Lego V8 Engine

Below is a fantastic V8 Engine made from Lego. I stumbled upon this video while looking for examples of pneumatic Lego parts.  The V8 is powered by compressed air and is produced by LPEpower.  It is capable of running at 1500 rpm at 4 bars of pressure.  Excellent!


Lego 8159 Racers

My son has the 8159 Lego Speed Racers kit which is a just about manageable for a 6 year old with adult help. Again, putting the stickers on is a job that requires some skill to get the right sticker placed in the correctly aligned location.

This kit comes with 2 mini figures and the cars sport Lego Technic axels and wheels. They are quite speedy on the carpet!



Lego Aircraft Factory

Here is a neat 10 minute YouTube vidoe of a Lego Aircraft Factory that took the VHG Bogen Robotics group 2000 man hours to make at a cost of 8000 Euros.






..imagine building a machine to build the factory - that would be mind bogglingly complex!

Lego City 7942 Offroad Fire Truck

My son David has the Lego City 7942 Offroad Fire Truck kit which has kept him entertained, especially since he does not like fires and wants to see all fires extinguished!

This is a typical Lego City kit - a mini figure in included in fireman attire and there are plenty of bricks to build some vehicle variations. 




Lego Technic 8257

My 9 year old daughter wanted a Lego Technic kit for a Christmas present so we gave her the 8257 to start with. It took Hannah about an hour to assemble:



Hannah says: "I'd rate this 8/10, it's fun to make but is not as good as Dad's old Technical Lego Bulldozer because it has less pieces and only does a few things."

Due to the way inflation works, this kit was more expensive than the old 856 Bulldozer and has far less parts, and is a tiny redux of the original. It uses a worm gear mechanism to raise and lower the shovel. Being small, the kit contains a whole load of fiddly clips and brick elements.  On the plus side, it contains two model variations which is a bonus.





On Boxing Day Hannah assembled the digger following the second set of plans. Hannah says: "This was more fun than the bulldozer - it can do more things even though it uses less bricks."

The digger cabin is pivoted on the wheel assembly and can rotate a full 360 degrees. The main digger arm is controlled using a worm gear and a lever and linkage and connected to this is a free moving digger shovel.  Took Hannah about 45 minutes to build this. Here are some photos:


Lego 7898 Cargo Train Delux

Been toying with the idea of getting my kids the Lego 7898 Cargo Train Delux:



It contains about 850 elements and 5 mini figures as well as a remote controlled locomotive and some realistic looking rolling stock. Here's a YouTube video of the it being constructed:



Pity it's out of stock - hopefully it will be back in production after Christmas.

Lego Cargo Ship


Here's a large Lego cargo ship carrying a consignment of cargo containers. Used up nearly all the kids' bricks to make this. Been meaning to upload these pictures for quite a while now.





Lego 6118 Wheels Set

We acquired a whole bunch of Lego for my son's 7th birthday, one of the boxes being the Lego 6117 Wheels Set.


We also purchased some bricks from the Lego Pick-A-Brick section of the Lego shop, to complement these wheels, e.g. a mini figure, lots of car windscreens, steering wheels and various plate bricks to name a few.  Then it's down to my son's imagination to build various vehicles.

There's plenty of variety of wheels in the 6118 set and enough of each type to make suitable vehicles. All-in-all, I'd give this box set about 7 out of 10.

Lego 7723 Police Seaplane

Last Christmas we got my 6 year old son the Lego City 7723 Police Seaplane. This took him about an hour to assemble as it has over 200 pieces and it's quite involved, for example there are some fiddly bricks that attach the floats to the seaplane.  It comes with a police pilot mini figure and a moving hatchway and large propellers that spin.  It's a big kit and has just a couple of minor downsides - the tail can fall off easily and the floats can pop off during kiddy play.





Note that some effort is required to put the stickers onto the Seaplane accurately - I suspect this is beyond the skills of a small child to do correctly without making a mess as the stickers are a little unforgiving - stick once - and get it right!

Lego 7732 Air Mail Postal Plane

The Lego 7732 Air Mail Postal Plane is another one of my son's Lego City kits. This is quite a small kit and doesn't take too much time or effort for a 6 year old to build.



It contains a mini figure and a parcel with a trolley to carry the airmail. Putting the mini figure into the plane requires popping the roof off which is a little unrealistic, but kids don't seem to notice this detail!


Lego Rubik's Cube Solvers

Here are some awesome Lego Rubik's Cube Solvers:








Lego City 7990 Cement Mixer

My 6 year old son got the 7990 Cement Mixer last year and found it a a little tricky to assemble as it had some fiddly gears to make the mixer rotate. As Lego City kits go, it's fairly realistic looking but does have some small parts (such as the wing mirrors, lights and the cement hose pipe nozzle) which tend to fall off easily and get lost. Still, it's a fun Lego City toy.



Lego Truck - Version 2

Here is a Lego truck which contains a little hidden surprise:









Fitting the moveable cannon inside was a little tricky as space was quite tight.