These Adapters Let You Combine All Your Toys Into One Monstrous Conglomeration of Fun

Building block toys like LEGO and K'Nex are fun to play with on their own, but their basic shapes can be a little inhibiting. Sometimes, the architect within wants to add a few Tinkertoy parts to a Lincoln Log building, only to find that the mental blueprint doesn't translate in real life.

The Free Universal Construction Kit is here to help you achieve those Frankenstein toy dreams with special adaptors that let you transcend brand. Printable parts will allow builders to combine 10 different children’s construction toys: LEGO, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears!, K’Nex, Krinkles, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, Zome, and Zoob.

The free kit is the product of organization F.A.T. Lab and design studio Sy-Lab. It comes with over 80 adaptors that can be downloaded from Thingiverse and printed with a 3D printer. The goal is to expand building possibilities and open up more creative possibilities for children. 

F.A.T. Lab explained why they created the handy pieces on their website:

Our kids are already doing it! And when we were growing up, ourselves, we did it too—or we tried to, anyway. Connecting our toys together. Because: what if we want to make a construction which is half-Tinkertoys, half-K’Nex? Why shouldn’t we be able to? We dreamed about this possibility years ago, when we were small, and we knew then, as we know now, that we’d need some adapters to help. The advent of low-cost 3D printing has made such adapters possible, and with it, a vast new set of combinatorial possibilities for children’s creative construction toys.

You can check out a full graph of all the different adaptors here. As you can see, the mashup possibilities are endless, so what are you waiting for? It's time to get building.