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  • Fusion supply chain | A glimpse into the future for commercial fusion reactors

    Most of the USD 7 billion in investment in private fusion initiatives has gone to companies that are building devices from the ground up. But recently, another [...]

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  • Image of the week | °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Director-General visits Russia

    The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Director-General was in Russia last week, meeting with stakeholders and holding technical meetings with colleagues in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. As [...]

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  • Image of the Week | Sector 5 is on its way

    The first vacuum vessel sector produced in Europe travelled last week between Monfalcone, Italy, and the French port of Fos-sur-Mer. The 440-tonne component had [...]

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  • Anniversary | °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Document Management system turns 20

    Whatever its nature, every large project generates huge numbers of documents. And when project collaborators operate from different countries, as was the case f [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

Let's go Lego!

While the Lego company encourages users to create original models, it will only consider making them into an ''official set'' once the project has received 10,000 votes of support. (Click to view larger version...)
While the Lego company encourages users to create original models, it will only consider making them into an ''official set'' once the project has received 10,000 votes of support.
The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak seems to be quite a source of inspiration for Lego aficionados. In June 2012, Newsline on Japanese artist Sachiko Akinaga who had created an 8,000-piece °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ mockup that was both realistic and naïve, using standard Lego bricks.

A new Lego venture is now creating a lot of excitement within the worldwide fusion community. Another Lego fan is working hard to convince the Lego company to bring the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak into the commercial production line.

Yes—a Lego set that would enable children to build a cutaway section of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak.

is an "Environment and Texture Artist" with Firaxis Games, a Baltimore-based game development studio that produced such blockbusters as Sid Meier's Civilization and X:COM Enemy Unknown.

Andrew has done a lot of computer wizardry to model and to "texture" environments such as terrain or skies, but he's retained a nostalgia for the simplicity and the almost unlimited creative potential of Lego bricks.

And recently, as he told Newsline, he "started getting back into it."

"I came across the website," he explains, "which enables people to submit designs that Lego, under certain conditions, can use as a basis for an official Lego set. I started to think of ideas..."

The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Project had already attracted Andrew's attention: "The idea that we can create fusion, the process that powers the stars, inspired me strongly. So I visited the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ website and the internet to gather as much material as I could find."

Baltimore-based artist Andrew Clark is working hard to convince the Lego company to bring the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak into the commercial production line. (Click to view larger version...)
Baltimore-based artist Andrew Clark is working hard to convince the Lego company to bring the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak into the commercial production line.
Andrew first worked with , free software for creating original Lego designs. The next step was to go from virtual to actual, using available bricks and components to create a real Lego construction.

The operation took a whole weekend, plus some tweaking the following Monday. The result was a striking (and beautiful) rendition of the complex arrangement of the modules, piping, ports and feeders that form the central part of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Tokamak.

But now comes the hardest part. While the Lego company encourages users to create original models, it will only consider making them into an "official set" (and in that case launching fabrication and commercialization) once the project has received 10,000 votes of support on the Lego website.

So we all know what we have to do now: go to the Lego Cuusoo site and press the green "Support" . There's still a long way to go to get to 10,000 votes ... fusion in Lego appears to be as difficult as fusion in real life.


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