View allAll Photos Tagged interlock
As far as I know these were the first interlocking building bricks made from plastic. They were designed by Hilary Page as a safe and hygienic alternative to painted or polished wooden bricks.
They are a technological ancestor to the Kiddicraft Self Locking Building Brlcks and the LEGO bricks.
These bricks were introduced in 1939. Hilary Page applied for a patent in 1939 (patent application No 11577, now known as GB19390011577) which was awarded in 1940 and became patent No 529580 (GB529580). Before the second World War, these bricks were sold under the brand name "Bri-Plax" (British Plastic Toys Ltd). During the war production ceased, but in 1945 production was resumed and the bricks were sold under the brand name "Kiddicraft".
Questions
- Does anyone know until which year these Interlocking Building Cubes were made & sold?
- Does anyone know if these bricks can be dated by the mold version (see the different texts inside) or their color?
- How many versions of these bricks exist? Are there more mold versions? I've read different sizes exist and there might be more versions than the two shown in my photo...
See also
www.hilarypagetoys.com/Home/History
P.S. I'll return to adding LEGO 2x4 bricks soon ;-)
24 Interlocking Wrinkled Tetragons 96 units
In my hand.
I was playing around with some leftover wrinkled units I had and found two different compounds of 12 wrinkled rectangles, one cubic, and one octahedral. So when I refolded the unit, I opted for double the fun and combined them. There are two different sized polygonal frames in this model, but they have the same width, and fit together well, in my opinion. I also believe this is the first 24-compund ever done in origami.
Designed by me.
Folded out of copy paper.
The eastern end of the Bloomingdale Branch began here at Clyborn Junction. The Metra tracks and station are just behind the Kennedy Expressway viaduct.
Remainings of an interlocking tower on the territory of the former Berlin Tempelhof classification yard, which was closed in 1952.
Mechanical interlocking machines were used to control the signals and switches at certain junctions where control was best handled by an operator on the ground. The machine was house in a building called a tower. Each lever controlled a switch, signal blade or lock. The levers were locked together so that a certain order must be followed (i.e. switches must be thrown before the signal can be set to clear). They are also locked to prevent conflicting routes from being set up. For example, if the signal facing eastbound traffic shows "clear", the signal in the opposing direction is physically locked so that it can't display clear until the opposing signal is returned to "stop" . This type of machine was connected to the signals and switches by a mess of cables and linking rods run next to the track. The last installation of this type in the United States was at Brighton Park, it closed in 2007. The link has good photos of the signals and linking rods. This video show the same sort of machine in operation in the UK, where this technology originates.
My machine does not use the same methods to lock the levers as the actual machines. However, I was able to mimic the same functions using sliding bars and thread. This machine is my prototype and will have ten levers when I have the parts. All levers are interlocked to each other completely, making it is impossible to give conflicting routes.
Ultimately I'm not building one machine but rather, I'm building principles I can use to make mechanical interlockings for any track diagram. Once I have the prototype machine connected to the appliances and debugged I'll be ready to start a more complicated installation.
The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (4.8 km) northeast of the town of Bushmills.
It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and a national nature reserve in 1987 by the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, the Giant's Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 ft) thick in places.
Much of the Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site is today owned and managed by the National Trust and it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Northern Ireland. The remainder of the site is owned by the Crown Estate and a number of private landowners.
Eight Interlocking Triangles #3
Designer: Byriah Loper
Units: 24
Papar Ratio: 1:2.75
Connection: No Glue
Paper: Astrobrights Copy Paper
Diagram: No Diagram
few more from last night hit and run, very similar this one as the last but lit the top of the monument in this ,did think the spot on these was dust on the lens as had to wipe a few bits off during some shots, but having reviewed them this morning realised that the dust is on the sensor as fastchris pointed out ...sigh ....oh well !
WX tower in Warwick was pretty quiet on a recent Friday afternoon. The tower no longer controls switches and signals and is used by the CSX maintenance of way forces.
This is basically the way I railfan nowadays. Scanner on, an interlocking signal in view and an easy view of the tracks behind me. The location is CP 482 on NS's Chicago line at Porter, Indiana, facing the eastward home signal. The track is straight at this spot for at least 2 miles in either direction. The signal on Main 2 is clear for eastbound NS train 66RB316 (seen in rearview mirror) which had CN 5732-2573 and 116 cars. Date was November 16th, 2021, at 1:12 pm. It would have been a better day had those signals in front of me been semaphores with tower at left and the "Commodore Vanderbilt" or the "Pacemaker" in my mirror...
Five Interlocking Truncated Tetrahedra #2, designed by Byriah Loper, folded by me.
Another wireframe, finally! By far the most fun wireframe in a while. This one is not too hard, but pretty nice and challenging too. Not the ones you would pull your hair on, because of stress. :P
I finally got to actually fold this after a while, because, you know...illustrating stuff.
Enjoy!
Paper : 20*5 cm and 9*5 cm kami.
My first upload of 2012 which was taken yesterday morning when there was a slight covering of frost, which can be seen in the foreground. I've visited here a few times but never been able to come away happy but I find the colours really nice in this shot. The sun was just rising so the foreground grasses have a little glow about them as does the hawthorn bush.
The northbound track geometry train had the OTHER set of CSX F units on the point! Both sets of Fs by Haley within an hour of each other ... they would have met at Pimento or maybe Sullivan!
The mind, it boggles.
And that's Clee looking out of the tower window. He didn't manage to stay away from the tower for very long! :)
Before Metra's tie-up yard migrated west to Elburn, this was the scene in West Chicago. It looks a bit different years later.
The rusty old model board inside HX Tower shows a track alignment that was last relevant over 15 years ago.
The former Warteck brewery in Basel is a landmark of industrial architecture that has been carefully adapted for new uses. Central to the transformation is the external staircase designed by Miller & Maranta. More than just circulation, it becomes a defining architectural gesture that connects the different levels of the building while highlighting the contrast between the historic structure and its contemporary reinterpretation.
Die ehemalige Warteck-Brauerei in Basel ist ein Wahrzeichen der Industriearchitektur, das sorgfältig für neue Nutzungen angepasst wurde. Zentrales Element dieser Transformation ist die Außentreppe von Miller & Maranta. Sie ist nicht nur ein Erschließungselement, sondern ein architektonisches Statement, das die verschiedenen Ebenen des Gebäudes verbindet und den Kontrast zwischen der historischen Struktur und ihrer zeitgenössischen Neuinterpretation hervorhebt.
"K9" Twenty Interlocking Triangles #5 60 units
In my hand.
Well, I finally finished this. The first fold was in the September monthly round-up, but that was too loose. This version is perfect. This is a very impressive looking model that is not nearly as daunting to make as it appears. It is based off of PPH#52, so credits to Lang for the render.
Designed by me.
Folded out of copy paper.
“Soccer Ball” Six Interlocking Pentagonal Prisms + 10 Interlocking Irregular Hexagonal Prisms 270 units
3-fold view.
The first version I designed with equal edge widths.
This is a model that I have wanted to design for many years- almost as long as I have been designing wireframes, but I have until the past year lacked both the ability to comprehend how the interior weaving might work, and also the physical tools to implement the design. Neither of those are nearly as much of a problem anymore.
This is a logical extension of prismatic series that Daniel Kwan began so many years ago. A quick look at the 3-fold orthogonal projections of a truncated icosahedron vs a regular icosahedron and dodecahedron (upon which Daniel’s first compounds of 10 triangular prisms and 6 pentagonal prisms are respectively based) will show you exactly why he stopped where he did with prisms. Opposite hexagonal faces are not rotated as an icosahedron’s triangles or a dodecahedron’s pentagons are. Without that rotation, weaving is much more challenging. What to do?
You can force the rotation into the frames themselves so that opposite faces are rotated. I did this in 6 Rhombic Prisms, then modeled the 4 point intersections. (You have to model the intersections because the distortion of twisting a prism works great on the ends of the prism, but as you get towards the middle, the rotation diminishes to nothing.) Or, you can force rotation with wrinkles, as I did in 15 Rhombic Prisms. Crude but effective.
Here, you have hexagonal prisms, which can be “divided” into 2 sets of points where each set represents the vertices of a triangular prism. We already know 10 triangular prisms weaves, so as long as the 2 “triangular prisms” are not the same size (because if they are the same size then they will occupy the same space within the construction, because the midpoint of each edge will be the same distance from the central origin), the compound is weavable. If the “triangular prisms” are not the same size, the consequence with the actual hexagonal prisms is that the faces are irregular because every other vertex is a different distance from the vector which defines the axis of orientation for the prism (ie. the very center of the hexagonal face).
The closer the hexagonal prism is to a triangular prism, the more comfortable the center edges sit, but then you lose the truncated icosahedron in the bargain. Therefore, the goal here was to make the hexagonal prisms as regular as possible to enhance the affect. To do that, I made the prism edges about as thin as I possibly could.
I describe a wireframe compound with more than one type of frame as a “Composition” (not to be confused with composition as the ordering of Euler rotations in 3D), and these are frequently somewhat tacky in my opinion, but I am beginning to see that there may actually be cases in which the use of multiple frame types complement each other. An octahedral version of this should be possible as well.
Designed by me.
Clinton Street tower is seen from the cab car door of an inbound Northwest Line scoot. Saturday, March 31st 1984. Mark Ratzer photo.
Five Interlocking Irregular Hyperboloidal Truncated Triakis Tetrahedra 210 units
5-fold view.
This is the largest (and possibly the best) model I have made this year. It was incredibly complicated to design. The actual weaving was easy, but getting all of the details right took a lot of work. I have wanted to make this since Daniel and I first discussed the concept more than a year ago. The idea has changed a bit since then, but POV-ray is a wonderful aid to visualize these models.
Designed by me.
Folded out of Cordenons' Stardream paper.
Cloudy day, common power...at first thought this slide wouldn't have rated a visit to the scanner while going thru my images from 15 years ago. But after a closer look, realized this is probably the only slide in the collection that shows the entire setup of Southern Railway-era signals at the interlocking with the former L&N (now Alabama & Tennessee River) Mineral Belt line in Attalla. For all the time I spent along the AGS growing up and on frequent visits back in the years right after college, never made any special effort to shoot the signals. They were just Southern tri-lights that will be around forever, right? Seemed that way up until NS picked the AGS North as one of the districts to test out installing PTC, and once that started the old signals (except for a couple of stragglers) were replaced by modern "Vader" ones in a hurry by early 2012. Another lesson to shoot everything, as you never know when the next big thing will arrive and change things in an instant.
Given the dreadful weather and being a Sunday, I must have been headed home to Auburn after a weekend at the parental's in Albertville and stopped in for one quick shot as 164 heads north to Chattanooga 15 years ago today. At least back then those DC Gevos still looked decent even if they were as boring as they are now.
This view from Cherry Street NW gives a good perspective of the Mace interlocking. The southbound Ohio Central train will briefly get on the NS Fort Wayne Line and just as quickly exit it. Instead of a diamond, the R.J. Corman Cleveland Line crosses the Fort Wayne Line on a pair of switches.
32 Interlocking Tetrahedra (and a cube) 192 units +12 units
4-fold view.
I had long figured that a decent compound of 24 triangles should be possible, and then added another 8 triangles for good measure. Finally, I added in triangular points to make each triangle a tetrahedron. I recalled the deficiency of stability in K6 and K7, and thus added a cube for stability. On the one hand, it lessens the “purity of the compound, but one the other hand, it facilitates the easy revelation of the underlying symmetry.
Designed by me.
Folded out of pastel copy paper.