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Life-sized Lego car that runs on air — Parallax Forums

Life-sized Lego car that runs on air

Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
edited 2013-12-20 09:25 in General Discussion
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/18/5224774/life-sized-Lego-car-runs-on-air
Steve Sammartino and Raul Oaida built a functional car out of Lego bricks that runs on air. The car is the product of the duo's Super Awesome Micro Project, a crowd-funded effort that allowed them to take 500,000 Lego bricks and 256 pistons and design a hot rod-esque masterpiece. The car, from engine to seats, is made completely from the tiny bricks, with the exception of a few structural parts including wheels, tires, and gauges. Sammartino and Oaida estimate they've dropped $60,000 on Lego bricks alone.

Comments

  • dmagnusdmagnus Posts: 271
    edited 2013-12-19 11:31
    About 1:20 you can see a quadrotor, probably doing some of the video...
  • Mark_TMark_T Posts: 1,981
    edited 2013-12-19 11:51
    Lego prop shaft too... Wonder about the differential being lego???
    I want more close ups of the engine and the spec sheet for same!
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-12-20 07:00
    They spent $60,000USD on Leggo bricks? OMG!
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2013-12-20 07:30
    Loopy Byteloose wrote: »
    They spent $60,000USD on Leggo bricks? OMG!

    The thing I find annoying about Lego is how hard it is to get certain bricks or modules. They only sell certain items with sets, not alone, so there's a surplus of certain bricks and a scarcity of others. The notable ones are the Technic turntable, right angle connectors, pneumatics, and certain gears. For example the right angle connectors are absolutely essential for building anything nontrivial, but the base set only comes with I think four of them. You're always bumping up against a need for one or two more and end up buying another Technic set just to get one or two more.

    There are sites like Bricklink or eBay where people buy sets and sell the hard to find parts separately at a markup and shipping. This also means there's a massive oversupply of some parts that no one needs. Looking at that car they had a large number of pneumatic cylinders that must have been hard to source.

    In the end I found it easier to scratch build rather than use Technic parts because of this problem.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-12-20 07:36
    @Martin H
    Maybe you could start a 2nd hand Lego brokerage for hard-to-get Legos.

    I suspect these guys just went straight to Lego and said "If we build this, it will go viral. So give us exactly what we need." It appears they crowd sourced the $$$ to pay for all these bits.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-12-20 09:25
    Martin_H wrote: »
    The thing I find annoying about Lego is how hard it is to get certain bricks or modules. They only sell certain items with sets, not alone, so there's a surplus of certain bricks and a scarcity of others.

    A buddy of mine at work has spent hundreds (probably thousands) on giant LEGO sets, like Star Wars Millennium Falcon and more, and had fun building with his son, who's out of it now. Recently he purged and sold a lot of kits on Ebay. No package, just big ziplock bags of parts & instructions, and he doubled his money on many of the rarer kits. Those LEGO fanboys are hardcore.
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