Electronics

14 year-old designs functioning Lego printer

14 year-old designs functioning Lego printer
The PriNXT functioning printer made of Lego by 14-year old Lego Mindstorms wunderkind Leon Overweel
The PriNXT functioning printer made of Lego by 14-year old Lego Mindstorms wunderkind Leon Overweel
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A sample image printed by the PriNXT
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A sample image printed by the PriNXT
The PriNXT functioning printer made of Lego by 14-year old Lego Mindstorms wunderkind Leon Overweel
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The PriNXT functioning printer made of Lego by 14-year old Lego Mindstorms wunderkind Leon Overweel
The PriNXT employs three motors to control the motion of a felt tip pen
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The PriNXT employs three motors to control the motion of a felt tip pen
The printer also makes use of two touch sensors, a light sensor and a color sensor
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The printer also makes use of two touch sensors, a light sensor and a color sensor
View gallery - 4 images

The PriNXT may not be the first functioning printer made of Lego, but given that it was made by 14-year old Lego Mindstorms wunderkind Leon Overweel, we won't hold that against it.

The printer employs three motors to control the motion of a felt tip pen. Overweel converts source image files into to a text file of 1s and 0s using Paint.NET, which is then (after some tinkering) imported into RobotC - a development environment used to control Lego Mindstorms NXT robots (among other things) based on the C programming language.

Two of the PriNXT's motors control the pen along the X and Y axes, while the third lifts and lowers it from the page. The printer also makes use of two touch sensors, a light sensor and a color sensor. The light sensor is cleverly used to assist with the vertical motion of the pen.

This is by no means Overweel's first foray into Lego engineering. Only last month, he blogged about his Skype-controlled NXT Car. Check out Overweel's video of the printer fulfilling its raison d'être below.

Source: World of Mindstorms, via Make

PriNXT - A LEGO Mindstorms NXT Printer (Drawing WilsonTech1)

View gallery - 4 images
9 comments
9 comments
PeetEngineer
Something tells me this Overweel kid is going to do rather well for himself if he keeps this up. Very clever.
YetAnotherBob
It's not a Printer, it's a flatbed plotter.
Still, it's a cleaver device. Kudos to the designer.
Mark Hansche
Somebody give this kid some hydrogen and a Radio Shack giftcard. I'd like to see reliable Fusion power and FTL propulsion before I die.
b@man
...you think maybe Leon may have had a little help from his dad?:)
Leon Overweel
b@man: nope it's all me :)
Frank L'Estrange
Ever tried making a scanner with the lego light sensor?
agulesin
b@man - he certainly had moral support, something which makes people more *willing* to succeed. Well done Leon, if you're still following. When I was young, I designed a "new" type of steering mechanism and sent the details to Lego. They sent a thank-you letter!
3razer
Bravo Leon when can you start working on the smartphone builtin printer. Nothing fancy, just something small and built into the phone so I can print out the occasionall address or list that I need on paper
Facebook User
to yetanotherbob: PRINTER