Produced by Big Data Digest

Author: Caleb

When it comes to Lego, it’s a toy loved by both adults and children.

Every time I see a pile of Lego bricks and piece them together to form a template, the sense of achievement is off the charts.

After finishing, I also want to display the creation neatly on my desk and admire it for a while.

But has anyone thought that there’s not just one way to assemble these bricks?

According to the template, you can build a train with these bricks, but some people choose to be unconventional and build an airport instead.

Or perhaps something even more “quirky”?

For example, you could modify this penguin model into a penguin robot, and it actually looks quite fitting:

Or you could modify a regular dog model to make it more interesting:

Are you already eager to dive into your Lego at home? Wait, there are more creative ideas to explore, and let me tell you more.

Identify a Floor Full of Lego in Seconds, Lego Fans Go Wild!

At this moment, there are definitely some people like me who, despite being somewhat clumsy, feel completely blank when faced with a floor full of Lego bricks, unable to come up with any inspiration.

Don’t worry, a savior is here.

First, let’s see how this thing works. It will identify a mess of Lego bricks:

Then, it will provide some creative shapes that can be made with these bricks, which are completely different from the usual templates:

How about that? Doesn’t it feel like you can still salvage your creativity?

According to TechCrunch, Lego has been closely collaborating with Apple, trying to use some unreleased iOS technology, demonstrated at WWDC, such as enhancements to the ARKit platform to add a digital experience to physical toys.

This also includes a software called Brickit, which was created by a fan team, primarily using computer vision technology to quickly identify a mountain of bricks while providing unique creative prompts.

Throughout the process, you only need to dump your bricks on the floor and let Brickit quickly identify, categorize, and analyze them. The developers take great pride in Brickit’s speed, as seen in the images; Brickit can complete identification and analysis in just a few seconds.

Based on some user feedback, the experience is similar to the above steps, but there may be some loading time added between identification and the next step. While browsing the instructions, users may also be directed to specific areas of the brick pile where certain desired creations are located.

Currently, Brickit still has a lot of work to do in terms of first-party access, mainly in integrating with Lego’s existing instruction library. In 2019, Lego acquired BrickLink, showing that Lego has always aimed to capture more community fans surrounding post-sale creations.

If it could allow the creation of a database of actual bricks owned by users, gaining insights about the sets they own would undoubtedly be valuable data for Lego.

Lego Sorter, Saving Your Floor Full of Bricks

Imagine, inspired by Brickit, when creativity overflows, you need to quickly find the Lego pieces you need, but seeing a floor full of bricks instantly deflates your enthusiasm.

Don’t worry, at this moment, you just need another Lego gadget, and the difficulties will be easily solved.

Ta-da, the Lego Universal Sorter makes its grand entrance.

According to the machine’s creator, Daniel West, this machine combines CNN and 3D recognition and can be called the world’s first “Lego Universal Sorter”. Additionally, this sorter is driven by AI, capable of recognizing any produced Lego parts and categorizing them.

Let’s take a closer look at what this machine can do.

As shown below, this is the core part of the sorter, the “Capture Unit,” a small space equipped with a conveyor belt, camera, and lighting. It may seem unremarkable, but there are many details to consider for it to function properly.

The camera captures the Lego parts moving along the conveyor belt and uploads the photos to a server running AI algorithms to identify the parts from thousands of possible Lego elements.

The core challenge is to convert the real-time video stream from the conveyor belt into independent images of the various parts that the neural network can recognize.

The ultimate goal is to transform raw video (left) into uniformly sized images (right), which are then sent to the neural network. (The speed of the GIF is about 50% slower than real-time video)

This uses object detection, which involves detecting the existence, location, and size of objects so that parts can generate bounding boxes in each frame. It may seem simple on the surface, but it is fraught with challenges.

To successfully identify and sort the parts, there are many factors to consider, such as the position and angle of the camera; ensuring sufficient lighting; and ensuring that the parts do not match the color of the conveyor belt, or else the background cannot be deducted.

Training the neural network also requires a significant amount of time and effort. What is a neural network? You can think of it as a virtual brain that can complete specific tasks by accepting inputs and converting them into corresponding outputs.

Generally speaking, the more data fed into the neural network, the stronger its ability to perform tasks. The neural network of the Lego sorter is trained by inputting images of Lego parts and outputting the corresponding part numbers.

Since Lego parts come in thousands of types, with diverse colors and different shapes from various angles, collecting the right training dataset is the most challenging part of the whole process. West captured 300,000 images after the sorter ran for several days, and this is just a portion of them.

So, now don’t just finish a Lego model and leave it to collect dust; there are many fun aspects of these little gadgets waiting for you to unlock.

If you encounter something new or have inspiration to share, feel free to tell me, the clumsy writer!

Related reports:

https://twitter.com/AlexanderNL/status/1410253599502962692

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/30/lego-should-snap-up-this-rapid-fire-brick-finding-ios-app/

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