Brick Heart: The project
Brick Heart aims to make building LEGO models digitally as accessible as possible across languages and input modalities, so that a model can be assembled without a mouse click or drag. It uses LDraw, the community-run open format for digital LEGO models.
Three components, each with its own Git repo:
- brickheart: the main application
- LPlace: a spatial command language for manipulating parts in an LDraw model, designed for voice control
- LFrame: the renderer which doesn't require mouse input to control
Design principles:
- Branching commands with adaptive input assistance
- Relative, local positioning rather than absolute coordinates
- Short, distinct part aliases
- One interface, several inputs (voice, touch, keyboard)
- Modular and multilingual, including right-to-left support
What's done
- Website live at brickheart.org. It's a simple semantic HTML page.
- Email set up:
wave@brickheart.org: short and speakable. - Repos created for brickheart, LPlace and LFrame.
Next steps
- Improve the page's accessibility: add the background colour, dark mode and focus styles, then run Lighthouse or WAVE and do keyboard and screen reader checks.
- Add contact and an accessibility statement to the site, with a plain
mailto:link using the full address as link text.