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讓您設計和製作您自己的玩具

crossbeams讓你建立你自己的toys

橫梁很容易地創建或安裝一個大範圍的玩具

圖片設計（29幅）
電氣工程師查爾斯沙曼註意到幾年前，當他們老了，孩子他教在星期日的學校傾嚮於來自樂高和其他建築玩具遷移到視頻遊戲。他希望他們繼續創造，所以他開始了一個叫做十二：七工程，並開始設計一個建築玩具，可以把這些老孩子的註意力。這個玩具叫橫梁，並且可以被用來設計和組裝各種玩具–包括大的，詳細的，移動的汽車和直升機。

橫梁小，硬，白色的筒狀的固體塑料碎片。有些是彎麯的或彎麯的一端。其他人則完全是直的。也有類似齒輪和車輪的特殊件，以及不同種類的接頭。橫梁聯接在一起的兩個步驟：先用一個典型的男性/女性連接在其中一個滑入，然後用一個戒指，你扭轉45度，以確保對各種應力和允許您的建築能夠承受高達20磅（9公斤）的法嚮力。

每個橫梁件可以連接任何八個不同的方嚮，並有超過40件的類型（包括關節），所以有很多的靈活性，你可以生産。不得不說的是，大多數的框架設計，到目前為止可以從小於一半的創建。

你可以買包的指令設置為一個單一的模式，樂高的風格，但沙曼建議你混合和匹配不同的包時，–是創造力比組裝件。可用的包被分為10類：動物、汽車和卡車、建築、直升機、摩托車、飛機、船舶、空間、結構和樹木。完全組裝，這些範圍從小型–大約100件總測量一英尺或更少的每個方嚮的–巨大的–一美國首都大廈2242段模型是4.6英尺（1.4米）寬，1027張土星V火箭是7.5英尺（2.3米）高。

如果你不嘗試，你可以在一個虛擬的環境–3D程序稱為橫梁建模–模擬自己的橫梁模型設計與社區分享它或使它真正為你的作品。

遠不隻是一個兒童玩具、共享男人和他的團隊想出了更實際的用途以及橫梁。産品網站顯示了聯鎖塊被用來創建一個高架垃圾架實例，免提閱讀一本書的道具，一個旋轉的拚字遊戲桌，和更多。正如樂高已經成為一個最喜歡的許多工程師和工業設計師的原型工具，橫梁看起來好像它具有通用性強和使用快速測試出各種各樣的想法緩解。

價格變化廣泛取決於什麼片（多少）你想得到的。500塊的分類將使你回到117.09美元，而123個噴氣式戰鬥機的試劑盒成本26.02美元。一個大規模的1482塊模型的佈魯克林大橋成本266.03美元。和你想知道的情況下，橫梁隻有白色。

橫梁模型，同時，還可以免費下載和使用，所以你可能會看到什麼橫梁能夠那裏開始。