Batteries not included
If you ever remember straying away from the instruction set that comes inside each Lego kit to innovate on your own as a child (or as an adult) then you’ll certainly appreciate the magnitude of effort that went in to creating this “Great Ball Contraption.” Made with the Lego Mindstorm kit series, this 31 meter (101 foot) long uses 17 different modules to transport colored balls from one end of the machine to the other, and then repeats the process.
Check out the seven minute video below.
Along with giving individuals the hardware and software to create fantastic and whimsical yet practical contraptions, the concept behind Lego Mindstorm kits have helped sprout communities that are interested in collaborative engineering, open-source software, and the development of other crowdsourced design techniques. MIT professor Eric von Hippel speaks to the innovative power of Lego Mindstorm that he discovered while attending the 2008 World Innovation Forum.
MIT’s Eric von Hippel: Open Innovation & LEGO Mindstorms from HSM Global on FORA.tv
