Posted on 08/02/2022 8:11:07 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Standing at an impressive 20.5 inches tall and 30 inches wide, this LEGO Ideas entry doesn’t just demonstrate the solar system’s movement, but it does so while staying true to each planet’s orbit time. The Clockwork Solar System from LEGO builders Chris Orchard and Brent Waller is a nearly 3000-brick marvel that replicates our solar system’s celestial dance with 99.8% accuracy while a set of clocks at the bottom even count down the year while the planets rotate around the sun.
Orchard and Waller are both self-professed LEGO nerds, while Waller even mentions he’s been associated with the LEGO Ideas platform for over a decade (going back to the time when it was called ‘CUUSOO’). While they claim that there are countless mechanical models of the solar system (also referred to as orreries), nothing matches the Clockwork Solar System’s complexity and attention to accuracy.
Designers: Chris Orchard & Brent Waller
(Excerpt) Read more at yankodesign.com ...
Well, it sure beats my crappy old Leggo nuclear reactor.
The Antkythera Mechanism found in the waters near Greece is believed to have been created by Archimedes . It did a great job of replacating phases of the moon etc.
If only they had adopted Ptolemy’s method. It would have looked more interesting and they might have been able to get that last 0.2%.
Right off the bat, it’s not to scale, therefore not accurate.
These elaborate Lego projects are impressive, but they sure don’t look anything like the Lego blocks I remember from childhood. Let’s see them make a movable solar system from Lincoln Logs.
ping to #3 above
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4082780/posts?page=3#3
Thanks!
Interesting angle in this thread.
The video was nice.
Nerd humor only a few of us 🤣
Nerd humor only a few of us get.🤣
Shadow Clock 306–30 B.C. Ptolemaic Period
That looks like it would take a licking, all right.
And with the side benefit that you could chuck it at looters during a solar eclipse!
It’s missing Pluto.
That is a damned impressive Orrey. Funny, I’ve been looking at buying a Tellurian recently. Wish I had the parts for this though.
It has Westminister chimes, and will track relative positions of the Sun, Earth, and Moon accurately over time. Also doubles as a calendar. Kinda pricy, but very cool. Would love to see a full Orrey built as a clock like this. All of the ones I've found on line simply show the relative motions, but I'd like one that did it in real time. Saturn would take 29 years to make an orbit, but I would think that would be a feature.
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