Written on June 15, 2008 – 3:00 am | by Bogdan Alex |
I first started to play with LEGO bricks back in 1987. How nostalgic of me…. Well, I still have some sets although they are hidden somewhere. I remember that LEGO made specific sets for age categories. The most advanced sets were found under the LEGO Technic sub-brand. Cool times, I almost miss playing with all that stuff. LEGO actually added another advanced set, called Mindstorm, which concentrates on electronic stuff embedded in plastic bricks. Involving a bit of creativity, you can actually build some useful stuff out of these sets, like computer peripherals.

Using the Mindstorm bricks, Anders Søborg has built and programmed his own NXT scanner. Some of you might not know what NXT scanners are. These are simpler versions of the flatbed scanner that can scan and save images as BMP-files. The images scanned can be saved in either 24-bit true color, 8-bit color or gray scale.

The LEGO scanner isn’t faster than any other scanner on the market. In fact, it’s sort of slower than the average flatbed scanners. But keep in mind that you only pay a fraction on the LEGO brick toys. Anders was also kind enough to include DIY instructions on making your own, complete with programming instructions and all, on his website.