Old-school film development has almost certainly been automated before but Stuff is willing to bet that very few of those attempts at taking some of the work out of creating images have involved using LEGO.
That was the plan concocted by a Dutch photographer named Jan van den Broek, who has set up a LEGO-based system that takes at least some of the work out of developing images the old way (i.e not using a photo-printer to make hard copies of digital images).
The setup uses LEGO Mindstorm components to run a little vehicle that is programmed to dunk the film, held in a developing container, into the series of fluids needed to complete the developing process. Van den Broek says that the process still needs a little work and it’s little more than a curiosity at the moment. Developing film by hand is more effective but having LEGO do (part of) it for you is just far more entertaining.
Source: via Digital Trends