30th November 2007

K’nex Lamp

On Thanksgiving I had my family over and my nephew was mesmerized by my K’nex end table. I think he loved the idea that a grown-up had used toys to make something so functional and had it proudly displayed in the house. He asked if I had any more K’nex left over because he wanted to play with them. I dug my box of K’nex parts out of the closet for him, and it got me thinking about building with K’nex again. The table was the only thing I had made with it, and that was over ten years ago.

ikea-lamp
The light element
used in the lamp.

A few nights later I found myself sleepless again and in the mood for some good old fashioned pen-on-paper writing and illustration. Normally I’d do that during the day at a coffee shop, but it was late and I found myself without a desk lamp! I rummaged through my lighting box looking for something suitable and came across a little IKEA-style accent light.

Immediately I thought of rigging up something with K’nex to hold it in the air so that I wouldn’t get long shadows when writing. A few hours later the first version of the K’nex lamp was complete. Of course, by then the mood to write had passed. The next day I spent a few more hours refining and improving it. It’s stands about two feet tall. Like the table, it uses no glue.

K'nex Lamp
K'nex Lamp
K'nex Lamp

There are currently 5 responses to “K’nex Lamp”

  1. 1 On December 3rd, 2007, 9see said:

    Thats one AWESOME lamp!

  2. 2 On January 15th, 2008, JenTiki said:

    That is totally rockin! Your creativity amazes me!

  3. 3 On November 20th, 2008, K'nex Instructions said:

    Very cool mod! You should make the lamp adjustable with hinges.

  4. 4 On February 14th, 2011, megamax12199 on youtube said:

    Omg thats so cool!

  5. 5 On April 25th, 2012, K’NEX Office Supplies | Shoplet Office Supplies Blog said:

    [...] extra motivated because I could make office supplies with them! I love the hole puncher and the desk lamp! (see the hole punch in action in the video [...]