Skip to main content

Brickshelf has Gone Away

If you are browsing through backposts of the blog, and wonder where a lot of the pictures have gone, we apologize. Many of us used links to a image service called Brickshelf, which it appears has been removed. Please do not flame the owners/operators of Brickshelf - I'm not sure why this happened with no warning, but Brickshelf has proved free, high-quality image hosting for AFoLs for many, many years, and they should be commended for what they've done. Personally I keep all my own photos on my computer, but very sadly many folks didn't, so many of those great MOCs may be lost forever, including the accounts of people who have passed away and their Brickshelf accounts remained behind as epitaths.

If Brickshelf comes back, I'll be very, very happy... and if it is gone for good, I'll be very sad for the loss of a cornerstone of the on-line LEGO community. But I'll still be thankful for what we had, for a little while.

On a more proactive note, I'd like to request two things. First, if anybody actually stored all the screenshots that were in my "code snippets" folder, I'd love to hear from you to try to get copies (sadly these screenshots were things I did not have completely backed up). Second, I'm curious where you host your own LEGO images. Brickshelf was unique, to my knowledge, in that you could store text, video, still images, and LDraw files (again, many of which may simply be lost forever). Better yet, it was moderated (a tough job!), so we could link kids to it fairly confidently. Does anyone know of a similar service that offers all of those things? Or if not, what do you suggest?

Update: it seems Brickshelf may be still up, but migrating to a secure site. At least some people have been able to access it via https://www.brickshelf.com/ (note the "s" in https there).

--
Brian Davis

Popular posts from this blog

MINDSTORMS Retires!

2023 is the 25th Anniversary of the MINDSTORMS brand. For 25 years, MINDSTORMS has educated and inspired a generation of robot builders, both children and adults. Unfortunately, the LEGO Group decided to end the line on December 2022. Many ROBOTMAK3RS have been passionately involved with the development of MINDSTORMS through the MUP and MCP programs. Even with the newest Robot Inventor line, several ROBOTMAK3RS were invited to submit additional bonus models that were included in the official app. Regardless of the retirement of a major LEGO robotics product line, ROBOTMAK3RS continue to MAKE-SHARE-INSPIRE using all LEGO robotics platforms available to us. Here is the official statement from LEGO. Since its launch in September 1998, LEGO MINDSTORMS has been one of the core ‘Build & Code’ experiences in the company’s portfolio, carrying with it significant brand equity and becoming a stand-out experience for the early days of consumer robotics and leading to current Build & Code

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by  Coder Shah  in our  MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity.  1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix Part 1

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we asked ROBOTMAK3RS to combine a LEGO set of their choice with a MINDSTORMS set. Here is what these five ROBOTMAK3RS came up with.  MINDSTORMS Chess Assistant by Arvind Seshan Overview: When you are new to chess, it can be a challenge to remember which pieces go where. Now, you can use machine learning and LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor to build a tool to help you learn where all the chess pieces go on the chess board. Sets used: LEGO® Iconic Chess Set (40174) and MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor (51515) Review: I really like how the chess set base can store all the pieces underneath and that the board neatly splits in half for handy storage. The chess pieces themselves are very sturdy and well built. My only criticism is the building of the box itself. It was quite difficult to see what pieces to use and since the entire box is made mostly of thin plates, it took a lot of time and patience. I would have liked the storage area to be sliding dra