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The Lego Great Ball Contraption
- bdamm 2y agoThat is completely mesmerizing!
- brian-armstrong 2y agoFeels like https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/ https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/ come to life
- zachrose 2y agoReading that the GBC standard specifies 1 ball per second, it’s fun to imagine a module that puts 1,000 balls in slow moving storage, taking 15 minutes to warm up and cool down
- shagie 2y agohttps://youtu.be/jxMMtIxDrGk?si=dMKyJueGM5kKwRbz&t=55 https://youtu.be/jxMMtIxDrGk?si=dMKyJueGM5kKwRbz&t=55 I would also recommend: 30 - A LEGO GBC Module to test Compliance with the Standard https://youtu.be/Wu3gQLWqm-4 https://youtu.be/Wu3gQLWqm-4
- nkrisc 2y agoGreat way to get a maximum traversal rate per module added to the spec.
- jayantbhawal 2y agoI feel poor looking at this.
- shagie 2y agoChicago 2024: https://youtu.be/bv8I3jQUOek https://youtu.be/bv8I3jQUOek GBC specification - https://www.greatballcontraption.com/wiki/standard https://www.greatballcontraption.com/wiki/standard It's also interesting looking at its evolution... Chicago 2014: https://youtu.be/qHQZcRPqUkY https://youtu.be/qHQZcRPqUkY
- akiselev 2y agoLooks like some of the contraptions in the video made by Akiyuki are for sale at BuildaMOC: https://buildamoc.com/search?q=akiyuki&type=product https://buildamoc.com/search?q=akiyuki&type=product Searching for GBC yields a bunch of other kits: https://buildamoc.com/search?q=gbc&type=product https://buildamoc.com/search?q=gbc&type=product
- nosrepa 2y agoI'd suggest looking through the videos on akiyuki's channel. It's a gold mine of novel Lego contraptions and isn't limited to GBCs, although it is majorly that.
- cwizou 2y agoIt's truly a gem of a channel ! This clock was particularly mesmerizing : https://youtu.be/GUdlSYC1cCE https://youtu.be/GUdlSYC1cCE The railway system series is also great, you'll see the step by step construction of the system and later on its use in a GBC event.
- pimlottc 2y agoThe undisputed king of GBC. His modules are works of art. So many incredibly intricate and innovated mechanisms with lots of precisely coordinated parts, yet driven from a single standard Lego motor. And the videos are well-shot, clear and to the point. Some favorites: - Catch and spin robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXF7mgZ9mzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXF7mgZ9mzk - Basketball shooter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yud9ukF5cV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yud9ukF5cV8 - Pole dancing quartet (SFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0a7Z70WxM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0a7Z70WxM
- 3eb7988a1663 2y agoIt is amazing how much is added by the eyeballs. Imagining it without would seem somehow lifeless in comparison.
- cortesoft 2y agoOh man, I want to build one with my kids
- shagie 2y agoAt Brickworld, they have workshop modules that are fairly simple to make and get involved with GBC. For example, the 2022 module - https://youtu.be/AO-5eH7vHTM https://youtu.be/AO-5eH7vHTM https://www.greatballcontraption.com/gbc-instructions https://www.greatballcontraption.com/gbc-instructions Build four of them and you could run them in a loop.
- jedberg 2y agoI just went to Brickfest in San Jose, and was so sad they didn't have a GBC! It was the number one thing I was looking forward to.
- bitwize 2y agoSee also: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9P1IVMv5IZI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9P1IVMv5IZI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
- maxwelljoslyn 2y agoI love the addition of the infinite domino machine that has nothing to do with ball transport.
- paulkrush 2y agoThis is a great way for some people to play in public but still keep a work play wall up by following one simple rule: Only Legos. If you want to break the rule, a maker faire is a better venue. I think GBC is really cool to see, but I would feel like I was wearing hand cuffs if I tried it.
- ryukoposting 2y agoI participated in GBC at Brickworld Chicago in 2023! It was fun, but much more work than you'd expect. It's a full day's work keeping all the machines running, clearing jams, herding balls back into the chain when one mechanism goes out of wack. It was fun to meet the other folks there. I should really get around to properly documenting my design, but here's a short video of the version I brought to Brickworld: https://youtu.be/wdP656HuY6M https://youtu.be/wdP656HuY6M
- Eric_WVGG 2y agoI wish the Lego Technix line would expand to be more about weird machines like this. I asked my brother-in-law if my nephew would like a more advanced Technix set as a gift, he said no, they were mostly cars and vehicles and he wasn’t interested in that kind of thing. I wouldn’t have been at that age either. A wicked Rube Goldberg machine though…
- thanatos519 2y agoThere is a Turing Machine on Lego Ideas!
- maffydub 2y agoI think the Technic Lego kits that I grew up with (that were more about how things worked rather than looking exactly like the thing) have been rebranded as "Lego Education": https://education.lego.com/en-gb/shop/secondary/ https://education.lego.com/en-gb/shop/secondary/ They're pretty expensive, though!
- gugagore 2y agoLego education used to be called "Lego Dacta". https://www.brothers-brick.com/2020/01/31/a-history-of-lego-education-part-2-path-to-mindstorms-feature/amp/ https://www.brothers-brick.com/2020/01/31/a-history-of-lego-...
- fransje26 2y ago
- The_Colonel 2y agoThis reminds me somewhat of Gravitrax which is a marble run system. One youtuber implemented a 19-bit adder with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTK-vcwSm7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTK-vcwSm7s, a clock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOu0r1iUevk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOu0r1iUevk and other crazy creations. All just with gravity. (there are powered extensions too) Gravitrax supports a similar kind of creative spirit as lego. For me, it's actually more fun since it's dynamic by default.
- dtjohnnymonkey 2y agoThere was one at BrickCon in Bellevue, WA last week! It’s my favorite part of the show. Always reminds me of queueing theory and distributed systems.
- vander_elst 2y agoHow do they get all the pieces? Are there programs like certified Lego professional or do they have to get every piece at consumer prices?
- NeoTar 2y agoI can’t comment in the specific of this case, but in general adult LEGO builders will acquire pieces through a range of methods - the biggest being bricklink - a website where independent sellers sell individual pieces, often which they’ve ‘parted out’ retail sets to acquire. LEGO has a similar service (‘pick-a-brick’), or in LEGO stores there is a ‘brick wall’ where you can pick up a small range of individual pieces (sold by volume - i.e. you fill up a box of pieces) and if you ever find yourself near Ulm, LEGO-land Deutschland has a physical location where you can buy pieces by mass. But in summary, I don’t think there is a magic bullet - it’s an expensive hobby!
- NeoTar 2y ago(Oh, and in case it’s unclear, in this case by LEGO pieces I mean all of LEGO/DUPLO/Technic).
- eps 2y agoI have a couple of sets from Fischer Technik and can't recommend them enough if watching marbles roll in an infinite cycle is your thing :) https://www.fischertechnik.de/en/toys/marble-runs https://www.fischertechnik.de/en/toys/marble-runs Really well-made, excellent instructions and a very Lego-like experience.
- f1refly 2y agoFischertechnik is a great engineering gateway drug for kids
- bluescrn 2y agoIf you've got a 3D printer and some Lego lying around, you can print Lego-compatible marble run parts, one example: https://hackaday.io/project/165034-marble-run-building-bricks https://hackaday.io/project/165034-marble-run-building-brick...
- kleiba 2y agoOT: whenever I play Lego with my kids these days, I cannot help but to be slightly disappointed by the number of very specialized brick shapes there are today. Of course, this allows you to build a lot of things that weren't possible before. But I do appreciate the simplicity of the Lego box sets in my own youth. Limitation can also spark creativity.
- ja27 2y agoI helped man one at a Brickworld. Lots of chasing down little plastic soccer balls all over the floor. The whole thing just makes sense as a software dev. There's an input standard, output standard, and I guess a processing rate expectation (or not - that was probably the second biggest issue we faced was some slow contraptions that would back up). (The first biggest issue was a contraption that "pinged" the balls through the air to a landing container and would sometimes send them off randomly or kids would try to catch them.) This is partly from LEGO fans previous work on railroad, town, space base, etc. modular builds where they have a spec for where each unit should connect and people bring in their own creations and link them all up. I've always wanted to do something like the great ball contraption in general at makerfaires but open to all kinds of build materials, techniques, power, etc.
- igjeff 2y agoI think the spec is supposed to be one ball per second, but I guess that's not really adhered to. Tangentially, I think it'd be interesting to use something like this to explain the networking concepts of throughout, latency, jitter, baud vs bits per second, symbol rate and bits per symbol. You can find analogous examples in the main video to compare to all of those concepts.
- Tepix 2y agoThe infinite domino contraption is great!