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Design

Stack, Stack, Light: Illuminate Your Lego Creations

Give your Lego robot a pair of shiny eyes with Build Upons.
All images courtesy of Alicia Gibb.

Lunchbox Electronics is manufacturing sets of tiny light-up bricks that can snap right into your existing Lego creations called Build Upons. The company completed a successful round of Kickstarter funding last week, with over 600 backers eager to get their hands on the illuminating bricks.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Lunchbox is headed by Alicia Gibb, a lifelong Lego builder. She started research on lighting up bricks in 2007, albeit "for a different goal," she tells The Creators Project: "I had to make the mindset shift from computer art to a toy."

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The result is a set comprised of a power brick, bridge brick and LED brick. First, the power source plugs into the power brick. From there, you can either stack the LED brick directly onto the power brick, or use a bridge brick in between to help your light reach the right spot. The manufacturing process is three-fold: assembling circuit boards for the LED bricks, metal die-casting to make the proper contacts on both ends of the bricks, and then injection molding the plastic parts.

Getting to the production phase was no small feat. "I think every inventor is surprised by the number of iterations they go through, and I'm no exception," remarks Gibb. "A few months ago I realized we forgot to plan for a 90-degree turn in the bricks, which is a natural way to build. We had to make alterations so the metal now wraps around the top, accessible to all façades."

Build Upons will be released as open-source hardware. That's no surprise, considering Gibb wrote a book on the concept and is founder of the [Open Source Hardware Association](http://Open Source Hardware Association).

The first batch of Build Upons will be ready in October. Stay tuned to Lunchbox Electronics' blog for updates.

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