These LEGO Geodes and Minerals let you be a gem-collector without burning a hole in your wallet

Posted on 12/12/2023 by Sarang Sheth

Who knew that a humble interlocking brick from 1932 would become such a versatile ‘pixel’ of the human world nearly a hundred years later?? The LEGO Mineral Display turns plastic bricks into precious gemstones, relying on their inherent geometric nature to mimic the beauty of crystals forming under the extreme pressures of the earth’s crust. Designed in a variety of shapes and styles, these minerals, created by LEGO builder Dario Del Frate, turn you into a gem collector overnight, with the added benefit of allowing you to build the gems instead of mortgaging your house to buy them online! Sure, they aren’t authentic, but they’re intricate, and thanks to the use of transparent gems, gorgeously eye-catching!

Designer: Dario Del Frate

Del Frate designed these minerals back in 2020, sharing them on LEGO’s Ideas forum in August of the year. In a statistical rarity, his submission received 10,000 votes from the broad LEGO community but wasn’t approved by LEGO’s internal team. Del Frate, however, decided to refine his design and renew his effort, also building a display unit with the minerals, giving you a nifty place to store and exhibit them to your friends and guests.

LEGO Amethyst Geode

“The old & new specimens are now displayed in a lovely case, built with available dark and reddish brown elements, enriched with golden rivets. The case can be hung directly to a wall or simply put on a shelf,” Del Frate mentions. “The collection is composed of 6 pieces: Rhodochrosite, Amethyst Geode, Black Tourmaline with Aquamarine, Orange Quartz, Emerald, Pyrite.”

LEGO Rhodoschorite

It’s honestly baffling how versatile LEGO bricks can be, replicating the different kinds of gems rather incredibly well. The different geometries, transitions between amorphous and crystalline structures, and the wide variety of colors get captured in Del Frate’s collection beautifully. While he mentions that his previous LEGO entry had a few ‘illegal’ joining techniques, he’s refined all his designs to now be made in a legal fashion, with no wedging, gluing, breaking, or manipulating the bricks in any unintended ways.

LEGO Orange Quartz

LEGO Pyrite

LEGO Black Tourmaline with Aquamarine

LEGO Emerald

Del Frate’s latest submission sits at the 3,500 vote mark and is open for voting. If it crosses the coveted 10,000 vote threshold, he gets yet another shot at having the LEGO review team consider turning this into a box set that people like us can buy and assemble!

The post These LEGO Geodes and Minerals let you be a gem-collector without burning a hole in your wallet first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Crystalline chandelier for Melissa’s NYC shoe store looks like a massive glowing geode

Posted on 02/09/2020 by Sarang Sheth

Don’t be surprised if you walk into Melissa’s flagship store in New York and you find yourself trying on less shoes and taking more pictures with the massive lighting structure hanging from the ceiling. Meet Crystalline, a lighting installation created by SOFTlab for the shoe brand’s New York outlet. Inspired by the Winter line of shoes, the lighting design looks almost like you’re inside a crystal cave, with geode formations around you.

The installation hangs from the ceiling, with multiple bulbs sitting laid out in an asymmetric fashion. A thin metal frame provides the ideal framework for pearlescent acrylic panels to mounted on, making the structure look like a crystalline formation emitting a steady glow. 50 unique cells and over 400 pieces of custom cut aluminum help bring the lighting unit together, and the dichroic acrylic panels help allow the chandelier to change color as you change your viewing angle. It also casts a rainbow spectrum of colorful swatches across the store, truly making the retail experience ‘magical’!

Designer: SOFTlab for Melissa

ICYMI: DIY Iron Man

Posted on 04/04/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Today on In Case You Missed it: British inventor Richard Browning show us his (slow, careful) flights across a test area using his "Daedelus" jet pack prototype. Daedelus consists of six kerosene-powered microjets strapped to his limbs, which doe...

A Seating Sanctuary

Posted on 17/02/2017 by Troy Turner

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Modern office spaces have ditched cubicles and grown to be more open and communal, but sometimes you just need a darn break from your coworkers and the action! That’s where Geode comes in handy.

It provides an intimate, cozy setting to keep out audible and visible distractions. Inside, you can curl up, lounge about, or roll over the entire chair to make yourself comfy! All while you feel secluded and private even within an open workspace. Geometric and alluring, it’s also a beautiful sculptural accent that won’t kill the vibe of your office.

Designer: Ngā Pae Māhutonga

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Carved Geode Skull Looks Straight out of Indiana Jones

Posted on 01/02/2014 by Shane McGlaun

Growing up my grandmother had a round rock inside her flowerbed. She had carted around that rock for eleventy billion years, otherwise known as her childhood. My brother and I used to bowl with it because it was round and pissed off our grandmother. Once day we broke the rock in half, which wasn’t as hard as it might sound, and realized it was a geode.

I have had a soft spot of wonder for geodes since then. An artist named Skullis creates life-size hand-carved skulls out geodes and they are awesome. It looks like a prop from an Indiana Jones flick. Each skull is intricately carved and is open on the top showing the crystals inside the skull.

Someone already bought this particular geode skull for $1560(USD), and I would say that is money well spent. If you’d like a carved skull of your own, be sure to check out Skullis’ online shop, which has many other stone and crystal skulls available for purchase in a variety of sizes and price points. The black obsidian one is especially impressive:

[via Lost at E Minor via Laughing Squid]

iCache Geode claims title of first shipping iPhone e-wallet, asks ‘who needs NFC?’

Posted on 01/06/2012 by Jon Fingas

Apple has been sending mixed signals as to whether or not it will bring NFC to the iPhone for mobile payments, but iCache clearly isn't waiting for the technology to show its face -- the company just started shipping its Geode e-wallet. As we saw just a few weeks ago, the Geode simply rolls existing credit and debit cards into a proxy GeoCard that's scanned at the store to handle transactions. Although it demands a specially-made case with an e-paper screen and fingerprint reader, not to mention an app to manage the attached cards, the choice lets an iPhone owner buy goods at all the usual places instead of having to hunt down special terminals. We like the one-card universe it creates, although it's clear the shopper has to carry a lot of the responsibility for making this digital payment dream a reality: at $200 a pop, the Geode's wallet-slimming effect carries a premium, especially since it won't work with anything besides an iPhone 4 or 4S.

iCache Geode claims title of first shipping iPhone e-wallet, asks 'who needs NFC?' originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CTIA 2012: a look back at our favorite devices

Posted on 10/05/2012 by Sean Cooper

CTIA 2012 is wrapping up and we thought we'd spend a few minutes reminiscing about some of the more interesting devices we had a chance to see for the first time or that were launched here. Unfortunately for us -- and thereby for you, too -- the show lacked the bite we've seen at previous events, in fact it barely registered a nibble. We did catch up with five products we'd like to highlight so follow on after the break for our recap.

Continue reading CTIA 2012: a look back at our favorite devices

CTIA 2012: a look back at our favorite devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 15:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iCache Geode digital wallet hands-on (video)

Posted on 10/05/2012 by Sean Cooper

The iCache Geode was easily the most impressive use of technology that we saw during CTIA 2012. It's the epitome of how a fantastic tech idea can be translated to real world use in a very classy and clever way. At its heart it is extremely simple: take all your existing credit, debit, and loyalty cards, save them in a secure way and be able to use any of them without actually having the original cards handy. The system is comprised of a housing for the iPhone coupled with an app, an E Ink display on the rear, a fingerprint scanner, the GeoCard, and a magnetic stripe reader that is capable of quickly reading in your card details and saving them. Using the Geode is a two-step process, scan all your cards into the device with an included scanner attachment, then using the iPhone app select your method of payment and the GeoCard in the housing is instantly programmed. Pop the card out, tap it on a solid surface to activate it and spend your money. Loyalty cards are equally easy to use: select one of them in the app and its barcode is written to the E Ink display on the Geode's rear surface.

Of course iCache has considered the security implications and has addressed them a few different ways. The iPhone doesn't store any of your card details as they're kept in the housing itself, on launch the app does a hardware check to be sure nothing's been tampered with, asks for a fingerprint scan, and the card programming only lasts for a user-defined period of time after you've tapped it on the table. Click on through for a video demo of the whole ride.

Gallery: iCache Geode digital wallet hands-on (video)