
Rebrickable helps breathe new life into your kids’ old Lego sets - Mz
http://coolmomtech.com/2015/05/rebrickable-lego-building-instructions-for-old-kits/
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danielhunt
I do like this idea, but surely I'm not the only one with fond memories of
just bloody building random crap with the bucket of lego pieces I had as a
kid.

Why not just encourage them to enjoy Lego for the random fun that it is,
instead of needing step-by-step guides for absolutely everything?

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pbreit
It's a little trickier these days because Lego sets now consist of a high
percentage of "custom" bricks, not the basic core building blocks we're used
to. Also, as mentioned by another, building from plans can be really fun, too.

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DanBC
LEGO does sell some "creative" and "basics" sets that are just a bunch of
bricks without too many specialised weird bricks.

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bwooceli
We've used rebrickable since early 2014 I believe, it is unbelievably useful.
We keep our full inventory on the site, and it's really convenient to be able
to see how close you are to having the retail sets as well. The guy who built
the site (someotheridiot) used to be fairly active here, he built it
originally as an exercise in Postgres if I recall correctly. He even has an
API for the site.

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someotheridiot
I'm still lurking around, don't have time to contribute much here anymore :)

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bwooceli
We bought the android app this week BTW, thanks for keeping this thing going.
Dang we love this tool. If you need help or anything lemme know (mostly a
business analyst, but I'm web/python savvy too)

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Gravityloss
What's up with kids today?

When I was a kid, maybe I built the instruction thing once, but after that,
the actual fun started: modification and building new thing!

Do the kids nowadays only do coloring or connect-the-dot books? How about a
blank paper? Blank paper is super cheap and can't be monetized nearly as well,
so there's no marketing for that...

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DanBC
>> When I was a kid, maybe I built the instruction thing once, but after that,
the actual fun started: modification and building new thing!

They still do that. Here's what me and my 5 year old built, from the
instructions, and then what he turned it into.

[http://imgur.com/a/OvwWU](http://imgur.com/a/OvwWU)

Talking to them while they're doing it is fun. Those recycle blocks are there
for a reason - "because these, they RECYCLE YOU" (in a the most threatening
voice a 5 year old can muster). The clear-orange bits on the wing are lava
bombs.

(If people don't know lego: those orange ski bits are a tool sold with some
sets.)

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yourapostasy
Neat. This set me off on a search of what people are doing with automated Lego
brick recognition and sorting. Apparently it is a diverse field with no solid
solutions yet, as predictably, the 3D image recognition challenge is the
largest. It is pretty cool to see someone's solution that involves building
the robotics side of their solution entirely out of Mindstorms NXT parts [1].

[1]
[http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/8580-a-...](http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/8580-a-lego-
brick-sorter-competition/)

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surfacedamage
Even LEGO sorting as a business is something I would totally pay for. We have
way too many bricks. I hope someone cracks this nut.

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foofoo55
Everyone is different. Some love plans, others hate them. Some like to make
something and keep it on display, others like to make it then play with it,
while others just want to make stuff. Some of my kids have used sites like
this [1] for years while others ignore them.

[1] [http://www.brickshelf.com/](http://www.brickshelf.com/)

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dpflan
You could also follow this guy's prolific custom LEGO building and use some of
his instructions:

[http://jkbrickworks.com/category/models/](http://jkbrickworks.com/category/models/)

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mrfusion
I'm surprised no one has tried using computer vision to identify the parts you
have. That would make this site useful no matter what bricks you own.

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evilempire22
Cool site, but something about the article itself bothers me.

There is a whole world of AFOLs (Adult fans of LEGO) out there (including
myself), but the impression I get from the writer is that LEGO sets are for
kids.

Constructing MOCs and free-form building are one of the ways I have been able
to recapture some of my fond childhood memories and also stretch my creative
muscles. Its very relaxing and therapeutic for me to just build something.

Having ideas of how to re-use existing sets of bricks, or even instructions on
how to perform techniques seen in other MOCs are invaluable.

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MDCore
Uh, what? The article is on a site called coolmomtech.com. The article is
going to be about kids because it's aimed at mom's.

