4 ms·
I would spend significant money on a simple device that takes a bucket of arbitrarily mixed legos and sorts them by type, size and maybe colour. The main thing
by galaktor 6y ago
I would spend significant money on a simple device that takes a bucket of arbitrarily mixed legos and sorts them by type, size and maybe colour. The main thing holding me back from reusing all the legos we have is the difficulty of finding the right pieces in the endless mess.
- kowlo 6y agoOut of interest - what is a significant amount of money to you?
- galaktor 6y agoOver the years we've accumulated what I'd estimate to be more than a thousand dollars worth of lego bricks (based on the prices of the various sets). I'd readily pay the equivalent of two or three decent sets (or a typical game console) to unlock this latent replay value for myself and the kids.
- enriquto 6y agoConsidering that a 1000 brick set costs about 100 dollars, you have roughly 10.000 bricks. It's not too much, with some patience and with the aid of two kids you can sort them all in a rainy afternoon. The ideal is to sort them into a lot of small buckets, like the ones you would use to sort screws and stuff.
- galaktor 6y agoWe've tried this several times - the napkin math seems sound at first but unfortunately the amount of patience and discipline required vastly exceeds what we could achieve in one afternoon. After multiple lego sorting sessions I realised we had turned what is supposed to be a creative and fun toy into a laborious chore, to the point that the kids dreaded the thought of spending another hour mindlessly sorting bricks into bags.
- someotheridiot 6y agoThe sorting can be quite relaxing for some people (ie me). Kind of like a background task you can perform while watching a movie and calm your mind of things.
- enriquto 6y agoYes! If the OP poured me a glass of scotch I'd very happily sort his 10.000 brick collection between sips. For a much larger collection (as the guy who got a bag of his own weight), some sort of automatic sorting would start to be envisageable.
- Fricken 6y agoA couple years ago I came into possession of roughly my body weight's worth of bulk unsorted lego. The sort job took about 300 hours. I have never in my life put so much (unpaid) effort into something so mundane.
- ehou 6y agoSome people don’t exaggerate. They just remember things bigger
- Fricken 6y agoA couple years ago I came into possession of roughly my body weight's worth of bulk unsorted lego. The sort job took about 200 hours. I have never in my life put so much (unpaid) effort into something so mundane.
- thirteenfingers 6y ago@jacquesm's efforts in this direction may interest you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226889
- ehejsbbejsk 6y agoJust sorting them by size groups can be super helpful. For example, sort 1x1 items, technic pieces, and large items (more than 8 studs in length).
- kwhitefoot 6y agoI'm sure I've seen a Lego Mindstorms Lego sorter somewhere. Try this Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=Lego+Mindstorms+Lego+sorter https://www.google.com/search?q=Lego+Mindstorms+Lego+sorter