> ... and sort LEGO bricks by colour
You never sort by color, ever! You sort by form, and then throw every color of that specific form in one bin. If you throw every red brick in the same bin, you'll never find a specific formed red brick because to many red bricks. But if you first search by form and then by color, you are much faster.
As any DBA worth their salt knows.
Index the many valued column, not the column with few discrete values.
Are you sure that's a good strategy if every unique index value requires you to buy a physical container?
You would use arrays: http://brickarchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_639...
How about arithmetic coding? That will give you the highest amount of entropy reduction for any possible number of containers. Which probably means that you’ll sort similar pieces far apart but group by colors that are easy to separate, like red+yellow, brown+green
You can put a few shapes into one container and it's still much faster than searching color-first.
Radix sort. Decide how many containers you're fine with, and group accordingly.
As someone who tried to sort many lego sets lately, I do like this. The problem lies that modern lego has so many unique forms that it feels like you'll have many bins with one or two pieces in.
As the “Disturbing the Piece” podcast points out - you “sort” the good important parts you want easy access to and you “bin” everything else in the giant box you can dig through if needed.
https://youtube.com/@disturbingthepiecepod
That's why you buy different sized bins, and then you can even combine some forms into one bin (but be careful not to combine similiar forms, this counters the goal).
You need to get some bins that have a top shelf like a toolbox. The low item counts go in the top shelf, segregate the bottom for efficiency. Bin by color.
I love that we are ignoring Git and taking Legos.
Anyone have a solution for another annoying problem: 1 missing piece.
Somehow got lost halfway through the build.
If you know the ID, I think you can get Lego ship it to you.
It’s always under the most annoying thing to move or get to. Under table legs, couches, etc.
Also, Lego will send you any missing pieces for free.
Thank you!
Just keep those in a single bin
counterpoint (don't take this to seriously):
there are to many types of bricks to sort by form. unless you have an inventory the size of a brick factory you can only sort by category or by size.
otherwise, sorting by color makes your collection aesthetically pleasing, and when you build, you usually want to use specific colors only to make your model look good.
That's why you have to group similar forms. - Bricks - Plates - Narrow Plates - Wheels - Windows/Doors - Smooth pieces - People bin
And then if you like to sort further you sort out the smallest of each bin because those always fall to the bottom when mixed together
sorting by size needs to come first. from my own experience, you can't find any small pieces if they are mixed/covered by larger ones.
There are less different forms than any normal brick enjoyer has bricks of a specific color. Therefore the lookup is faster ;)
Unfortunately there are so many bespoke LEGO brick forms that this doesn't work.
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