>I need an app that can scan my hard drives, connectome and biochemistry &gt; bleep bloop &gt; tell me what I can still do with my life.

What I remember from childhood was that you were often looking for a particular piece you knew you had, but could not find it. This app could be useful for that.

I waited way too long for that animation to show me some results and then it looped.

I’d like to see some quantitative review of how well the scan works. Their demo almost looks too good to be true - it seems they even have overlapping pieces, etc. A quick search showed a YouTube review where they said there were quite a few false positives.

For kids I guess it kills creativity, but using the same idea for (house?) decoration would be very neat. Scan your messy things and suggest how you can rearrange them to make it beautiful.

Good, looks like outsourcing the core creativity and imagination. Next make a robot, which pointless builds those objects. Your child now can go consume corporate video streaming content.

I want that for my tools and parts<p>Snap picks of every shelf and drawer then just allow me to ask where is it and get a pic with circled in tool.

I have an app that scans my paper and tells me what to draw. It&#x27;s pretty great.

Perhaps the app should have a paperclip that pops up...

Pretty amazing what AI can do already. It&#x27;s one of those ideas that sound logical when you explain it, and hard when you think about how to build it.

Thereby defeating the fundamental benefit of playing with Legos. So much software tries so hard to replace what never needed replacing.

For the folks asking about non-LEGO<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.countthings.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.countthings.com&#x2F;</a>

This seems like a fun way I can share my big tubs of lego with my kiddo. He stills thrives on instructions. Thanks for sharing.

The fact that it talks about &quot;itunes&quot; in the google play store app description is just...

Won&#x27;t the amount of variations possible in the bricks be very limited? A full size brick, a half brick, a 3&#x2F;4 brick and sizes in between. Isn&#x27;t the app then going to give the same set of recommendations for almost every brick pile? In that case is it even a brick scanning app anymore?<p>Post read edit: Facepalm. This is about Lego bricks!

I need something like this for a section of puzzles rhat I got (all one color...).

Next: scan a pile of cash and propose what to do with the calculated amount...?

At first I thought we were building things with &quot;bricked&quot; iphones.

Wow really surprising how many folks here don&#x27;t understand that lego typically comes in kits with instructions. By building a lot of sets using instructions, you can learn patterns that help you be more creative in free play. This app is not creativity inhibiting any more than coloring books or sketching instructionals inhibit kids from drawing their own things. It&#x27;s just a different and also valuable activity.

LEGO bricks, not the building materials.

This is neat, but I feel it really detracts from the creativity you are supposed to be exercising by using Legos in the first place.<p>I&#x27;d hope no one lets their kids use this, or they&#x27;ll just get good at assembling IKEA furniture instead of designing the furniture.

Just yesterday my 9 year-old proudly revealed his latest flying creation, created - as almost all our children&#x27;s Lego builds are - entirely out of his own imagination and from the multiple tubs of bricks that sit next to his bed.<p>Each new Lego boxed set gets built from the instructions exactly once. Admired for a while (days to months), then duly ripped to bits and the pieces are used to build <i>much</i> better things that then can - and do - change on an hourly basis.<p>I&#x27;m not about to interrupt my kids&#x27; creativity by even telling them about this app. They need less screen time, not more.

Why not just... play with the LEGO?