Life-Sized, Drivable 500,000 Piece Lego Car Runs On Air 73
cartechboy writes "Two guys have made a life-sized Lego car that runs on air. That's right, the 256-piston, air-powered Lego working vehicle built with half a million black and yellow Lego pieces can actually be driven up to 18 mph. It was designed and built by 20-year-old Romanian Raul Oaida in 20 months after he and his partner, Australia-based Steve Sammartino raised "tens of thousands" of crowdfunded dollars with their prospectus entitled quite simply: "Super Awesome Micro Project." The car was built in Romania and then moved to Melbourne, Australia (presumably not brick-by-brick.) In the video, the only visible non-Lego components are the gauges, wheel rims, and tires (though the wheels have Lego faces--literally.)"
Eco-friendly? (Score:5, Insightful)
The prospectus says he is building something eco-friendly. Is it really eco-friendly to build a car from 500,000 individual pieces, shipped from Denmark, one that has zero practical use, then ship it from Romania to Melbourne? And is the power efficiency of using electricity to fill an air tank and then power 256 plastic pistons really power efficient?
Cool, yes. Eco-friendly? Nope.
Re:Fake? (Score:4, Insightful)
An air tank out of LEGO isn't entirely out of the question. I think it's rather blindingly obvious that the parts for this thing have been glued together. ABS is fairly tough stuff, and the glue basically fuses bricks together, so making an air tight compartment isn't out of the question. It's not going to be a high pressure tank, but they made no claims about exactly how far this thing can roll on one tank of air. I'm betting not very far.
I think the guy you responded to also discounted the possibility of glue. I really don't see it hanging together without glued parts. With glued parts, I think the whole thing really could be LEGO elements (aside from the wheels, tires, and gauges).