Hundreds of instruction books for old LEGO sets May 29, 2007 SubscribeHundreds of instruction booklets for LEGO kits, organized by year, theme, number and name. If you're like me, just seeing the covers of some of these old kits will make you teary-eyed. (#268, the 1979 Family Room kit did it for me.)Can't read the text above?Try another text or an audio CAPTCHAText in the box:What's this?12-Year-Old Invents Braille Printer Using Lego Set A 12-year-old student from California has created a Braille printer by repurposing parts from a Lego set. Shubham Banerjee, a seventh-grade student from Santa Clara, Calif., developed the Braille printer using toy construction Lego pieces. The low-cost invention could be an accessible solution for blind and disadvantaged people across the globe, Banerjee said. The printer, dubbed Braigo (short for Braille with Lego), was created from the Lego Mindstorms EV3 set, which retails for $349. Banerjee also added $5-worth of additional materials, which means the finished product costs about $350.
This makes Braigo much more affordable than other Braille printers, which can retail for more than $2,000, according to Banerjee. [10 Inventions That Changed the World] The innovative youngster developed Braigo to prove it is feasible to make an inexpensive Braille printer, he said. Banerjee now plans to make the project open-source, by releasing the design free-of-charge to the online community. "I'll make this Braille printer and make the steps and the program software open to the Internet, so anyone who has a set can make it," Banerjee said in a YouTube video about the Braigo project. The printer is programmed to produce the letters "A" through "Z" in Braille. It takes roughly seven seconds to print each letter, according to Banerjee. In a video uploaded to YouTube, Banerjee demonstrates how to print the letter "Y," and then shows how simple it is to combine letters to form words, like "cat." "This is so easy even my little sister can do it," he said. Enhancements can be made to the printer's software, and Banerjee said he now plans to program Braigo to print the numbers one to 10.
The Lego Group has already voiced their praise for the project, tweeting: "We're very proud. Impressive work for a great cause!" An estimated 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide, and 90 percent of these individuals live in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. An inexpensive Braille printer could bring affordable, 21st-century computing to millions of people facing visual impairment, Banerjee said. Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Baby, Kids & Toys Action Figures & Play Sets Ship to you only - {{couponLength>1?couponLength +' coupons available':'Coupon available'}} Clip ${{offerValue || offerPercentage}}% coupon View coupon details {{couponLength}} coupons availablesave 50% on the lowest priced product.':' get the lowest priced product FREE.'}} Web Exclusive: {{productModel.wholeData.prodDetails.giftWithPurchase.giftDescription}} See gift
Customers who bought this also bought Are You Still There?Please choose to continue your session or sign out now.The 25 most valuable Lego sets of all time, from the Millennium Falcon to the Statue of Liberty Lego bricks aren't just for stepping on and screaming in horror. They're also quite the commodity. The beloved building toy has spawned a secondary market where rare sets can be worth thousands. With the help of Jeff Maciorowski from the Lego investing site Brickpicker, we present to you the 25 most valuable Lego sets in history. Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon: $3,987.40 Statue of Liberty: $1,998.87. Imperial Star Destroyer: $1,744. Death Star II: $1,656.87. Rebel Blockade Runner: $1,199.20. Castle Giant Chess Set: $1,128.20. Y-wing Attack Starfighter: $1,067.60 Super Star Destroyer: $881.33. Vader's TIE Advanced: $673.20. Marina Bay Sands: $657.40. Get the Slide Deck from Henry Blodget's IGNITION Presentation on the Future of Digital
Read Business Insider On The Go Available on iOS or Android See All Jobs » Thanks to our partnersJump to page 1 LEGO® Lego Space sets are a great childrens toy. The Lego Space sets are a great series To view the Lego Space instructions for a particular set, LEGO® 10191 from 2008 LEGO® 10192 from 2008 LEGO® 1180 from 1999 LEGO® 3066 from 1999 LEGO® 3067 from 1999 LEGO® 3070 from 1999 LEGO® 3071 from 1999 LEGO® 3073 from 1999 LEGO® 6452 from 1999 LEGO® 6453 from 1999 LEGO® 6454 from 1999 Moon Rocket With Light And Sound LEGO® 6455 from 1999 LEGO® 6456 from 1999 Space Shuttle With Light And Sound LEGO® 6458 from 1999 LEGO® 6459 from 1999 Tank Truck And Mc LEGO® 6461 from 1999 LEGO® 6463 from 1999 LEGO® 6465 from 1999 LEGO® 6469 from 1999 Space Port Value Pack LEGO® 6942 from 1999 LEGO® 6943 from 1999 Jump to page 1
LEGO® fans of a certain age will fondly recall the vintage 1960s/'70s LEGO logo that Francesco Spreafico is discussing today but may be surprised to learn it made further appearances in later decades, and even one in 2016. Francesco first published this article in Italian on his excellent blog Old Bricks. The LEGO logo has changed many times over the years, and around 1963-1965 they adopted the square shape that it still has today. Next to this square you could find another one, with a "rainbow" made of five coloured stripes: yellow, red, blue, white and black. These five colours were used together with the LEGO logo until 1973 and they kept using them for years even after that, without the LEGO logo. But what are these colours? You might have read a few different explanations for them, but more often than not these explanations are incorrect or only partially correct. The most common explanation is that they were "the first LEGO colours", but they were obviously not. Even ignoring the old wooden toys and starting our consideration from the first plastic bricks made in 1949, they were made in many more colours than these five.
Shown below are a couple of different shades of green used then, and here, for instance, you can find a classification of those first colours. This "colour abundance" was quickly downsized and at the beginning of the 1950s the number of available colours decreased. Other people say that the five colours were the colours in production in 1958, when the company requested the patent for their new brick design with bottom tubes. But again this is not true; there were many more colours in production then, if you consider all the LEGO System parts like trees, road signs, vehicles, baseplates and so on. Were they, then, the colours in production for LEGO bricks in 1958? We're getting closer, but we're not there yet. Because, quite strangely, in 1958 there were no black bricks. The final answer is probably the simplest. And I say "probably" because I haven't found an official explanation yet (if such explanation exists). Looking at the dates I think we can reach a reasonable answer: those five colours were the colours of the bricks in production in the moment they started using that logo, so in 1963-65.
A bit anti-climatic, maybe? As I said before, the missing colour was black and black bricks certainly must have debuted between 1960 and 1963 (see the discussion below this wonderful LEGO Color Chart that you might have already seen in Bricks magazine #14 or on this very site). The 1960 year is fixed by a German catalogue that includes everything for sale at the time, and that doesn't include any black bricks. 1963 is fixed by the fact that black bricks made in cellulose acetate (CA) exist (even I have some, as you can see in the next photo) and in Europe, CA stopped being used in 1963 when the company moved to using ABS. LEGO historian Gary Istok says that black actually started being sold in 1961, appearing first in 1962 catalogs. So in 1963, besides the "colour" transparent (which clearly does not concern us here), you could only find yellow, red, blue, white and black bricks in production. Exactly what we needed. Let me stress, again, the word "bricks", because at the end of 1962/beginning of 1963 the first small plates were created, in light grey.
And I'll also add a "regular" to that "bricks", because 1963 also saw the birth of Modulex bricks, and they had a completely different (and larger) colour palette. In 1973 the LEGO logo changed again (the word "System" disappeared and the logo started looking very much like the current one) and the link with these colours, after a few cases where they were still used together with the new logo, was gone. Just the link with the logo was gone, though, because the five colours were then used for many years on catalogs and advertising material (and on a few parts too, as shown above! The flag was sold in three sets released between 1985 and 1991. The torso and tail as well as some other parts and stickers not pictured here come from the 1985 and 1990 airport sets; the logo of which included the colours). And this still happens today, sporadically, even though now the colours are mainly used to give a "vintage" feeling... for example the old logo with the colours is used on the recent LEGO employee 2016 gift set, shown below.
Here's a video I found on YouTube with old LEGO Space commercials; some of them feature the five colours at the end (and sometimes the stripes are animated using 6x bricks). In the AFOL community, these colours are fondly remembered and often used. For example they're part of the Paredes de Coura Fan Weekend's logo and buildable mascot. And even the logo of my LUG, ItLUG, includes white, red and blue - and not green, as anyone would think appropriate for Italy - for this reason (maybe a bit retconned). And they clearly feature in the Portuguese LUG Comunidade 0937's logo too... I could go on and on! In closing, I'm not 100% sure that the origin of these five colours is really this, but it seems to be a plausible theory. If anyone has any corrections or any more data... please, let me know! READ MORE: Before DUPLO, there were Jumbo BricksConsider using our affiliate links to buy your LEGO sets (or anything); this helps support New Elementary! Canada: Amazon.ca UK: Amazon.co.uk Deutschland: Amazon.de