Subject:
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Re: Studless building techniques
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.edu
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Date:
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Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:51:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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7085 times
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In lugnet.robotics.edu, Merredith Portsmore wrote:
<snip>
>
> http://www.lego.com/eng/create/technicdesignschool/default.asp
>
> Course: Beams & Connectors
> How LEGO TECHNIC elements work together.
> Lesson 1: TECHNIC 101
> Lesson 2: Stability with LEGO TECHNIC
>
> Course: Gears
> TECHNIC on the Move!
> Lesson 1: Gearing 101
>
>
> Merredith Portsmore
> Tufts Center for Engineering Educational Outreach
> Legoengineering.com
Meredith,
Thanks for posting this. It is wonderful first shot at some of these building
topics.
I am concerned, however, about the Pythagorean triangles on the Stability link.
The figures show two Pythagorean triangles, namely the 3-4-5 and 6-8-10
triangles. The figures, unfortunately and arguably incorrectly, show the
lengths as 4m, 5m, and 6m and 7m, 9m, and 11m. The first course on beams
defines one 'm' to be the distance between the centers of adjacent holes. As
such, the figure labels of 4m, 5m, and 6m (and the 7-9-11) are misleading.
Agreed, there is discussion in the text of there being six holes but the
distnace is really 5m, but this has all the ingredients to send your typical
12-year-old packing. They can learn to count starting at zero or compute the
distance by subtracting one from the number of holes; we should work hard to
make sure that the explanations aren't internally inconsistent. The 3-4-5 works
with the Pythagorean theorem; 4-5-6 does not. Telling them that the distances
are 4-5-6 in the figure and then doing Pythagoras with 3-4-5 creates, methinks,
more problems than it solves.
(It might be helpful to show that 5-12-13 and 7-24-25 are Pythagorean triangles,
too!)
There are actually two further issues; although more minor, they nonetheless
should be addressed. First, the 'm' used in the figures is a lower-case 'm',
while in the text it is upper-case 'M'. Some standardization should be used.
Secondly, if one chooses to use lower-case 'm', one might want to address issues
in conflict with the SI base unit m, which is meters.
Since we are working with Lego, I might suggest using 'stud' as a unit,
eventhough it is not part of the SI lexicon, as far as I know! My understanding
of 'stud' as a unit of measure in the Lego context is that it is equivalent to
the 'module' defined on your pages.
Again, thank you for your postings on technic building techniques. I am sure
that they are of value to many of us who are trying to build better technic
structures. I just want to make sure that the newbies that read this kind of
thing are getting a straight scoop. We need to make sure we get the details
right.
Thanks,
Rafe
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Studless building techniques
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| (...) <snip> (...) building (...) Stability link. (...) 6-8-10 (...) the (...) beams (...) holes. As (...) misleading. (...) the (...) typical (...) compute the (...) hard to (...) 3-4-5 works (...) distances (...) methinks, (...) This I would be (...) (18 years ago, 7-Oct-06, to lugnet.robotics.edu)
| | | Re: Studless building techniques
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| (...) Font issue, I'm sure. The text seems pretty consistent with its use of "M". (...) I wanted to point out here that this was the official LEGO web site you were looking at, not private pages. "M" is actually an internal measurement that TLG has (...) (18 years ago, 10-Oct-06, to lugnet.robotics.edu)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Studless building techniques
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| (...) There are some good basics at the LEGO Technic Design School. They've been slowly adding more (URL) Beams & Connectors How LEGO TECHNIC elements work together. Lesson 1: TECHNIC 101 Lesson 2: Stability with LEGO TECHNIC Course: Gears TECHNIC (...) (18 years ago, 4-Oct-06, to lugnet.robotics.edu)
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