The Free Universal Construction Kit

Ever wanted to connect your Legos and Tinkertoys together? Now you can — and much more. Announcing the Free Universal Construction Kit: a set of adapters for complete interoperability between 10 popular construction toys.

F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab are pleased to present the Free Universal Construction Kit: a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of intercourse between otherwise closed systems—enabling radically hybrid constructive play and the creation of previously impossible designs.

The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears!, K’Nex, Krinkles (Bristle Blocks), Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, Zome, and Zoob. Our adapters can be downloaded as a set of 3D models in .STL format, suitable for reproduction by personal manufacturing devices like the Makerbot.

Opening Doors to New Creative Worlds

Our kids are already doing it! And when we were growing up, ourselves, we did it too—or we tried to, anyway. Connecting our toys together. The advent of low-cost 3D printing has made such adapters possible, and with it, a vast new set of combinatorial possibilities for children’s creative construction toys.

Another reason we created the Kit is that we believe expertise shouldn’t be disposable. By allowing different toy systems to work together, the Kit makes possible new forms of “forward compatibility”, extending the value of these systems across the life of a child. Thus, playsets like Krinkles (often enjoyed by toddlers) can still retain their use-value for older children using Lego, and for even older tweens using Zome.

Reverse Engineering as a Civic Activity

The Kit offers a “meta-mashup system” ideally provisioned for the creation of transgressive architecture and chimeric readymades. Finally, in producing the Kit, we hope to demonstrate a model of reverse engineering as a civic activity: a creative process in which anyone can develop the necessary pieces to bridge the limitations presented by mass-produced commercial artifacts.

Technical Precision and Fabrication

The Kit comprises nearly 80 two-way adapters. Prior to modeling, the dimensions of the various toy connectors were reverse-engineered with an optical comparator accurate to less than 0.0001 inches (2.54 microns). This precision ensures that the Kit “actually works”, enabling tight snap-fits between custom and commercial components.

In addition to its many one-to-one adapters, the Kit also includes a special fist-sized Universal Adapter Brick which provides connectivity between all of the supported construction systems.

We caution that fabrication with current DIY 3D printing solutions may lack the precision required for reliable coupling compared to commercial pieces like Lego (which have precision less than 10 microns). However, we expect this situation will improve gradually in tandem with improvements to these fabrication platforms.