Little Coloured Bricks

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Have you ever wondered how Lego bricks work? Or how they are made? How can some poeple make 30-meter towers out of Lego? How can one snap two Lego pieces together, and they don’t slide off from each other? It has been over 50 years since the bricks were introduced, and a lot has changed be it in addition of another piece, or a minifigure,  but one thing has not changed about Lego -it is still is utterly fun to play with. Despite its age, the mechanism behind the Lego bricks have remained the same.

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How Lego Works

With a look at a Lego block’s structure, you will notice studs on the top, and tubes on the underside of the block. Apart from being an iconic feature to the toy, it serves a very important purpose. Studs are a bit larger than the tubes at the bottom of a piece. When you put together two blocks, the slightly larger studs fit tightly between the tubes pushing it’s way in. However, since the tubes are very resilient, it pushes back on the studs. Since both parts are pushing against each other, this allows the two pieces to hang on to one another. This is called an interference fit. It is a firm, friction-based connection which allows two pieces to stick without a separate fastener.

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All Lego pieces work on this principle , no matter the size, shape, or color -be it bricks, plates, roof bricks, even base plates.

How Lego Pieces are Made

All Lego pieces begin their lives as plastic granules and require much heat and huge machines before they become the recognizable Lego pieces that people know. The plastic granules are composed of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or ABS.

ABS Granules Used For Lego Bricks (Photo Via BusinessWeek.com)

Lego pieces are formed when the ABS get to Lego’s manufacturing plants, and vacuumed into storage silos within the facility for storage. A Lego manufacturing plant has about 14 silos that can hold a total of thirty three tons of ABS granules.

Production begins when the granules are funneled through tubes and into super accurate molding machines. These machines are so accurate, that only 18 out of a million pieces are considered defective. The ABS is melted in the machines at temperatures of up to 450 degrees and injected into molds with twenty five to a hundred and fifty tons of pressure. The actual injection takes about 7 seconds,before a new Lego piece is formed.

The new Lego piece then falls into a conveyor, and transported into bins. When the bins are filled, eight robots transport them into an assembly hall where machine stamps put designs on them. These robots carry about 600 bins of new Lego bits and pieces every hour. This is also where Lego bits that have multiple pieces come together to be assembled (i.e. minifigures).

Photo Via Lego

After assembly and stamping, pieces then go to  packaging where more and more robots are automatically putting these elements together and packing them. These then gets sorted out where which particular bunch goes into which packaging, whether for assorted buckets or a themed play set.

Celebrities, people from recent history and ancient times…they are everywhere! In billboards, books, TV ads and shows, movies, newspapers, and now in Lego form! As weird as it may sound, it’s true. Celebrities, and other iconic personalities from history have been inducted into the Lego world as minifigures. Recently, pictures of Lego minifigures have surfaced in the internet that show celebrities and historical icons in Lego form.

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Donald Trump and his iconic hairdo is a man worth billions of dollars. He is a well-known figure in the US realestate development circles, and also a very famous TV personality. He is the chairman and CEO and of Trump Organization and founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. You might also be familiar with him through the reality show hit ‘The Apprentice’. The show casts 16 to 18 business-oriented people that are all vying for a $250,000 starting contract in one of Trump’s companies. Get to recreate episodes of the show with the Donald Trump minifigure…or maybe put him on a starship with droids!

One of the founding members of The Beatles, this man is a very iconic figure during his time. Born in Liverpool, England, John Lennon was also part of the band called The Quarrymen (which later became The Beatles) during his teen years. After the band broke up, John Lennon continued to write and record songs as a solo artist up until his murder in October of 1980. The song “Imagine” was one of John Lennon’s best and last songs but he is back to life as a Lego minifig. The Lennon tribute above was done by Lego artist Andrew Colunga.

Photo Via MJAnimations.com

The recently deceased King of Pop has left the world with lasting memories and musical hits that will surely be around for more generations. A man of great passion for his art, Michael Jackson has proved, to the very end, that music can be used as a weapon for social change. With hits like “Heal the World” and “Man in the Mirror,” MJ’s inspiring lyrics will never cease to touch people from all over the world. Dying just days short of his 50th anniversary concert, with the Lego minifig of the King of Pop, you can stage a concert of your own.

Photo Via CNN (Bill and Hillary)

Bill Clinton, or William Jefferson Clinton, is the forty-second president of the United States. He was the president to end the cold war with the Soviet Union, and the first president of the baby boomer age. Clinton, aside from being a figure of recent history, has also reached celebrity status when he was the subject of a scandal that involved an intern in the White House. Presently, however, he is continually doing a lot of humanitarian work, taking part in global efforts to fight HIV/AIDS and global warming…and just hanging out with his fellow minifigures.

When people think they have seen all that can be done with a bunch of colorful Lego bricks, they actually have not seen it all -at least not yet. When people begin to think they have seen it all, someone somewhere is putting together Lego blocks to make something no one has ever seen before. This is quite exciting, making Lego blocks real cool to play with.

Since the introduction of these interlocking blocks, it has captivated the minds of those that play with it. It is just full of endless possibilities and this is indeed what the maker of Lego imagined it to be -endless! From the very definition of the name Lego (Leg Godt), which means “play well,” people have been doing their part in playing with these bricks well. Some have been building conventional objects with original twists, while some people have just gone beyond everyone else and stepped into a whole new world with their creations. Call them weird, but to the Lego world, it is called pure genius. Just take a look at some of these pieces, and maybe you might just be inspired to do your own strange, yet amazing designs.

Lego Volvo XC90

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Have you ever visited Legoland? If not, then you better head on to it. Legoland is Lego’s very own theme park. If you just can’t get enough with your own collection of Lego, a visit to this theme park will give you the idea of what Lego-addiction means. Apart from the rides and structures made out of Lego bricks, you might just get a glimpse of Legoland’s official vehicle. Lego’s masterbuilders, a team of expert Lego engineers and artists, have put together a bunch of Lego pieces to form the exterior of this very reliable Volvo XC90. This collaboration piece done by Volvo and Lego’s masterbuilders is part of a campaign by Volvo to promote driving safety and family values.

Hans Solo in Carbonite

The name Nathan Sawaya is a famous one among Lego enthusiasts. Who could ever forget that corporate lawyer that chose to leave his six-figure salary to fulfill a dream of becoming a Lego Masterbuilder? But now that he’s earning as much as his corporate job before as a freelance Lego artist, Nathan is still at it with his Lego creations. Here’s one of his most celebrated work of art showing a very iconic piece from the Star Wars Saga -Hans Solo, frozen in Carbonite. That’s ten thousand Lego bricks, right there!

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Lego Harpsichord

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For music lovers, this is probably the oddest thing you would see in a music room  -a harpsichord almost entirely made out of Lego. Everything is made of Lego pieces with the exception of the strings. Everything works too, just like a real harpsichord. It has a 61-note range, a six-by-three feet dimension, and weighs a total of 150 pounds, you can play music with this harpsichord just like with any regular one. A brainchild of Henry Lim, it took him over about two years to complete from theorizing, to designing, to building, to testing, and rebuilding.

Lego, our beloved brick toys, has seen and undergone many innovations since it’s debut in the late 1040’s. From being just the simple bricks and blocks that you can snap together to form simple figures, it has now become an artist’s medium, and even an aspiring architect and designer’s tool for modelling. What young kids use to make Lego carts with, can now be used to create more sophisticated models of sports cars, airplanes, robots, warships, towers, castles, and many more elaborate designs.

Some of the more recent addition to Lego’s limitless possibilities is the addition of movie-themed Lego minifigs. Yes, you can now recreate scenes from a famous movie using Lego! Here are a few of the many Lego minifigures themed after famous movies.

Harry Potter (Coming Soon)

Photo Courtesy of Lego

Bring out the magical side in you and create a fight scene with dreaded dementors. The Harry Potter Lego minifigures are great additions to any collection of Lego sets. According to the Lego Group, the Harry Potter minifigures will include a lot of the famous characters in the series. Of course, Harry himself will be available with his trusty broom, friends Ron and Hermoine, and Hagrid are also included in the sets. There will even be minifigs for dementors and some of Harry’s professors. If you are a Harry Potter fan, these minifigures are perfect for your HP collection.

Toy Story

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With the premiere of Toy Story 3D, Lego celebrated it with another addition to their roster of minifigures and other Lego products. Yes, Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang now have Lego equivalents! And aside from the minifigures, playsets are also available for the Toy Story theme. A train, a trash compactor, a dump truck just some of the few things you see in the movie are included in the list of Toy Story Lego products. Now you can recreate scenes in the movie with these Lego sets and pieces.

Prince of Persia

If you are into a lot more action, the Prince of Persia Lego products  might just tickle your fancy. Minifigures, castles, horses, and ostriches -you name it and Lego has it already thought out for and for those who enjoy the realism of detail will surely enjoy the Prince of Persia set. Speaking of detail, Lego has even gone to the extent of making little snakes and scorpions to recreate the desert-set story of Prince of Persia. Take your sword-wielding prince and siege castles, battle against enemy goons on camels and be hero with this set!

Jaguar Built By Eric Hunter

Lego cars are col but if you have a jaguar as cool as Eric Hunter’s Lego Jaguar you would surely be the King of Legotown or maybe even Legoland.

Minifigs dig this baby that is why every Legoman would like nay love to have one most especially those who want to impress the ladies.

Eric Hunter is a Lego enthusiast and is one of the best builders out there, just take a look at his creation -it’s quite sweet right?

The Jaguar: A History

Before the famous sports car there was a cat -a big cat called a jaguar. Both cat and machine still exist today of course, but the cat is not British, the car is. Famous all over the world especially in Europe, the Jaguar started being produced in Coventry, England. Today however, the British car is now owned by India-based Tata Company.

Sir William Lyons laid the foundation for the company in the year 1922 by making sidecars. Later on, the production evolved into passenger cars. The company’s original name is Swallow Sidecar Company and was later on changed to Jaguar after the Second World War because of the rather unfavorable initials SS.

Decades after the war, Jaguar merged with the British Motor Corporation and later on subsumed by Leyland. It has been owned by different companies through the years but the brand has stood through time because a Jaguar will always be a Jaguar.

There are many Lego cars out there but this Lego Jaguar is one of its kind. Thanks to Hunter, we can now see the beauty of  British car through Danish blocks. There are more pictures of this creation, if you would like to take a look at various shots at different angles look for Eric Hunter’s Lego Jaguar.