RIM uses Lego to test BlackBerry

by Sean Cooper, posted Apr 13th 2007 at 5:55PM

Back in 1998, when BlackBerry was just starting to garner some attention with its messaging devices -- voice was still but a dream at this point -- RIM engineer Matthias Wandel found a low tech solution to a high-tech testing problem. The BlackBerry 950 was a 900MHz device and moving them a couple centimeters this way or that or changing the devices orientation produced significantly different test results. Eschewing high-tech wizardry for the kid's Lego bin, Matthias was able to construct a device that could rotate the 950 through it's horizontal axis and vertical axis, looked sweet, and likely cost all of 10 bucks to make. We commend anybody who can create useful real world tools with toys, though of course we expect RIM can now afford Robots for this type of chore, or at least Lego robots.

[Via Slashdot]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Robots

Tags: BlackBerry, lego, robot, testing

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

kokasov @ Apr 13th 2007 6:03PM

Nifty.

Neutral

krolco @ Apr 13th 2007 8:09PM

This is really, really old... I first read this story a couple of years ago.

I guess Slashdot just recently discovered Matthias Wandel's page en masse...

Neutral

Andir3.0 @ Apr 14th 2007 11:12AM

"This is really, really old... I first read this story a couple of years ago."

Yeah, the Internet is all about spitting every piece of news available the second it's released on every blog and news site all over the internet. That would be awesome! Let's have everyone visit a site all at one time! Where have I heard of this before...

It's called the Slashdot effect.

"I guess Slashdot just recently discovered Matthias Wandel's page en masse..."

Amazingly enough, if you did read his site, you would see that he even analyzes the traffic from Slashdot referrals back in 2003.

So much for that "I saw it first" (similar e-peen mentality) post.

Neutral

Liam @ Apr 13th 2007 8:14PM

Huh?

How is this news?

I worked in evaluations for the R&D department of a major biomedical company and it's no exaggeration to say that we did this type of thing every day. You won't see it on Engadget, though.

Slow news day, perhaps?

Neutral

WTangoFoxtrot @ Apr 13th 2007 10:19PM

I wonder if we are still doing stuff like this at RIM, i'll check up with the hardware folks at Waterloo.

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