Crazy Lego projects: Drivable McLaren P1 and working Turing machine
While the 1:1 scale super sports car made its way around Silverstone, the Turing machine can execute undecillions of different programs.
A Lego hobbyist has devised a functioning Turing machine.
(Image: Lego Ideas)
Ambitious hobbyists can put all kinds of fascinating projects into practice with colorful, clamping bricks – now two have been added. A Czech Lego team has recreated a fully functional "McLaren P1" super sports car, while a Polish enthusiast has put together three thousand components to create a mechanical computer.
Turing – completely Lego
A Polish computer science and terminal block enthusiast has presented an ambitious project on Lego's "Ideas" platform: A Turing machine made from almost three thousand Lego Technic elements. Unlike its role model, which is a theoretical model of a computer devised by its namesake Alan Turing, the Lego machine exists in reality and is fully functional.
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Like the model developed by computer science pioneer Turing, the Lego Turing Machine has an infinitely long memory tape, the transfer function – i.e. the source code of the program executed by the machine – is located on a 32 studs or 5-bit long construction made of Lego plates. The Lego software developer uses 1×1 bricks to program his computer.
The inventor known as "The Bananaman 2018" has already devised other inventions such as a functioning Lego Pong and published them on his YouTube channel. Now he is asking for support on Lego Ideas in order to gain the necessary support from the hobbyist community. The Turing machine contains around 2900 bricks, mainly from Lego's Technic range. This is just under the 3000-brick limit for Ideas sets.
On the "Lego Ideas" platform, brick builders can publish their own set ideas. Unlike other communities based around "MOCs" (My own creation) such as ReBrickable, however, sets published on Lego Ideas have the chance of being developed into an official product by Lego. To do this, the young designers first need 10,000 votes from other Ideas users in order to refine the feasibility and market opportunities of their idea together with experts from the Danish manufacturer.
Building block behemoth
A project by Czech Lego employees, who drew on hundreds of thousands of bricks from their employer, was several orders of magnitude larger: A full-scale McLaren P1 sports car. Probably intended as a marketing stunt for its 1:8 scale little brother, the Lego racing car is not available in toy or car stores.
For this ambitious project, the Lego team not only used 342,817 Technic elements, but also a metal chassis, and other safety-relevant elements are not made of bricks. The Lego construction weighs 380 kg and after more than 8,000 hours of construction, Formula 1 driver Lando Norris tested the car on the Silverstone race track in England. His verdict: "Drives pretty well!"
(Image:Â Lego / Screenshot: heise online)
This is not the first time the Czech design team has built a sports car: Six years ago, the master builders already tried their hand at a Bugatti Chiron, which they also put together from over a million full-size parts.
(cku)
