The Difference Between Men and Boys
I was raised on Legos. They're the perfect toy, especially if you're parenting on a budget. All you have to do is buy your kids a few Lego kits with enough parts and they can just build all those expensive toys they covet. As a side-effect Legos have certain educational qualities.
When Transformers were all the rage I built mechanical dinosaurs that changed into gun platforms or hovercraft that converted into robots. I could do it because since the age of seven I'd been collecting Lego Technic sets and had enough interchangable and versatile pieces to make just about anything I wanted.
Thing is, this didn't stop with my first childhood. In fact, ever since getting the John Muir "Idiot" book at the age of 17 I've been studying the cutout views of the transmission and motor and trying to replicate that in multicolored plastic.
Rather than discarding the toys of youth for the tools of manhood, I was using one to have a better understanding of the other. And, beyond the lessons in engineering gained from a Lego childhood, I continue to prefer tinkering over throwing money at something. I didn't need to buy new toys as a kid because I could build them out of Legos, so why should I buy a brand new dual carburetor setup when I can piece it together with spare parts from my neighbor?
So here it is, a VW chassis made of Legos.
It has a "body" in the minimalist sense. The front sports the "towel rack" bumper and the roll-cage structure is an attempt to capture the Ghia roofline. But, styling is only an afterthought; I wanted it as functional as possible, starting with a 2-cylinder, 4-valve boxer engine.
The chain runs the generator and fan, of course. The big gear on the bottom, driven by the crankshaft, turns the cam shaft.
I couldn't replicate the rocker arm assembly with spring-loaded valves, however (what do you expect, it's made of Legos!) But, I reproduced the valve action well enough. When the pistons, camshaft, pushrods and "valves" are all moving together it even sounds a bit like a real engine.
Of course, the motor just provides power. You need to transfer that power to the rear wheels and you need multiple speeds, so I created a 2-speed manual transmission hooked up to a rear differential. Sorry, no clutch and you actually slip the gears off one set and ratio onto the other. A real transmission actually has all ratios connected at all times and you simply connect one ratio to the drive shaft at a time. But, as already stated, these are just Legos.
You can also see in this photo that the bucket seats installed on the floor pans recline and move forward and back. The shock absorbers connected to the rear wheels do, in fact, provide suspension and note the universal joints connecting the differential to the rear wheels.
The steering wheel is just as functional as the gear shift.
The four wheel independent suspension I've made is also not the same as the real VW. However, they do manage to create cambered wheels even to the point where the rear wheels have negative camber and the front positive.
Now, in the past decade Lego has come out with Technic sets for building car chassis but with far more sophisticated parts than mine here and even their first of the line. The latest actually have CV joints, "collars" to connect gears to axles for better shifting and ball joint connections for front suspension. I don't know. Seems an awful lot like cheating.
When Transformers were all the rage I built mechanical dinosaurs that changed into gun platforms or hovercraft that converted into robots. I could do it because since the age of seven I'd been collecting Lego Technic sets and had enough interchangable and versatile pieces to make just about anything I wanted.
Thing is, this didn't stop with my first childhood. In fact, ever since getting the John Muir "Idiot" book at the age of 17 I've been studying the cutout views of the transmission and motor and trying to replicate that in multicolored plastic.
Rather than discarding the toys of youth for the tools of manhood, I was using one to have a better understanding of the other. And, beyond the lessons in engineering gained from a Lego childhood, I continue to prefer tinkering over throwing money at something. I didn't need to buy new toys as a kid because I could build them out of Legos, so why should I buy a brand new dual carburetor setup when I can piece it together with spare parts from my neighbor?
So here it is, a VW chassis made of Legos.
It has a "body" in the minimalist sense. The front sports the "towel rack" bumper and the roll-cage structure is an attempt to capture the Ghia roofline. But, styling is only an afterthought; I wanted it as functional as possible, starting with a 2-cylinder, 4-valve boxer engine.
The chain runs the generator and fan, of course. The big gear on the bottom, driven by the crankshaft, turns the cam shaft.
I couldn't replicate the rocker arm assembly with spring-loaded valves, however (what do you expect, it's made of Legos!) But, I reproduced the valve action well enough. When the pistons, camshaft, pushrods and "valves" are all moving together it even sounds a bit like a real engine.
Of course, the motor just provides power. You need to transfer that power to the rear wheels and you need multiple speeds, so I created a 2-speed manual transmission hooked up to a rear differential. Sorry, no clutch and you actually slip the gears off one set and ratio onto the other. A real transmission actually has all ratios connected at all times and you simply connect one ratio to the drive shaft at a time. But, as already stated, these are just Legos.
You can also see in this photo that the bucket seats installed on the floor pans recline and move forward and back. The shock absorbers connected to the rear wheels do, in fact, provide suspension and note the universal joints connecting the differential to the rear wheels.
The steering wheel is just as functional as the gear shift.
The four wheel independent suspension I've made is also not the same as the real VW. However, they do manage to create cambered wheels even to the point where the rear wheels have negative camber and the front positive.
Now, in the past decade Lego has come out with Technic sets for building car chassis but with far more sophisticated parts than mine here and even their first of the line. The latest actually have CV joints, "collars" to connect gears to axles for better shifting and ball joint connections for front suspension. I don't know. Seems an awful lot like cheating.
posted by Chris Druckenmiller at 7:46 AM
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