engineering electronics for Light My Bricks

Our electronic engineering team was contacted by Light My Bricks with a challenging brief. The technical team at Light My Bricks were working on a pilot project, to evaluate the feasibility and viability of developing a new lighting product, to complement the LEGO® building brick system.

Light My Bricks’ focus was to develop a new consumer product range to align with their successful lighting accessories developed for LEGO® products. This was a new target market and consumer profile for them, representing a shift away from developing lighting products for the traditional maker market.

The challenge for outerspace was to design a system of lighting products that was simple and intuitive to use. The new Night Mode consumer range would need to allow greater flexibility and integration, allowing consumers to add lighting to construction sets and blocks.

 

a flexible circuit board replaces traditional wiring systems

The key product development focus was to create a design solution that was flexible and consumer friendly, to provide the most options possible when adapting Night Mode products and systems to LEGO® creations. This meant designing items to be as compact, thin and flexible as possible.

Our electronic engineering team replaced the electrical wiring systems that traditional maker customers were using, with a more consumer friendly and flexible circuit board design format.

flexible circuit board system

flexible circuit cables in car

car construction with circuit cables
flexible circuit cables connect lighting to car construction

The flexible circuit board is integral to the new system. It’s flat, compared to traditional wiring, and easily slides underneath and between bricks. It’s very robust and provides direct connection, removing the need for additional connectors and provides simplicity to the design and assembly process.

circuit cables and lighting accessories in Lego
cables and components are designed to fit easily into tight spaces

Our team conducted usability studies to observe, document and test how consumers would thread the flexible board through complex structures, to avoid snags. This informed the technical design and detailing of the new format.

 

multiple special effects capabilities in one micro-product 

Our electronics experts condensed multiple ‘effects’ boards in the existing Night Mode line-up, to create a single special effect product, the FX Spectrum.

the FX Spectrum all-in-one special effects product
the FX Spectrum with control button activates multiple special effects by rotating a central dial

FX Spectrum is designed to be small and flexible. It’s easily incorporated into designs. The compact product is micro-controlled with a two stack PCB, providing a multi-function interface in the very small 3×3 LEGO® footprint.

An STM 32 micro-controller contains all the firmware needed to produce LED flashing sequences to create multiple effects such as ‘flickering fire’, gunfire, ‘spooky’, pulse and emergency lighting effects that are dialled up or down to the desired frequency – slow, medium and fast.

car headlights powered by Night Mode accessories

car tail lights

lights in Lego treehouse
Night Mode lighting components, designed to be easily added to complex constructions

 

designed for seamless and safe power distribution

To distribute power through the Night Mode system, our engineering team designed – Docks. These are designed to distribute power via flexible connectors that ensure people don’t plug into the wrong port, preventing malfunction and increasing usability. All ports in Docks are fused to further ensure safety.

electronic Docks
the Docks system – designed for Night Mode

Night Mode’s Eclipse – cable management clip; Flux pack – battery pack for power distribution and Meteor Light products were also developed by the outerspace team in collaboration with Light My Bricks.

Night Mode Eclipse
Night Mode Eclipse

 

lighting up the design awards

Our multi-disciplinary design and engineering team had great fun working with Light My Bricks and recently celebrated Night Mode’s well-deserved award win at the Good Design Awards!

images supplied by Light My Bricks

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