Lego Digital Designer (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 6, 2015 Deadline May 2015 Issue Building things provides me with hours of relaxation and a sense of accomplishment. As children, we appreciate the creativity expressed by Tinker Toys, K’nex, Lincoln Logs and LEGO bricks . As we age, we discover new building kits, from detailed plastic models to advanced robotics kits. Yet, for many of us nothing beats the plastic, stud-covered bricks. Though LEGO remains the undisputed king of plastic bricks, interesting kits are available from Best-Lock and Mega Bloks. And recently, I discovered the challenges of working with Nanoblocks from Japanese toy company Kawada. Nanoblocks are one-eighth the size of standard blocks. Following standard plans, the resulting models are incredibly small. The real joy of bricks, however, isn’t in following a plan designed by someone else. Completing a Taj Mahal or Empire State Building model feels like a huge accompl...
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