I’ve started a review site for games for girls. Specifically I mean games marketed towards girls.

It’s a little tough to explain why I’m doing this. It kills me a little that there even are “games for girls,” because I believe a good game is for everybody. You can get the full spiel at “Why Review Games for Girls”, but it came up in a conversation with Chris the other day that most of the games marketed to young girls aren’t reviewed by the major review sites, if anyone at all.

Parents who buy these games, most of which are junk, don’t really have anything to go on but the Amazon reviews. Unfortunately the Amazon reviews skew heavily towards “my daughter liked this because she loves [insert character here].” So for the discerning parent who’s concerned about the quality and content of the games their daughter plays, there aren’t a lot of resources.

Personally I’d love it if parents would drop the pink-is-for-girls thing and just buy games that were good, regardless of gender marketing. But some girls get the princess bug despite the protests of their parents.
I hope to arm parents with information so they can buy high quality games for their kids, navigating the murky world of games for girls and highlighting some gender neutral games which might appeal to even the biggest Disney princess fan.

Check out Sparkle Gamer, and if you’d like to review some games, let me know!

Part of my probelm was that I always had ideas which were large and complicated, and I never finished the designs. So in an effort to actually produce something, I set myself to a very simple first project: a plastic organizer insert for a mint tin.

I'm using it to organize my miniature pompom collection. Because I have one of those.

Overall the printing process was pretty easy. Adam, Matt, and Pax were nice enough to help me get over the few problems I ran into. Matt, who is the developer in charge of ReplicatorG (Makerbot's printing software), gave helpful instructions like "now click the picture of the potato with an arrow coming out of it." He then asked if I knew any UI designers looking for work.

Here are the issues I ran into on my maiden print:

The model didn't adhere to the bed.  Because my design is pretty thin, it didn't stick very well to the bed of the makerbot, even with the heated build platform. This was easy enough to fix, we turned on the raft (a layer of plastic which goes down evenly before you start the real print, and is removable later).

The plastic was coming out goopy. The main issue with my first two attempts was that the plastic was coming out much too thick, and kind of lumpy/grainy. This caused two problems: first, it looked terrible, with little lumpy bits everywhere. But more importantly, the lumpy goopy bits would build up and then harden. Then when the extruder head came by again, it would hit these plastic lumps and move the model, throwing off the registration.

There were two suggested fixes here: first was to increase the speed, so that the build platform would move faster (allowing for less material to build up). This was met with a certain degree of success, but Adam suggested that the plastic we were using, which had been sitting out at Resistor for quite some time, had absorbed too much water from the air to really be useful. The moral of the story here is to store your plastics in airtight containers with some desiccant. In the end, we switched plastics.

My machine wouldn't talk to the Makerbot. This ended up being an issue with my machine, a somewhat unhappy eeePC. When I switched to my mac, all was happy again. Also, the eee is way too underpowered to really be generating gcode for prints. I was able to cold-boot my mac, install RepG, install the drivers, and generate the print's gcode from scratch in the time it took my eee to get halfway done generating the same gcode.

The build platform wouldn't heat. This one took us the longest to debug. One of the connectors was visibly damaged (names were named but I won't reprint them here), but it worked just often enough to make us think something else was the problem. After some thorough testing with the  multimeter, and some careful coaxing of the connections, power was restored to the build platform.

Here's the source model, which I've uploaded to Thingiverse. Note that this is meant to fit mint tins that I purchase wholesale, and as such may not fit the Altoids tins. I created the object in Google SketchUp and then exported it to STL for use with RepG. GoogleSketchUp is OK for doing things quickly, but there are a lot of things I wanted to do with the design that I couldn't convince SketchUp to let me do. Particularly, I wanted nice rounded edges on the top of my model.

I'm happy with the final print, and really stoked about Makerbotting more models in the future!

We had a total of 12 people over on Saturday attempting to make 15 Lego spheres. Each sphere is about 25cm (10ish inches) in diameter. They follow a pattern I created using Blender and the techniques/scripts described here and here.

We used a lot of Legos. Approximately 22,000. Most of them were sourced from BrickLink, though we did buy a few sets new from Toys R Us. When build day came we realized we didn't have enough, so RD made a last-minute trip to the Lego store. He was able to talk the staff into letting him buy a few boxes in bulk.

In order to make the build process easier, we laser-cut jigs out of foam core for each of the 27 layers. The jigs served as templates for each layer, avoiding the frustrating and time consuming counting I had been doing when building them earlier. We didn't use a script to output the vector cut paths, RD just traced them by hand in Illustrator.

To put it plainly: assembling these is hard. There are lots of overhangs and ragged edges where you really need a 1×1, but of course those aren't very structurally stable. The first few layers are definitely the hardest, and there are a number of tips and tricks we figured out along the way to make things easier. And by easier I mean possible.

The spheres were built mostly hollow, though thicker at the top and bottom for structural support. A few folks incorporated a center column to make placing the top easier. Personally I found it easier to start thickening the walls around the top 1/3rd and using long 2×8 pieces to mesh in the top.

John decided to get fancy with his; rather than a simple mottled pattern he made an artistic swirl.

;

After 12 hours of work on Saturday we had 6 complete spheres and a number of half-finished ones. On Sunday RD, myself, and my soon-to-be mother-in-law finished up the leftovers, for a total of 13 spheres completed this weekend. I'm pretty impressed, and honored to have the sort of friends who would give up their Saturday to assemble these ridiculous sculptures.

What are they all for? The answer to that is coming shortly…

I got a lot of great suggestions on my last entry for how to automate the process of taking a screenshot, but sadly when it came down to implementing them things didn’t go so well. Luckily Angelo from Abandon Hope Games was kind enough to take the time to help me get the environmentals in Blender set up just right for rendering a “pattern slice.”

Step 0: Start with an object made of objects
The AddCells script uses DupliVerts to create an object made of references to another object. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first, let’s assume you have an object:

Step 1: Set up the camera
We want the camera to be facing down and rendering orthographic(all lines parallel) rather than perspective.

Make sure you’re in Object Mode and select the camera.
Press Alt+G and then Alt+R (confirming the dialogs) to return it to the origin.
Hit F9 to get into the Editing panel
Click the button labeled Orthographic in the Camera tab

Press 1 on your number pad to get a side view of the scene. Click the blue transform handle of your camera and move it up along the Z axis so it is well above your object.
Press 0 on your number pad and you should see a rectangular bounding box around your object (or perhaps around nothing) which represents the are which the camera sees.
Scroll the “lens” option right above the Orthographic button to zoom in/out so your

If you do a test render now with F12, you’ll probably see a badly lit (perhaps almost all black) render of your object from the top down.

Step 2: Set up the lighting

Select the existing light in your scene and press x on your keyboard to delete it.
Press space bar to bring up a dialog, and go to Add > Lamp > Sun
It doesn’t matter where the lamp is, as long as it’s facing down (which it is by default).

Step 3: Configure your materials

I mentioned earlier that our object was made up of DupliVerts.
These aren’t “real” objects, which is why I had such trouble applying materials to them. You need to apply the material to the reference object, which is generally somewhere in the middle of it. I usually do this by switching to the Outliner menu and finding the source cube manually.

Once we have our source object selected, hit F5 to bring up the Shading panel and click Add New under Links and Pipeline.
Pick a new color for your object. This will be the color of the lines in your final rendered image, so pick something that contrasts with your background color (which defaults to blue).
Click the Wire button under Links and Pipeline

Your object in the viewport should take on the color you’ve selected. If if doesn’t, you probably didn’t select the correct source object.

Hit F12 to render. Viola!

Now that we have our environment set up the way we want, rendering via script is easy. I’ve updated the script source (now on gist) to call Render when it’s done slicing and save the file to my hard drive.

This all works great, but of course there’s a new problem. Since we want to iterate over the entire object, I need to “reset” it back to being whole again. While I’ve saved an undo point I don’t think you can call that point via the API. In the current iteration of the script I save the vectors of each vertex before deleting it and then call verts.extend to add them back. This works great except…

The vectors for the verticies are transformed to be in the selected object’s local space, which is necessary for “layer 1″ to be the first layer of the object and so forth. Unfortunately I haven’t yet figured out how to transform those verticies back. So when I run the script it dutifully reassembles my sphere originating from the center of the object. So there’s still some work to be done there.

Each brick box holds 64+ of the same-shape piece. So the 1×1 box will hold 64 1×1 bricks, and the 2×2 holds 64 2×2 bricks. The larger ones hold a few more due to how the sizing works out. The 1×1 box is 40mm per side (external dimensions).

I posted the patterns on Thingiverse should anyone wish to make their own. No,  I'm not going to make and sell them. They're time consuming to make, and plus I'm pretty sure Lego would sue me. If you don't have access to a laser cutter, I'd suggest using a service like Ponoko.

The patterns were generated in OpenSCAD using the following code. Change "rows" and "cols" to get the lego size you desire. By the way, I’m teaching a class on OpenSCAD in Brooklyn next weekend!

fundamental_unit = 0.8;
thickness =3;
h_pitch = 10;
v_pitch = 12;
tform = 5;
knob = fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform;
module side(rows){
	lwidth = rows*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform;
	lheight = v_pitch*fundamental_unit*tform;
	difference() {
 
		square(size=[lwidth, lheight]);
		translate(v=[10,0,0]) square(size=[lwidth-20,thickness]);
		translate(v=[10,lheight-thickness,0]) square(size=[lwidth-20,thickness]);
		square(size=[thickness, 10]);
		translate(v=[0,lheight-10]) square(size=[thickness, 10]);
	translate(v=[lwidth-thickness,10]) square(size=[thickness, lheight-20]);
	}
}
module top(rows,cols,holes){
	lwidth = rows*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform;
	llength = cols*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform;
	difference(){
		square(size=[lwidth,llength]);
		square(size=[thickness,10]);
		square(size=[10,thickness]);
		translate(v=[lwidth,0,0]) square(size=[-thickness,10]);
		translate(v=[lwidth,0,0]) square(size=[-10,thickness]);
		translate(v=[lwidth,llength]) square(size=[-10,-thickness]);
		translate(v=[lwidth,llength]) square(size=[-thickness,-10]);	
		translate(v=[0,llength]) square(size=[10,-thickness]);
		translate(v=[0,llength]) square(size=[thickness,-10]);	
		if(holes==true){
			for (i = [1:cols]){
				for (j=[1:rows]){
				translate(v=[j*knob-knob/2,i*knob-(fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform)/2,0]) circle(r=fundamental_unit*6*tform/2);
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
 
rows = 2;
cols = 4;
 
h_spacing =  rows*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform+10;
l_spacing =  cols*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform+10;
v_spacing = fundamental_unit*v_pitch*tform+10;
 
side(rows);
translate(v=[ rows*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform+10,0,0]) side(rows);
translate(v=[0,v_spacing]) side(cols);
translate(v=[ cols*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform+10,v_spacing]) side(cols);
translate(v=[0,2*v_spacing]) top(rows,cols,true);
translate(v=[ rows*fundamental_unit*h_pitch*tform+10,2*v_spacing]) top(rows,cols,false);

In the next batch I'm going to make the nubs a little smaller than the holes. They work now, but it's a bit fiddly getting everything to line up just so. A little more forgiveness would be nice. Also, OpenSCAD does strange things with circles. Rather than simply write a circle in the DXF, it represents it as a bunch of line segments. I’m not sure if there’s a way around this, but it’s marginally irritating.

You can download a .dxf for a few different box sizes on Thingiverse.
I’ve also created a Flickr Collection for my various Lego stuff.

I've been doing more Lego building from models. This time I made sort of an abstract mushroom tree forest thing. More photos are available on Flickr.

Here's the original model (left) and the resulting cubeified model after running it through AddCells (right):

I realized of course that with everything grey, it was very difficult to determine which bricks of which color were needed where. So I un-joined the primitives in the original model and ran AddCells on each one individually. I used different colored "cell" blocks for each one, and the resulting models kept the color:

Each peice needed to be moved a little bit so that all the blocks lined up, but other than that it worked pretty well.

Because each piece is separate, I couldn't use the hide tool to "slice" each layer. But I did find out something interesting: each "cube" in the new models is actually a vertex. I honestly don't understand a ton about how that's pulled off, but basically instead of being a point on a line, each vertex represents another object, the source cube.

In order to slice up the model, I wrote a script to delete all but a given layer, with layer 1 being the bottom layer, up to however many layers of cubes are in the model.

import Blender, BPyMessages, BPyMesh
from Blender import Scene, Mesh, NMesh, Window, sys, Group, Object, Draw
from Blender.Mathutils import \
	Matrix, Vector, ProjectVecs, AngleBetweenVecs, TranslationMatrix
 
 
def trimToLayer(selected,layerNumber, blockHeight,offset):
        toDelete= []
 
        mesh = selected.getData(mesh=1)
        tmesh = NMesh.GetRawFromObject(selected.name)
        tmesh.transform(selected.matrix)
        #Delete verticies above the current layer
        for v in tmesh.verts:
            if v.co[2] > blockHeight*layer:
                toDelete.append(v.index)
        if layerNumber > 1:
                #Delete verticies below the current layer
                for v in tmesh.verts:
                    if v.co[2] < blockHeight*layer-1:
                        toDelete.append(v.index)        
        toDelete = list(set(toDelete))
 
        mesh.verts.delete(toDelete)
        Window.Redraw()
 
 
##################3
if __name__ == "__main__":
    selection = Object.GetSelected();
 
    layer = Draw.PupIntInput("Layer",1,0,100)
    Blender.SaveUndoState('Kill Everything')  
    print "\nTrimming First Layer"
    for s in selection:
	bbox = s.getBoundBox(1)
	print bbox[0][2]
	trimToLayer(s,layer,1.2,bbox[0][2])

There are a couple problems with the script: primarily, I couldn't find a way to get the software to save a screenshot (ctrl+F3 normally). Because of this, I couldn't loop through the whole thing at once, I had to go through one layer at a time, running the script, hitting ctrl+f3, saving the image, lather rinse repeat. It was tedious, though not as tedious as manually cutting up each layer. But almost.

The resulting MRI-like were used to build the model. The exact placement of which bricks and where is left as an excercise to the reader. A few layers (from the bottom, middle, and towards the top) are shown below.

This is my first attempt at a Blender script, and admittedly one of my first times using blender, so any feedback on how to streamline this process would be appreciated.

It was only after hours of searching that I finally came up with what I was looking for: a way to take a polygon mesh (OBJ or similar) and convert it into a blueprint for building LEGO sculptures.

Don't get me wrong, there are tons of tools out there for LEGO CAD. But strangely none of them mention being able to go from a mesh to a LEGO layout. It's surprising, since it seems like such a natural fit. The rise of 3D printers has rejuvinated interest in voxels, voulmetric pixels, and as evidenced by all the LEGO sculpture artists we seem to be in a golden age of LEGO. 

Armed with Blender and a giant LEGO collection, I set out to get the computer to do the hard work for me. I used Blender, graph paper, a pencil, and of course lots of LEGOs.

Step 1: Voxelizing a Utah teapot

Let me preface this by saying that the Blender UI is not for the faint of heart. I took classes on Rhino and 3DSMax in college, and thought to myself "how different could it be?" The answer: very. If you're new to blender, don't fear the manual. You're going to need it, particularly the parts on installing/using python scripts.

To voxelize the teapot I used a script called Add Cells which covers the surface of any object with any other object. First I imported the teapot, and scaled it up a bit. Then I created my "fundamental unit" of LEGO. LEGOs have an aspect ratio of 6:5, so I created a 1×1 LEGO, a 0.6×0.5×0.5 rectangular prism in Blender.

Selecting both the teapot and my 1×1 lego I ran the Add Cells script (go to the Scripts menu –> Add -> Cells). I chose the Teapot for my object to be voxelized and the 1×1 LEGO as my voxel model.

Tada! A blocky teapot!

Step 2: Graphing each layer on paper

In order to make the build process easier, I went through layer by layer and drew a map of each layer on graph paper. This way when building with LEGOs I could shade in with a pencil each voxel I'd built. It sounds redundant, but when things all start looking the same after a few minutes and something isn't lining up, it's very helpful.

To see one layer at a time in Blender I went into Sculpture Mode, side view, and used ctrl+shift+right mouse to select and hide all but the layer I wanted to see. Then I switched to Top view and copied the layer onto my graph paper. By the end I had a sheet of paper full of wobbly circular outlines.

Step 3: Building it with LEGOs!

The completed model uses 244 LEGOs, many of which are tiny 1×1 and 1×2 bricks. The model is hollow, but the walls need to be fairly thick to be able to support the top. As it is I probably should have made things a little thicker; putting the last two layers on was a delicate operation.

I built each layer sequentially. There were a few overhang pieces near the bottom which I had to append to the layer above them, since they couldn't anchor to anything below.

Overall the project took about 4 hours, with a break in the middle for breakfast, church, etc.

Total LEGO count for the project was 244 individual bricks, distributed thusly:

• 44 2×3 Bricks
• 46 2×2 Bricks
• 58 2×4 Bricks
• 27 1×2 Bricks
• 17 1×3 Bricks
• 8 1×4 Bricks
• 8 2×2 L shaped Bricks
• 33 1×1 Bricks
• 1 2×8 Brick
• 1 2×6 Brick
• 1 1×8 Brick
   

After ordering a few hundred bricks from bricklink, I started working on what is for now a top secret project.

Step one was to practice making spherical and organic LEGO shapes, and I'm pretty happy with the two sphereoids I came up with while catching up on House. PS, Dr House is a huge jerk.

One of the employees was enthusiastically telling us all about LEGO (as employees ought to), and showed us a magazine dedicated to “Adult fans of LEGO” or AFOL.”

He then went on to explain that within AFOL is a subgroup, AFFOL or “Adult Female Fans of LEGO,” a rare and mystical breed of AFOL. He proceeded to flip through the magazine to show us a photo of a REAL LIVE LADY who ACTUALLY BUILDS WITH LEGOS!

I wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight over nomenclature, but really? When are people going to realize that singling out women in a male-dominated field, be it work or play, is counterproductive? I’m not an AFFOL any more than I am a “girl gamer.” Drop the extra adjective, people.

This week I went to the LEGO store in Paramus, NJ. It was a bit of a let down, and not really worth the hour of fighting traffic it took to get there. They didn’t have any big tubs o’ bricks, just kits, and their pick-a-brick selection was pretty limited (I was looking for 1×2 bricks).

What I DID find was an amazing resource, Brick Link. Bricklink is like eBay for LEGO bricks. You can find pretty much any size/shape/color. Their interface is a little clunky, without integrated shipping or payment, but it gets the job done.

I ordered roughly 700 red LEGO bricks for $40, most of which was the cost of shipping. It’s marginally cheaper than the cost per brick of a big tub, but I was able to hand select the colors and shapes that I wanted.

More details when I get the LEGO bricks in…