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Frosty Piss [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/05/lego_ideas_turing_machine/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=article [theregister.com]

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/10a3239f-4562-4d23-ba8e-f4fc94eef5c7 [lego.com]

A working Turing Machine was submitted to Lego Ideas, consisting of approximately 2,900 parts and a bucketload of extreme cleverness. The Lego builder first came across the concept a few years ago and, despite it being an abstract model, decided to attempt making one out of the plastic components of Lego Technic.

Talking to El Reg, the submitter "The Bananaman" stated: "My first few ideas [on] how to do this would be very big and inefficient if they were ever [to be] built, but I usually stopped developing them very early. The first one that could possibly work was three years ago and I built a part of the tape with the symbol reader and a very bad unfinished prototype of the 'truth table' that would use a 32-speed gearbox instead of the 'searching' mechanism. Later I realized that the 'truth table' can be made way more easily (it was my fourth idea on how to build the table and it still had a dozen revisions later on), and I came up with using the registers which made everything easier. I started building the prototype last vacation, then took a break and I've finished it this vacation."

There was also the challenge of fitting into the limits imposed by Lego Ideas. At the time of submission, this was 3,000 parts, and The Bananaman's contraption finally managed to come in at around 2,900. The limit has since been raised to 5,000 parts. Should it get to 10,000 supporters on the Lego Ideas site, it will go into Expert Review, where Lego's professionals will decide if it should be approved for production. The evaluation will depend on a range of criteria, including feasibility and strength of idea.

Original Submission