You may have been proud of building an elaborate castle or even a city made from hundreds of Lego bricks as a child, but it takes years of practice to match this engineer’s talent.Andrew Carol crafts ‘steampunk’ mechanical machines from the popular plastic blocks.He was inspired by great machines of the past such as Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine and created an automaton, or writing machine, after seeing the film Hugo.Magical machine: Andrew Carol crafts ‘steam punk’ mechanical machines are all hand cranked and built from the little plastic blocks. This one writes a pre-decided work using a system of chains and gears ‘Machines have long been used to ease repetitive labour. The machines I found most interesting eased the labour of calculation; watches, calculators, difference engines and so on.’‘Having always loved complex mechanical devices, and never having fully outgrown Lego, I decided to explore where computational mechanics and Lego meet,’ he said.'This is not Lego as a toy or art.
This is almost where steampunk and Lego meet - hand cranked devices that perform complex mechanical tasks.’ Write on: Just like automatons - writing machines - from the 18th century, when they were popular, Mr Carol’s machine (pictuerd) uses a complex set up of rods and cams - bumps on rotating parts of machinery In the 2011 film, Hugo, a boy repairs a mechanical machine that can hand write a message, called an automaton. While the machine in the film looks like a boy, Mr Carol, who was inspired by the film, decided against fashioning a human-shaped automaton and instead, made his from bright plastic.‘The Lego mechanism does not look like a boy, but it is a purely mechanical hand-cranked machine that will move a pen to write short messages of up to 150 pen strokes,’ he said.Just like the automatons that were popular in the 18th century, Mr Carol’s machine uses a complex set up of rods and cams - bumps on rotating parts of machinery to move gearsHypnotic: The Lego mechanism is a purely mechanical hand-cranked machine that will move a pen to write short messages of up to 150 pen strokes Since 1978, millions of tiny plastic people have been populating the Earth and it's been predicted that there could be a miniature Lego figure
for every person on Earth in 2019.At the end of 2006, the company announced there were four billion miniature figures in existence, being played with by children across the planet. recently calculated that the predictions for the global population and predictions for the number of Lego Figurines will match up in 2019.If the predictions are correct, there will be almost eight billion people and the same amount of Lego figures calling Earth home in 2019.Lego said in 2008 that it has made 400 billion Lego bricks since the company began, which is enough for 62 each for every person in existence at that time. Mr Carol told MailOnline that the machine took him a couple of months to make.‘I tinker with pieces and parts of mechanisms to start with. Sometimes I doodle diagrams of how the parts will interact on paper,’ he said, explaining how he gets started working on a new machine.To pen a word, he draws out what he wants to write on graph paper.‘I convert that to pen strokes in one of eight directions - left, right, up, down, left and up, etc.‘I then enter that into a computer program I wrote, which simulates the machine.
This enables me to see if the pen-strokes I've chosen will work as expected.‘There are usually a few mistakes I've made so this is where I edit the pen-strokes to do what I want.’The computer prints out a template that Mr Carol uses to assemble link pieces, which form the basis of the five chains inside the automaton.‘A message is encoded in the form of long chains of Lego pieces in a sort of binary code,' which represents text or computer processor instructions using two binary digits, 0 and 1. The finished result: An up-stroke of a gear turns and moves a pen. Each down/up stroke causes one of the chains to advance to the next link, and in this way, a word (pictured) can be drawn out point-by-pointA "wide" link, like a tank track is used to represent 'do nothing'. A “narrow” link, like a bicycle chain is used to represent "move the pen"’, he explained. ‘There is a reader that moves a probe up and down like a sewing needle. If the probe hits a wide link, nothing happens, but if it encounters a narrow link it can slide past and engage a ratchet.‘
On the up-stroke, a gear turns moving the pen. Each down/up stroke of the probe also causes the chain to advance to the next link.In the 2011 film, Hugo (screenshot pictured), a boy repairs a mechanical machine that can hand write a message, called an automaton. While the machine looks like a boy, Mr Carol’s creation is made from bright plastic Chain gang: ‘A pair of chains cooperate to move the pen left/right. Another pair of chains work together to move the paper forward/backwards‘A pair of chains cooperate to move the pen left and right. Another pair of chains work together to move the paper forward and backwards. The fifth chain lifts and lowers the pen.’ Mr Carol is currently working on a machine that can play tic tac toe, or noughts and crosses.He's been thinking about how it might work for five or six years and has spent several months working on the design in his evenings and weekends when he is not working as a software engineer for Apple. He hopes to complete the machine by the end of this year, but until then, it is under wraps.‘
The first challenge is coming up with a mechanism that solves the problem I want solved,’ he said.‘The harder problem is designing it [a machine] to be reliable and easy to build. A mechanism that works 90 per cent of the time is not good enough.‘It really takes many iterations and adjustments to get the design to a place where it works smoothly and reliably,’ he said.He was inspired to make a Lego version of the Babbage Difference Engine – a revolutionary mechanical calculator and forerunner to the modern computer - after he read that the Science Museum in London was working on building one. The automaton is composed of three main elements: the plotter, which moved the pen and paper to write the message, a series of chains which enable the selection of certain letters, and a reader that decodes the program chain.The plotter manoeuvres a piece of paper left and right using small rubberised wheels and the pen moves up and down to apply ink to the paper. There is also a mechanism to raise and lower the pen.
Lego ‘link’ pieces are used to form a chain, which encode binary values in a program chain. A narrow link indicates ‘do something’ and a wide link, ‘do nothing’ and these signals combine to control the pen and paper.The machine has five chains that are fed though the machine to a reader, just like film in a projector.They are read in a ‘reciprocating fork mechanism’. A fork moves down to a link in the chain. A narrow link under it allows it make a full down stroke that engages a ratchet, while a wide link under the fork doesn’t engage.If it engages, the stroke will rotate a wheel 1/6th of a revolution, but if it isn’t, it does nothing.The chain automatically moves to the next link so the next pen stroke can be read.The two-way motion of the moving pen and paper uses two complementary mechanisms that share a single axle.Like a film projector, a ‘Geneva’ drive mechanism is used to convert rotational movement from the crank onto stepped movement. After his automaton success (pictured) Mr Carol is currently working on an equally intricate machine that can play tic tac toe, or noughts and crosses
You can count on Lego: Mr Caroll was inspired to make a Lego version of the Babbage Difference Engine (pictured) – a revolutionary mechanical calculator and forerunner to the modern computer - after he read that the Science Museum in London were working on building one‘I thought about it for almost a decade before I finally figured out how to make one,’ he said, but when he focused on the task, it took him six months.‘The first machine worked but was very, very, hard to build. That taught me a lot about how to improve the building process. I then made a second and third generation machine – the one you see,’ Mr Carol said.‘They were much easier to build, ran several times faster and they were much more reliable.’Like the real deal, his Lego Difference Engine uses Newton’s method of differences to variable for successive numbers.His second complex ‘steam punk’ Lego machine was a version of an eclipse predictor – an ancient Greek mechanical computer first built in around 150BC.
His second complex ‘steam punk’ Lego machine was a version of an eclipse predictor (pictured) – an ancient Greek mechanical computer first built in around 150BC The original eclipse predictor was designed to calculate the position of the sun and the moon as well as to calculate the dates of the solar and lunar eclipses. A section of the Lego creation is picturedIt was designed to calculate the position of the sun and the moon as well as to calculate the dates of the solar and lunar eclipses.Explaining why he chose a plastic toy to reimagine the ancient machine, Mr Carol said: ‘I've loved Lego since I was young and rediscovered it as an adult in my 30's.‘I do the hand cranked machines because people are jaded by computers. People know you can do almost anything by computer, so nothing really impresses anymore.‘But seeing something so complex happen because of gears being cranked seems so much more impressive. People understand Lego, they grew up with it. Seeing it do really complex things makes them think.‘