Man Creates ATLAS Detector From Lego Bricks 54
First time accepted submitter Vicsun writes "It won't be smashing hadrons at speeds that are fractions of the speed of light, but it will still be a hell of a lot of fun, and could be in your hands soon. A post-doc at the Niels Bohr Institute, in Copenhagen, has recreated the ATLAS detector in Lego bricks, and is now trying to transform his design into an official LEGO product."
When will it stop? (Score:4, Funny)
It's getting to a point where all the various types of LEGO could be an entire store unto itself!
At this point, I'm surprised nobody has designed these bricks to have actual purpose such as mechanical, electronic and/or other type of entities that could be programmed and then assembled to do SOMETHING.
I was once a kid and I recall my fun with LEGO, but, back then, there were just a bunch of pieces and you let your imagination go, now, it's utterly ridiculous.
Maybe we should be building a LEGO Inflatable Doll
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It's older than that. Twenty years ago they already had lego shafts, cogs and belts for building mechanisms. Then came the lego motors in increasingly sophisticated form, and the pneumatic parts.
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Here is a stand-alone Lego Motor block from 1976:
http://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/universal-building-set/supplemental/lego-107-1-4-5v-motor-set/ [toysperiod.com]
Here is a page full of Lego Technics sets from 1977:
http://www.brickset.com/browse/themes/?theme=technic [brickset.com]
I remember wanting that motor block and those shiny new Technics sets when they first came out, I wanted them so bad...
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At this point, I'm surprised nobody has designed these bricks to have actual purpose
It does have an actual purpose. From TFA:
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What, you mean like the Mindstorm? [wikipedia.org]
Re:When will it stop? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first lego "kits" appeared in 1964; there was already a motorised Lego train set by 1968. While there was certainly a "dark age" of kits with specially-designed non-transferrable parts in the 2000s, I really don't think the construction-only "golden age" of Lego you're imagining actually existed.
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It did, hell probably still does. Its just it only applied to us poor kids.
If you only went to look at lego kits in the walmart/kmart/cosco if your small, poor town, you didn't see all the fancy parts.
I live in Raleigh NC now, we have a Lego store with the latest Mindstorns and Technics. A couple years ago when visiting the town I grew up in on the West coast of Florida (population 2,800) I was buying a birthday gift for a friends child ... they have no technics, no special kits. Basically about 10 diffe
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It's getting to a point where all the various types of LEGO could be an entire store unto itself!
You want one of these?
http://stores.lego.com/nl-be/?showlanguageselector=true [lego.com]
Atlas detector? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a freakin' 100 ton assault 'mech.
It's not particularly hard to detect.
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It's a freakin' 100 ton assault 'mech.
It's not particularly hard to detect.
Those Atlas D-DCs with their overpowered ECM suite makes it a little more difficult.
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Obligatory momentary dyslexia induced comment (Score:2)
Dupe (Score:1)
Better ATLAS here:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/12/23/2130239/the-large-hadron-collider-has-been-recreated-in-lego [slashdot.org]
http://www.geek.com/news/the-large-hadron-collider-has-been-recreated-in-lego-1452279/ [geek.com]
I thought this was a dupe story, but apparently this one is a miniature model:
http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/21619 [cuusoo.com]
Currently at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Score:5, Informative)
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In October 2012, LBL had its Open House on the 12th. It would be a great exhibit to attract kids and adults alike and so I volunteered to build a copy of the ATLAS Lego Model for the Open House. The original Lego model was designed by Sascha Mehlhase and he maintains a website with information and a construction manual here.
Currently at CoEPP Adelaide, South Australia (Score:1)
I believe (with some certainty) that the original (Sascha's) is currently residing at the Centre of Expertise in Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP) in Adelaide, South Australia, courtesy of an experimental physicist there. It didn't quite survive transport, so it has since been re-constructed on site.
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Based on the photographs from CERN, the big model is actually fairly close to minifigure scale.
Superconducting magnet Technic kit (Score:1)
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The world supply of Lego helium is extremely limited. I don't think it should be squandered on Lego models of the ATLAS detector.
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What about regular helium?
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Polyethylene bricks and some Mindstorms attached photodiodes would make a nice My First Neutron Detector.
Please don't say fractions of anything... (Score:2)
Wait what? (Score:1)
"It won't be smashing hadrons at speeds that are fractions of the speed of light..."
Aren't all speeds some fraction of the speed of light except for light itself?
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Speeds that are the product of an irrational number and the speed of light cannot be expressed as a fraction. Consider yourself out-pedanted.
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Speeds that are the product of an irrational number and the speed of light cannot be expressed as a fraction. Consider yourself out-pedanted.
Why, you can't go C/Pi?
Boo (Score:2)
I was expecting an awesome detailed piece of kit. (Score:2)
Then i clicked the link and saw the tiny non-detailed thing. What are those, 160 blocks?
A LEGO City car looks more complex.
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This. This is what i wanted to see (and order / put on my wishlist)
http://www.geek.com/news/the-large-hadron-collider-has-been-recreated-in-lego-1452279/ [geek.com]
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He's putting together kits for ATLAS collaborators here [mehlhase.info] but I doubt Cuscoo would fund a 2000 Euro [mehlhase.info] kit as a consumer product.
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(You need to click "ATLAS model" in the second link)
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560 pieces.
In fall 2011, I have designed a model of the ATLAS experiment made entirely of LEGO bricks.
It illustrates all details, from the muon and magnet system to the innermost pixel detector and will hopefully be a great eye-catcher for all generations. Here's some key features:
ATLAS LEGO model
about 9500 pieces
roughly 1:50 in scale
(close to scale with the LEGO man)
material cost of about 200
Kit? (Score:1)
When I was a kid, I had a bucket of Legos and an imagination.
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Then raid your brick pile and build one [mehlhase.info].
also CMS (Score:2)
Worthless! (Score:4, Funny)
"It won't be smashing protons and neutrons at speeds approaching the speed of light"
THEN WHAT GOOD IS IT????
It's completely useless if it doesn't help me build my death ray!
Um, I mean my "green energy projector." At least that's what my subsidy application says...
you keep using that word... (Score:3)
It won't be smashing hadrons at speeds that are fractions of the speed of light
it will be doing exactly that. in other news, i can do anything at a fraction of the speed of light.
Nonfunctional... duh (Score:4, Funny)
The whole time I'm reading the article I'm saying to myself, "WTF? How did this guy build a functional ATLAS detector so small and out of legos?"
Functional?
duh... //facedesk
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Title should be "Man Creates Model of the ATLAS Detector From Lego Bricks"
I also read the title and thought he had somehow made a functional replica at lego scales.
ceci n'est pas... (Score:3)
I think the proper title for that Lego model might be:
Ceci n'est pas un detecteur ATLAS.