Richard MossMay 8, 2015Crossbeams lets you design and build your own toys

Crossbeams makes it easy to freely create or to design and assemble a huge range of toys

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Electrical engineer Charles Sharman noticed several years ago that as they got older, the children he taught at Sunday School tended to migrate from Lego and other building toys to video games. He wanted them to keep creating, so he started a company called Seven:Twelve Engineering and began designing a building toy that could hold the attention of these older kids. That toy is called Crossbeams, and it can be used to design and assemble a huge range of toys – including big, detailed, moving cars and helicopters.

Crossbeams are small, stiff, white tube-shaped bits of solid plastic. Some are curved or bent at one end. Others are completely straight. There are also special pieces like gears and wheels, and different kinds of joints. Crossbeams join together in two steps: first with a typical male/female connection in which one slides into the other, then with a ring that you twist 45 degrees to secure the joint against different kinds of stress and to allow your constructions to withstand up to 20 lb (9 kg) of normal force.

Each Crossbeam piece can be connected in any of eight different orientations, and there are over 40 piece types (including the joints), so there's a lot of flexibility in what you can produce. Having said that, most frames designed so far can be created from less than half that.

You can buy kits with an instruction set for a single model, Lego style, but Sharman suggests you mix and match pieces from different kits when building – it's more about creativity than assembly. The kits that are available are broken into 10 categories: animals, cars and trucks, construction, helicopters, motorcycles, planes, ships, space, structures, and trees. Fully assembled, these range from small – around 100 pieces total and measuring a foot or less in each direction – to huge – a 2,242-piece model of the US Capitol building is 4.6 feet (1.4 m) wide while a 1,027-piece Saturn V rocket is 7.5 feet (2.3 m) tall.

If you're not into experimenting by hand, you can design your own Crossbeam models in a virtual environment – a 3D modelling program called Crossbeams Modeller – and share it with the community or order your pieces to make it real.

Far from being just a children's toy, Sharman and his team have thought up more practical uses for Crossbeams as well. The product website shows off examples of the interlocking pieces being used to create an elevated trash holder, a book prop for hands-free reading, a rotating Scrabble table, and more. Just as Lego has become a favorite prototyping tool of many engineers and industrial designers, Crossbeams looks as though it has the versatility and ease of use to quickly test out all sorts of ideas.

Price varies wildly depending on what pieces (and how many) you're looking to get. A 500-piece assortment will set you back US$117.09, while the 123-piece Jet Fighter Kit costs $26.02. A kit for a massive 1,482-piece model of the Brooklyn Bridge costs $266.03. And in case you were wondering, Crossbeams only come in white.

Crossbeams Modeller, meanwhile, is free to download and use, so you might like to start there in seeing what Crossbeams are capable of.

Source: Crossbeams

Crossbeams让您设计和制作您自己的玩具

crossbeams让你建立你自己的toys

横梁很容易地创建或安装一个大范围的玩具

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电气工程师查尔斯沙曼注意到几年前，当他们老了，孩子他教在星期日的学校倾向于来自乐高和其他建筑玩具迁移到视频游戏。他希望他们继续创造，所以他开始了一个叫做十二：七工程，并开始设计一个建筑玩具，可以把这些老孩子的注意力。这个玩具叫横梁，并且可以被用来设计和组装各种玩具–包括大的，详细的，移动的汽车和直升机。

横梁小，硬，白色的筒状的固体塑料碎片。有些是弯曲的或弯曲的一端。其他人则完全是直的。也有类似齿轮和车轮的特殊件，以及不同种类的接头。横梁联接在一起的两个步骤：先用一个典型的男性/女性连接在其中一个滑入，然后用一个戒指，你扭转45度，以确保对各种应力和允许您的建筑能够承受高达20磅（9公斤）的法向力。

每个横梁件可以连接任何八个不同的方向，并有超过40件的类型（包括关节），所以有很多的灵活性，你可以生产。不得不说的是，大多数的框架设计，到目前为止可以从小于一半的创建。

你可以买包的指令设置为一个单一的模式，乐高的风格，但沙曼建议你混合和匹配不同的包时，–是创造力比组装件。可用的包被分为10类：动物、汽车和卡车、建筑、直升机、摩托车、飞机、船舶、空间、结构和树木。完全组装，这些范围从小型–大约100件总测量一英尺或更少的每个方向的–巨大的–一美国首都大厦2242段模型是4.6英尺（1.4米）宽，1027张土星V火箭是7.5英尺（2.3米）高。

如果你不尝试，你可以在一个虚拟的环境–3D程序称为横梁建模–模拟自己的横梁模型设计与社区分享它或使它真正为你的作品。

远不只是一个儿童玩具、共享男人和他的团队想出了更实际的用途以及横梁。产品网站显示了联锁块被用来创建一个高架垃圾架实例，免提阅读一本书的道具，一个旋转的拼字游戏桌，和更多。正如乐高已经成为一个最喜欢的许多工程师和工业设计师的原型工具，横梁看起来好像它具有通用性强和使用快速测试出各种各样的想法缓解。

价格变化广泛取决于什么片（多少）你想得到的。500块的分类将使你回到117.09美元，而123个喷气式战斗机的试剂盒成本26.02美元。一个大规模的1482块模型的布鲁克林大桥成本266.03美元。和你想知道的情况下，横梁只有白色。

横梁模型，同时，还可以免费下载和使用，所以你可能会看到什么横梁能够那里开始。