Introduction

What is a Lego engine? Lego engines are made of Legos and Lego Technic pieces. They are powered by a vacuum or compressed air to make the motor spin. Lego engines are a tricky thing to get right. You could spend hours putting it together and then hours getting it to work. Trial and error is all it is, if it doesn’t work slightly, change something, put it back together, and try it again. It can be a very tedious process that never wants to work (and sometimes it blows up and you have to put it back together again). Don’t let the hard work steer you away though, Building them is kind of like a puzzle and finally getting it running feels amazing after all the hard work. When building a Lego vacuum engine there are some things you have to keep in mind. Legos don’t stay together super well so when building things that move very fast you have to make them more sturdy so they don’t fall apart. Things like valves, pistons, and flywheels are prone to falling apart from moving/spinning too fast. Unless counterbalanced pistons make the engine shake violently causing your structure to fall apart unless built well. Things like cylinders will fall apart from the piston shaking the engine. Valves can not be reinforced too much because of the fact they have to be small and light to work. Piston heads are similar, making one too heavy will make your motor shake but making it too little and not reinforced will allow the vacuum or compressor that is powering the engine to rip it off. Making a sturdy engine is key to getting it to run at full throttle for any amount of time.