The Lego Great Ball Contraption is the best thing you will see today
Lego is brilliant – and we don’t need to tell you that. Over the weekend though, I found this – which takes Lego to the next level, and uses its simple building blocks to make something amazing. Meet the Great Ball Contraption.
The premise is pretty simple: The goal is to build a machine that can convey a Lego football from one side to the other, at a rate of about one ball per second. Then when you take your creation to Lego conventions (yes, those are a thing), you can hook up your contraption alongside everyone else – and try to figure out who has come up with the most creative way of doing it.
Check out this video of the “Beyond the Brick” podcast (needless to say, the presenter is LOVING it).
To make it all consistent, like real world engineering the Lego engineers have come up with design standards that all “GBC” machines must comply with – to ensure balls can be passed successfully between designs.
Our favourites are the segments which throw the ball through the air – such as the basketball one. How many hours must that have taken to get right?
There’s hundreds of videos of these contraptions on YouTube – so good luck getting any work done today.
