Raul Oaida got his LEGO bricks out and made a car. And it's a big car, so it contains more than 500,000 LEGO pieces. It's a collaboration with marketer Steve Sammartino, who provided this list of factoids about the project: Super Awesome Micro Project Factoids: - The engine is made from standard Lego pieces and runs on air! - The engine has four orbital engines and a total of 256 pistons. - More than 500,000 LEGO pieces. - Top speed around 20-30km (We drive it slow as are scared of giant lego explosion) - Built in Romania and shipped to a secret location in Melbourne. - It's a Hot Rod design, mainly because hot rods are cool. The next thing you'll want to do is see the car in action (and note that there are a few non-LEGO parts, like the tires). Next, if you're anything like me, you'll wonder how that "engine powered by air" thing works. Oaida shows a quarter of it on YouTube—note the air pressure gauge, and the airline tubing. It appears to run on compressed air tanks on the road, but a small compressor might be used in the shop.
Note that there are also tiny LEGO compressors that might work at scale...anyway, behold: It turns out there are various LEGO engine designs floating around, many using pneumatics. I'm not seeing a lot of lubrication; perhaps those tough little bricks just don't need it? And here's some Australian TV coverage: (Via the ever-excellent Kottke.)Nathan Sawaya is living the dream. The visionary artist, who is known for building intricate and complicated 3D pieces out of — you guessed it — Legos, has built everything from a large scale T-Rex to Oscar statues (you might remember those from the 2015 Academy Awards). But to celebrate DC Comics’ 80-year history, Sawaya has taken his skills to another level by creating multiple pop culture pieces: including a life-sized Batmobile. This is a dream project,” Sawaya told EW in an exclusive chat. “This is the Batmobile! What other vehicle is so iconic?” The eighteen-foot long piece, which took over two months complete, is part of the artist’s latest exhibition, “The Art of Brick: DC Comics.”
The sculpture will make its debut in Sydney at Australia’s Powerhouse Museum this November. “For the Batmobile in particular, I collaborated with [DC co-publisher] Jim Lee, who was so gracious to actually draw live at a panel at Comic Con for a design of a new Batmobile while we were taking suggestions from the audience,” Sawaya explained. “So as that was how this all started. I used his drawing as a bit of a blueprint to come up with the actual Lego structure and then created this Batmobile brick by brick.” When asked if this is the biggest project he’s taken on so far, Sawaya laughs. “I’ve made a bit of a career taking daunting projects out of Lego,” he admits. “I’ve done things like a dinosaur skeleton and stuff like that. But for me, this was a really exciting opportunity because it was taking this iconic vehicle and getting to interpret it myself. From a technical aspect and engineering aspect, sure, there were some daunting moments…the great thing about the project was Jim [Lee] is a very big car guy.
He really knows cars and I really know Lego, and I thought that was a really good mix.” And his love for superheroes and comics aside, Sawaya takes his inspiration from everywhere. “Sometimes it’s as simple as walking around the city and seeing something, or sometimes, fortunately I have multiple exhibitions, which means I do get to travel a bit,” he says. “And using that travel, I get to experience different cultures, different people. I actually carry a little sketchpad with me wherever I go, so I can jot down ideas and so I can explore those ideas and pull on my own emotions and own journeys for inspiration.” While Sawaya has worked on numerous projects rooted in pop culture, he details this one as somewhat of a different experience. “In this case, I’m taking very well known characters or established characters and getting to reinterpret it myself. It’s an odd thing, in a way, because they know these characters very well,” the artist says. “I found that as a good challenge though, to put my own spin on the characters.
This whole exhibition is really a chance to take a look at good and evil, heroes and villains, and really explore their themes artistically.” So, is Batman his favorite DC character? “Batman is one of the iconic characters, of course, he’s one of my favorites,” Sawaya reveals. “If I had to pick someone else, it’s probably someone like Bunker — which is not a well known character, but someone who can use his mind to manipulate little plastic bricks. And I think that kind of in a way is similar to what I do.”The newest addition to the grand list of Coolest Things Ever is being unveiled in New York today: the Lego X-Wing, the largest Lego model ever built. The model of the classic Star Wars fighter being unveiled in Times Square has a wingspan of 44 feet and comes complete with R2-D2 and a full range of sound effects. It’s a super-duper-sized version of Star Wars Lego starfighter set #9493 and was made with 5,335,200 Lego bricks. That, according to Lego, makes it the largest model ever built, eclipsing the Lego robot at the Mall of America by some 2 million bricks.
This replica of the Rebel Alliance dogfighter is 42 times the size of the Lego version we’ve all built and a bit bigger than a real X-Wing. (Yes, yes, we know they’re not real. Just go with it.) The X-Wing Luke Skywalker and his fellow rebels flew was about 41 feet long, 2 feet shorter than this Lego masterpiece. The X-Wing was built at the Lego Model Shop at the company’s facility in Kladno, Czech Republic. It took 32 “master builders” (Note: This is a real job, and we’re preparing our resumés.) 17,336 man-hours to construct the X-Wing. Plans for the model were created using Lego’s proprietary 3-D design software, and the construction team had to work with a team of structural engineers to ensure that the model was safe, master builder Erik Varszegi told Wired. “This has been a wild and exciting project for us, and it’s taken an international team of designers, engineers, structural consultants, model builders, and logistics personal over a year to bring this model from a conception to reality,” Varszegi said in an email.
“In one respect, designing it was the ‘easy’ part, as we were creating a scaled version of an actual toy construction set.” Once completed, the model — which weighs 45,980 pounds — was broken down into 34 pieces to be shipped to New York by boat (the voyage took two boats two months to complete). Lest the West Coast feel left out, the starfighter is coming to Legoland California after its tenure in Times Square and will remain there until the end of the year. Twenty-three tons is a whole lot of anything, especially Lego bricks, but much of the model’s weight lies in the model’s steel skeleton, which it needed in order to withstand the vibrations from the subway that runs beneath Duffy Square in Manhattan and any seismic activity it could face in Southern California. While a slightly larger-than-lifesize Lego X-Wing would be awesome even if were made for no particular reason at all, the model was built to celebrate the forthcoming premiere of the latest Lego Star Wars series The Yoda Chronicles — a three-part animated miniseries launching on Cartoon Network next Wednesday.