I was cleaning out a closet over the holidays and came across my Mindstorm NXT robot kit and its half-built starter robot. What was I thinking? I'm from the Lincoln Logs generation!
What attracted me to the Mindstorm robots is the versatility of the pieces. These little robots can be constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed into a completely different robot almost effortlessly (if you are of the millennial generation). The possibilities are almost infinite. The beauty of the system is that many of the pieces are multifunctional. There are only so many types of pins and brackets to keep the whole robot together. The 'brick' which is the brains of the system is easily programmable.
Why can't todays designers and engineers learn from this childs toy? Imagine standardized deconstructable small appliances! What if.....what if all small appliances were distilled down to a standard set of pieces and a number of different appliances could be made from combination's of those pieces, like Mindstorm NXT robots. When I replace my espresso machine, the old machine could be quickly deconstructed and the pieces binned for reuse in another espresso machine or maybe into a blender.
Making things like appliances, computers, phones, other electronics standardized and deconstructable would reduce our resource footprint and reduce landfill. Instead of metal recycling facilities, those facilities could be parts warehouses.
Something to think about.
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1 comment:
Excellent idea! I live in a condo and extra counter space is always in high demand. You will always have the issue of needing a toaster and a coffee pot working at the same time, but in that case you own two basic main units and a load of peripheries. A swell idea from a functionality standpoint.
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