Hacking Your LEGO® Mindstorms® EV3 Kit

7. Hacking LEGO III: Create Your Own LEGO Parts

A friend of mine was printing up LEGO bricks at a convention when a wide-eyed kid asked him if he could print bricks that the LEGO Group doesn’t provide in its sets. Such as, the kid speculated, a 5x3 brick? The answer was, absolutely! Someone already has: Jorg Janssen posted a 5x3 brick on Thingiverse.com that can be customized and output with a 3D printer (see Figure 7.1). You can find it at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:178627.

FIGURE 7.1 A 5x3 brick doesn’t exist in any official LEGO set. So print one! Credit: Jorg Janssen (Creative Commons).

The LEGO Group makes an effort to provide a robust ...