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.)"
Fake? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have looked at the video over and over, but it fails to reveal details of the engine construction. As an engineer I do know a thing or two about machinery and I do see some warning signs.
1: valve control
The car uses double acting pistons. Somewhere there is valve controls to turn the pressure on and off in the hoses. These controllers aren't visible.
2: pipe thickness
The pipes are constantly pressurized and depressurized. A lot of air goes into them each time the pipe is pressurized. Because the air pipes have such a small internal diameter and are pretty long, I'm concerned that there simply isn't time to pressurize pipes and pistons to go the speed they claim to go. Getting rid of the pressure on the other side of the pistons is also an issue as it has to escape though similar long and thin pipes.
3: crankshaft
There should be some crankshaft, but it isn't visible. That alone isn't a problem, but seeing it would be nice. It's a high torque part which makes it a critical part. Also somehow all the torque is joined into a single shaft and I really wonder how that could be done in lego.
4: rotating "rod"
There is a rotating rod between the seats. Supposedly it contains the entire power transmission between engine and wheels. Let's assume the lego blocks can handle this (I don't know if they can), then how is the bearings for a square bar made? The torque in that part alone makes me a bit suspicious to lego bearings.
5: smooth ride
The engine shows an amazing smooth ride. Given that the engine can start from a dead stop it is likely adding air until the piston has to move the other way. This causes vibrations as there is no brake on the piston. It accelerates and then it hits the end. Avoiding this is quite tricky as it involves RPM controlled valve control. I would love to see a lego valve controller, which takes engine RPM into consideration.
6: general lack of technical details other than what the video shows
Real world engineers solved 1+2 on steam locomotives by casting cylinder and valve into one block meaning the "pipe" which is pressurized and depressurized each time is much shorter than say a finger. It's nowhere the length of this setup. I would have expected a similar setup where the valve controls are placed right at the pistons and controlled by engine rotation. Granted that would make reverse a bit hard to implement, but it would work when going forward and the air usage would be much lower as the left over pressure in the pipes is let out each time the valve shuts.
All in all I can't put my finger on something specific and say for sure that it is fake, but somehow I don't trust the mechanical parts in it. However it is really impressive to build something of that size out of lego. I don't question if they built the car itself (maybe I should), I just question if the engine works.
Neat but evolutionary, not revolutionary (Score:5, Interesting)
It is neat, I'll give it that. However, we've been building pneumatic Lego 'engines' for decades. They are all over Youtube and other places. The sheer scale of this is impressive but I don't know that "genius" is the right word here.
Re:What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)
what the fuck? sure we do.
Kun minà olin nuori poika me leikimme legoilla, meillà oli paljon legoja ja joskus legoista jopa tapeltiin(When I was a young boy we played with legos, we had lots of legos and sometimes we even fought over the legos we had). basically only if you want to follow the Lego trademark rules you will always use the word Lego in it's Lego form. but speaking like that gets pretty stupid, since then you have to start doing it like " we built lots of things from Lego bricks" instead of just saying "out of legos" - kids don't speak like that and adults shouldn't speak like that either. so are you the Lego companys lawyers bitch, doing what the MAN asks you?
anyhow, the cool part about this is the 256 piston compressed air->motion engine..