During my incursions into LEGO patents at USPTO, I found another interesting 'Interlego AG' patent.
Hope I'm not taking a wrong conclusion, but see from the Patent Design D374.257, how the TECHNIC beam could have looked like. See more details an images from the excerpt below.
This was filed back in September 1994 and shows an 11L TECHNIC beam like, element (see here, its current counterpart).
It took almost 1 year till LEGO fills another patent, with the actual design for TECHNIC beams and liftarms.
See it below from the design of a 'TECHNIC Liftarm 1 x 9 Bent (6 - 4) Thick' (Patent Design D374.465) and compare how different, they are in the details.
Toy building element Sten Schmidt | Toy building element Sten Schmidt |
Edit:
After a comment to this post, from Phil, I was found that patent above refers to a DUPLO part with reference 6525 and which name is "DUPLO Technic Beam 11"... :P
Somehow a TECHNIC part anyway. ;)
There is also a 7L version.
Parts like these, belong to 'Early Simple Machines' sets, which is like a TECHNIC for the Juniors.
Always learning...
Last Update: 2008.May.04 01:52 GMT
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4 comments:
Interesting...It looks fragile. Even current design of the beam is quite flexible, i often see kind of dents on them...
It is a duplo beam! Kinda kinda like duplo technic. From the lego education simple machines set. I have some of these. Phil
Opps...
That's correct! With your hint I managed to find it at BrickLink database.
It is called "Duplo Technic Beam 11", so it is TECHNIC anyway... ;D
See it here (Part Ref. 6525).
And there is also a 7L version.
Wow, who would have thought there was something like TECHNIC for toddlers?
If the proportions are like for "regular" TECHNIC, those axles should be almost as thick as a 2x2 round brick: perfect for heavy torques!
The problem would be interfacing them with the "regular" parts... rubber bands would be an obvious solution, but then all the gains in torque transmission would go down the drain.
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