University of Canterbury, New Zealand
This LEGO Great Ball Contraption (GBC) module uses a true Double Helix Archimedes Screw to transport the balls. It uses slides (6 x 12 x 8 studs, 11267) for its screw. It works very reliably and does not jam. There are some more photos in my Flickr album.
This LEGO Great Ball Contraption (GBC) module uses Nicolas’ (Nico71) ball pump to push the balls up through the tower. The balls then roll down a rotating double helix that is made from LEGO slides (6 x 12 x 8 studs, 11267). It works very reliably and does not jam. There are some more photos over at Flickr.
Wallace Chapman interviewed me about our study “Have LEGO products become more violent?” on Radio New Zealand. Wallace certainly did his research since he also discovered my LEGO Unikitty. You can listen to the broadcast right here:
In the meantime, Huw Millington over at Brickset reported on his website about the study, which sparked a vivid discussion. One of the main discussion points seem again the question whether the increased violence in toys also make children more violent. We explicitly excluded this question from out study, but it seems that this is one of the main question that is on everybody’s mind. I also noticed that many blame the increase of violence in LEGO to licensed themes, such as Star Wars.
We just published our article “Have LEGO Products Become More Violent?” at PLOS One. Here is the abstract:
Although television, computer games and the Internet play an important role in the lives of children they still also play with physical toys, such as dolls, cars and LEGO bricks. The LEGO company has become the world’s largest toy manufacturer. Our study investigates if the LEGO company’s products have become more violent over time. First, we analyzed the frequency of weapon bricks in LEGO sets. Their use has significantly increased. Second, we empirically investigated the perceived violence in the LEGO product catalogs from the years 1978-2014. Our results show that the violence of the depicted products has increased significantly over time. The LEGO Company’s products are not as innocent as they used to be.
This is my latest MOC: A LEGO Unikitty! It is 180cm tall and features a rotating head and sparkly eyes. It took several month from planning to finish and I never used as many pink bricks in my life. Still, the color combination is just sooo cute. The neck uses my LEGO compatible thrust ball bearing.You can now purchase the LEGO Digital Designer LXF file for only 50 NZD so that you can build the Unikitty yourself. Just pay via PayPal and I will email you the file:
Have a look at the video to see how it works:
Here are some photographs and the full resolution photos are available at Flickr. I also included a screenshot from LEGO Digital Designer and a render from Bluerender.
There is also a Saint Etienne Version of the video:
