LEGO Life Hacks
Posted by Huw,
LEGO Life Hacks: 50 Cool Ideas to Make Your LEGO Bricks Work for You! is a new book that's just been published by Dorling Kindersley.
It presents ideas for using LEGO to build solutions to everyday problems and to "help streamline your life and accessorise your space".
The models have been designed by two well-known British AFOLs: Nate Dias, winner of LEGO Masters UK series 1, and Barney Main.
The projects in the 125-page softback book are grouped together in chapters covering useful tricks, tech hacks, stationery hacks, ideas for upgrading your room and whacky inventions. There are a few useful and practical ones, for example drinks coasters, a playing card holder, tablet stand, and book ends, but most are simply fun and frivolous.
There are no instructions as such, instead the projects are illustrated with copious images which in most cases provide enough detail to replicate the models. In any case, the idea is not necessarily to build them exactly but to use them as inspiration for your own designs.
The models are well-designed, colourful and fun, but I do wonder how practical many of them actually are. There are none that I'm desperate to build myself, but that's perhaps because I've already 'hacked my life' with LEGO when I've had a need to.
Nevertheless, the book will serve as an eye-opener to those that consider LEGO to be nothing more than a toy. It shows that it can be put to practical use in a wide range of applications around the home.
The book is available now, for £8.79 at Amazon.co.uk and $14.99 at Amazon.com and you can't really go wrong at that price, even if you build nothing in it.
Thanks to DK for sending the book for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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27 comments on this article
Nice ideas, but the use of the abominable term "hacks" irritates.
LEGO is fine for prototyping, but long-term it is fragile & an annoyingly good collector-of-dust for this sort of thing.
I feel like, every time you tried to remove a keyring from a Lego key holder, you'd end up disassembling the key holder, or else, it would require so much extra time every time to remove the keys without unclipping the pieces that, eventually, you'd just put the key on the table under the key holder and be done with it.
As for the USB storage box, there? Tupperware containers are a lot cheaper than Lego.
"Remote control buttons"
You mean those aren't... smartphone app icons? Are we back in the early 2000s?
In all seriousness, this looks nice! It's fun while not being overly cutesy or juniorized, and practical to boot. The familiar style of including clear explanations of some of the more interesting elements used, in lieu of step-by-step instructions, is appreciated. Sure, building these things out of LEGO bricks isn't economically viable given how elaborate some of these models are, but if you were looking strictly to maximize costs, this book shouldn't interest you in the first place. Way to flex that trans-medium blue plate for that phone stand, too. The code breaker and secret message are pretty creative!
Same as @bananaworld . I hate the term 'hacks' as the vast majority of life hacks cause more trouble then they solve. Plus, these are just a set of quirky builds that happen to have other uses too. Even as an AFOL I'm not going to use the majority of them as I've already got a different non-lego product that does the job just as well and for cheaper.
Edit: Also @Huw. You've used an exclamation point for the American price. !4 rather then 14.
So where are the dots sets of these concepts ...?
Feels like Lego is missing alot of opportunities..?
@CCC said:
"I did a real LEGO hack a couple of weeks back. I have a table in the garage that was wobbly and it turns out that a LEGO tile plus hot glue under one of the legs the perfect thickness to stop the wobble."
I've used a black Technic wheel hub to replace a foot on a garden table before now, and use 2x4s as spacers behind trellis when screwing it to the wall, to allow the plants to climb behind it.
I also built a Technic-frame stand for my laptop so the camera was closer to eye-level for Zoom meetings.
2x4 plates have sharp enough edges to scrape limescale from shower doors without damaging them. (the doors, that is)
When everything went remote last year and I had to scramble for equipment, I actually rigged up one of my modular apartments to serve as a camera stand for something I needed to get done - it probably says more about me than anything else that a modular LEGO building is among the more useful things I own.
I made a phone holder primarily from Technic bars ages ago and I actually think it looks pretty good and works well, so I've kept it around. Recently on Facebook though I saw the official LEGO page sharing builds that people had done of the exact same idea! So pretty much it would seem that any sufficiently invested LEGO collector would have already thought of doing these for themselves if the need or desire ever arose.
Looks pretty fun!
You know, I was just thinking about that the other day how I could use my Lego to help achieve a task such as Tape Dispenser to perfectly apply 9V Compatible Copper Tape to the Lego Rail Track.
I sincerely swear... if I hear the word "hacks" one more time used in that context, I'm gonna, uh.. Let's stay relatively tame here, okay?
^ I hate it too. It was just about alright in its original context, something quick and dirty created to solve a programming problem, but now it's taken on an unwelcome life of its own :-)
As a teenager, I inherited a slot car set that belonged to my Dad. Since the early '90s he'd stored it in a damp garage with a leaky roof and a rodent problem. Several of the pieces were damaged, and rats had been chewing on some of them. I replaced the most severely rusted pieces of track, the controllers, and the transformer (which happened to be a '70s version which was 24V output instead of 18 as the 1984 set Dad had did; which resulted in much faster cars); and was given the opportunity from another hobbyist to buy a 20-pound box of track for the shipping cost only. The bridge supports were a problem--they were aggravating to attach to the track, and weren't really as good as I wanted in terms of the angles they supported.
So, I went to the box of clone brand pieces I hadn't thrown out yet. Though, a few real Lego pieces had to fill in some gaps, I had more than enough M!@$ B!@$% to do what I needed, and had built supports that worked better and were less fiddly than Tyco's (which had a specific point in the track they attached to); and it cost me less.
Definitely a library get. The code stuff is fun. Once saw someone who built cradles for building model rockets out if LEGO. That puts the bricks too close to a variety of adhesives for my taste though.
I suppose these are more "Overly Complicated Solutions" than "Life Hacks".
I hate the term 'Life Hacks' almost as much as I hate the word 'Gate' put on the end of any kind of scandal.
I am sure the book is interesting but, because of the title, not for me.
Cool, I might use this myself.
@CCC said:
You've started Life Hackgate.
]]
Comment of the day here. We can close the internet now. Well done.
Few uses for Lego parts in my house:
(sorry for my english)
I had a mouse in my basement, so I built a mouse trap (a 'prison' with another room behind for the peanut butter).
My wifi routeur now only work when there is pressure on the reset button, which fits well with the bottom side of a 1x1 round plate. So the pressure is done by a Lego system.
For his 6th birthday, my son asked for a Beyblade. He got a pinata filled with of used bricks, including everything I needed to build a big Beyblade + launcher.
His teacher asked for additionnal Battleship games, so I built one entirely with Lego parts (except 'stickers' for letters and numbers).
Light grey technic brick 1x14 works well for scratching my back.
And many technic bricks to bring back the things that went under heavy furnitures
I don't see myself using these, but I appreciate the effort of re-using Lego pieces in alternative ways.
@Brickeric said:
"
Light grey technic brick 1x14 works well for scratching my back.
"
Brilliant!
@CCC said:
" @The_Sly_Fox said:
"I hate the term 'Life Hacks' almost as much as I hate the word 'Gate' put on the end of any kind of scandal.
I am sure the book is interesting but, because of the title, not for me. "
You've started Life Hackgate.
"
You have to admit that at least Deflate Gate sounds good, after all, it rhymes.
@Brickeric said:
"
And many technic bricks to bring back the things that went under heavy furnitures
"
I have done this many times, too. Knex works pretty good for this too, and you don't have to worry about finding some technic bricks
Other things i have done includes toilet paper roll stick as my apartment didn't have one. It was a black technic axle with some trans neon green 2x2 round bricks. Very Blacktron. I have also used a Bionicle Krana (A more rubbery part) to keep a round crib board from rolling out of it's slot on a shelf. And a few other things, too, I'm sure
@Huw said:
"^ I hate it too. It was just about alright in its original context, something quick and dirty created to solve a programming problem, but now it's taken on an unwelcome life of its own :-)"
Even if said hacks drive improved dynamic synergy? :o)
Put me down as another who hates the term "hack". I only use it to refer to gaining access to a computer through questionable means, or to refer to an incompetent journalist/writer.
I was looking at a website just today, and I noticed the term "Man Hack". I said to myself, "Wait, isn't that a monster to fight in Half Life?"
I quite like the word Hack.
Oh wait, maybe it's because I am German and feeling hungry ;-)
As for the book, I love the code-breaker. Reminds me of something similar I had as a kid. It came as a magazine gift in a Mickey Mouse magazine.
@yellowcastle said:
" @Huw said:
"^ I hate it too. It was just about alright in its original context, something quick and dirty created to solve a programming problem, but now it's taken on an unwelcome life of its own :-)"
Even if said hacks drive improved dynamic synergy? :o)"
Think outside the box. ;)
Of course the secret code is "HEY!"
Build the codebreaker!
Slide the secret message behind it, and reveal the word!
The new cryptography collection from Lego City!