RIM tested machines using Lego

THE MAKER OF Blackberrys, Research in Motion (RIM) came up with a clever of testing the reception of its 900MHz devices. It used Lego.

According to PCStats, one of the engineers behind the Blackberry, Matthias Wandel wanted to know how the mobile device did when you tilted the pager at various angles.

What he did was build a Lego machine which rotates the pager about a horizontal axis, as well as a vertical axis. The vertical axis rotation is accomplished by having one side of the machine drive around a central pivot on which the other side of the machine rests. The machine drives a full circle every couple of minutes. Worked too.

There is a picture of the industrial use of Lego here. µ