[HN Gopher] Designing a Lego orrery
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Designing a Lego orrery
Author : _Microft
Score : 588 points
Date : 2024-06-09 19:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (marian42.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (marian42.de)
| h2odragon wrote:
| Art is often enhanced by the constraints of the medium in which
| it is realized.
|
| _wow_ thats cool. Lego should pay him lots of money for the plan
| and sella few kits of it.
| mortos wrote:
| As he mentions in the article, LEGO does sell a kit already,
| set 42179. I find it unlikely they'll adopt his design when
| they already sell one of their own, even if his has
| improvements that he mentions.
| eichin wrote:
| Though it looks like it's not _strictly_ against
| https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines , under "PLEASE ONLY
| SUGGEST NEW IDEAS. NO IDEAS TO "BRING BACK" OLD LEGO SETS."
| they say:
|
| > Don't submit product ideas requesting we re-release or
| "bring back" discontinued LEGO products or themes in their
| original form, and don't submit product ideas that are
| "modifications," "improvements," or "expansion sets" to
| existing or past LEGO sets. If you're submitting a product
| idea based on a discontinued LEGO theme or brand (for example
| Blacktron or Octan), it must be your own new, creative work.
|
| simply because this design _predates_ the official re-
| release... but given that the official one is from this year,
| it seems really unlikely they 'd run with it this soon
| anyway.
| flafla2 wrote:
| This is so awesome. There's a lot to geek out about here, but I
| was personally enamored with the extra effort to make good
| renders/visualizations in software. Thanks for the read!
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| The gear ratio calculator is great and will be of great use!
| Thanks!
|
| Extra + for making the form variables controllable by URL params:
| https://marian42.de/gears/?targetratio=2/8&dst=any&gears=def...
| dolmen wrote:
| The project is open source: https://github.com/marian42/gears
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I love Legos, I usually make them and give them away. Now, this
| one surprised me and I was amazed. I will never do this, but
| WOW!!!!
| _Microft wrote:
| The creator of this also made a tool to design custom,
| 3d-printable Lego-compatible pieces:
|
| https://marian42.de/article/partdesigner/
| jb1991 wrote:
| Now if only we can reliably 3D print the gears also, and ensure
| they still work well with other pieces.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I have the not-Lego(tm) orrery he mentioned at the start and it
| is great. Very good value for money & fun to build. It is sad
| that you can't use it to explain seasons though, like you can
| with his serious upgrade. Nice work!
| juliangamble wrote:
| The author spends lots of time modelling axial tilt to represent
| the seasons.
|
| Then there was this gem:
|
| > I also used this program to create digital building
| instructions. My takeaway from this is that it works really well
| for small models, but it has serious usability problems on larger
| models. When you make changes to the model or change an early
| step in the instructions, it will often break the layout of the
| instructions in many places so that most of it needs to be
| redone. This was a lot of tedious work, but I ended up with a 264
| page, 436 step instructions PDF.
|
| Wow.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| That actually doesn't seem that bad for a model this complex.
| The larger sets can have well into the hundreds of steps with
| manuals reaching into several hundred pages on 8x10 paper.
| iwontberude wrote:
| I used a Lego product this past week and the instructions
| were actually omitting 1-2 steps explicitly and expecting you
| to see the difference between the current and previous
| figures in the print.
| pimlottc wrote:
| In the old days, "spot the difference" was the standard
| practice in Lego instructions [0]
|
| 0: https://www.toysperiod.com/download.php?file=h4d4k5w544a
| 4h4n...
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| As it should be. I credit LEGO for my acing the ASVAB
| spatial reasoning sections.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| They make a model of this exact thing: https://www.lego.com/en-
| us/product/planet-earth-and-moon-in-...
| jnsie wrote:
| The author describes their experience with this set
|
| > Two years later in 2024, Lego released their own orrey
| design. I was quite excited at the prospect of an official Lego
| orrery, but I was disappointed by the execution....
| trgn wrote:
| The lego one is actually pretty nice, and cheaper than most
| ready-made models.
|
| The one part that isn't quite right, and I'm not even sure
| I've ever seen a model that does this right, is the moon's
| orbital tilt, so the earth isn't blocking the moon for full
| moon, and the moon isn't blocking the sun for new moon. The
| distances probably don't scale to make it practical, the tilt
| would have to be extremely exaggerated. The phases of the
| moon is the only thing that I've never seen an orrery show
| very well.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| > To make matters worse, the axis always points in the same
| direction.
|
| I don't understand how this was never explained to me in high
| school. Of course we learned that the tilt of Earth is what
| causes seasons, but I never understood why. Now I know why I
| didn't understand it, some part was missing.
|
| And I literally thought I wasn't smart enough to understand.
| gnramires wrote:
| It follows from conservation of angular momentum :) If the axis
| direction changed (for a fixed orbit), then Earth's (or Solar
| system's, etc.) angular momentum would be changed, not be
| conserved.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| Unless the Sun's tilt moved ever so slightly in compensation.
|
| Around one one billionth of a degree to be exact. Impossible
| to detect.
| gnramires wrote:
| Indeed. Another fact you can use is that in Newtonian
| mechanics (although not in GR due to frame dragging, only
| approximately), a rotating spherical body has the same
| gravitational field as a static one. So there would be no
| mechanism for the axially tilted rotating Earth to
| influence the Sun (different from a non-rotating Earth).
| eru wrote:
| I guess a good animated 3d model, either digitally or one you
| can touch like this orrery, would have cleared up a lot of
| confusion. Especially if you can play with it in a darkened
| room with a flashlight.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Yeah, the critical insight is that the tilt impacts how high
| in the sky the sun is, which in turn affects the length of
| the day and the incidence angle of the sunlight.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| You do not need a complex 3d model, very simple illustrations
| show it well.
|
| https://kidspressmagazine.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/04/dre...
|
| And then explaining that the hemisphere that receives the sun
| energy perpendicularly get more heat from it.
|
| https://scitechdaily.com/images/Earths-Seasons-Tilt-
| scaled.j...
| Perz1val wrote:
| It does rotate, but it's slow enought to not matter in most
| cases. Afaik some ancient, star aligned constructions do not
| work anymore because of this
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession
| KineticLensman wrote:
| The thing I spent some time puzzling about recently is why the
| changes to sunrise and sunset times through the year aren't
| symmetric about midday and why they have different rates at
| different time of the year. This led me to the equation of time
| [0], another fascinating rabbit hole.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I noticed this often happens in school. A key piece of
| information is just missing and you just learn the right answer
| to pas tests, but never know why
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| They used to tell us you could stand an egg on its end on the
| equinox because the Earth was standing straight up and down. It
| really wasn't part of class, just something people mentioned. I
| even remember seeing a short news story of kids actually trying
| it in school. Then at one point one of my teachers pointed out
| people figured out you could do it any day of the year.
| ropable wrote:
| One of those examples where a community creation is miles better
| than the "official" Lego design.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Better by some measure - LEGO is probably optimizing for
| different metrics:
|
| - Number of distinct pieces (fewer is better),
|
| - Complexity of build-process,
|
| - Robustness,
| ashton314 wrote:
| Daaaaaang that's amazing.
|
| I want to build this as the first bit of a clock like the one in
| _Anathem_.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Great article! I would also highly recommending following the
| link at the end for the video on Akiyuki's clock [0]. It's a
| masterpiece, and that's saying something for how brilliant his
| other designs are.
|
| 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUdlSYC1cCE
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Whenever I see a project like this that involves hundreds of
| hours of engineering and craftsmanship, I think: Doing nothing
| after retirement doesn't appeal to me, so this is how I'd love to
| spend my time (even sooner if circumstances allow).
| fragmede wrote:
| What do you think retirement _is_?
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| That's retirement.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Retirement = you bought (pension/savings/investments) yourself
| time in your 20-30 last years in life to enjoy. You are paying
| yourself to do what pleases you.
| piotrke wrote:
| You paid everyone in life first. Now you pay yourself. Last.
| marcusverus wrote:
| Naturally. Retirement is the most expensive thing you'll
| ever buy!
| p0seidon wrote:
| The picture at the start of the article just says it all. I was
| just looking at it for minutes and didn't dare to scroll down.
| ragebol wrote:
| This is great, also the various calculators and parts designer.
|
| I've been looking to build an articulated clock, which is pretty
| much an orrery like this but without planets and different gear
| ratios.
|
| Difficulty is that I'd like to have the second hand keep straight
| from minute hand at whole minutes. And I think I need a gear
| ratio of 61 for that. Or Keep it straight up at whole minutes,
| which needs a gear ratio of 59 IIRC. Both primes, so not easily
| achievable with gears.
|
| It's been a while since I spent time on this though.
|
| EDIT: I could add/subtract 1 rotation via a differential gear I
| think.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I too am disappointed by the direction Lego has gone away from
| the classic Technic gears and pulleys. And the cancellation of
| Mindstorms without an adequate replacement. It's the end of an
| era. Now everything is mostly focused on brand deals with all the
| popular themed kids toys.
| qzio wrote:
| What about wedo and spike? I think they look pretty ok...
| jb1991 wrote:
| Well, "pretty ok" is not a great bar coming from the
| mindstorms system. But even if you exclude that entire
| category, the Technic series overall is not the same as it
| used to be.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| This is lame, the world needs smart people like you solving real
| problems. A cool project but dumb as hell at the same time.
| pootempy wrote:
| How many smart people run marathons, do all night drink binging
| sessions, travel to exotic cities and other such follies?
|
| My belief is that a project like this (and probably the
| marathon and travel too!) make you smarter. You need to do
| something that ain't work sometimes!
| isametry wrote:
| Ignoring most of your comment and only focusing on this part:
|
| > the world needs smart people like you solving real problems
|
| It has them. And they're doing pretty much exactly this. What's
| described in the OP resembles a pretty standard machine design
| process - the key is splitting up the complex goal into smaller
| manageable units. (And using tools for the tedious parts such
| as gear math; if the tools don't exist, you of course develop
| your own!)
|
| The author was presumably able to do this _because_ they've
| already solved a real problem or two.
| another-dave wrote:
| it's a bit like Richard Fenyman's wobbling plate -- you don't
| necessarily know where you'll end up (maybe with a Nobel
| prize).
|
| -- https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html
| dolmen wrote:
| See also this older LEGO orrery produced by the University of
| California as an educational project for NASA Kepler mission:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/table-top_tr...
| https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/table-top_tr...
|
| Also: http://mrob.com/pub/lego/orrery.html
| hoseja wrote:
| How about a nice metal non-LEGO orrery that doesn't cost a
| gajillion dollars.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| About an hour after reading this blog post and the thread here on
| HN, I opened Instagram. The very first ad was from Lego, for
| their orrery.
|
| It was so specific and unique (I can't recall ever seeing an ad
| from Lego on IG at all) that it must have been targeted by some
| behavioral data on me.
|
| But from where? HN and the blog do not seem to be running the
| Meta pixel, and I was using Safari on iOS, which blocks 3rd party
| cookies.
|
| After some recollection, I remembered that I had clicked play on
| one of the YouTube videos that are embedded in the blog post. So
| Lego must have Google ads running that target people who view
| these orrery project videos.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Do you even need to click play on a video, or is the act of
| loading the embed enough?
| et-al wrote:
| EFF's Privacy Badger shows a few potential trackers when
| loading that page.
|
| https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger
| lawlessone wrote:
| The is wonderful
| larodi wrote:
| Schools should teach Lego and such mechanics in particular as
| mandatory classes. Starting from first year with increasing
| complexity. Of course alongside classes for graph networks and
| their applications.
| meristohm wrote:
| Counterpoint (from the perspective of a science teacher who has
| used LEGO as part of teaching, and who still has about 70
| pounds of LEGO): LEGO pieces reinforce "blocky" engineer
| mindset, reinforcing the idea that we can "fix" climate change
| with technology.
|
| We're up against a population boom enabled by access to fossil
| fuels. Our nigh-insatiable appetite for energy conversion has
| serious consequences for life on earth.
|
| I'd far rather teach basketry & other fiber arts, foraging for
| food & medicine, land stewardship, how to hunt kill and process
| animals for food, and other primitive (using this word non-
| pejoratively) skills done as a tight-knot group (such as what a
| classroom can be with good leadership- not saying I provided
| that to the degree I value now, but if/when I go back to
| teaching, I will). LEGO is a distraction, a luxury enabled by
| the Industrial Revolution. We don't have plastic interlocking
| bricks without coal and petroleum and long (and easily-
| disrupted) supply chain.
|
| Until a few years ago my LEGO collection, amassed in childhood,
| was a prized possession. Now I'd have sold it or given it away
| were it not for my wife advising we keep it for our child. In
| light of what I wrote above, while I can get down on the ground
| and immerse myself in creative parallel play, I'll also promote
| the old ways to plant the seeds of a wonderful, effortful,
| meaningful life that also has a more down-to-earth carbon
| footprint.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Climate change is not a reason to not enjoy Legos. Life is
| for enjoying, not for worrying about whether one's hobby is
| environmentally friendly enough.
| MrTurvey wrote:
| This brings me back to young me and my mechanic dad making a
| hydraulic car with Lego Technic. Isn't Lego just the best, for
| all ages and all walks of life?
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