Gears. It’s what Technic is all about (apart from pneumatics 😉). When LEGO first created gears in a Samsonite set back in 1965, there were only four different sizes and the gears were all similar. Fast forward to 2024, and LEGO has produced gears in nearly 50 different shapes and sizes! Let me take you through the history of LEGO gears. Along the way, you’ll learn about different types of gears, why so many have teeth in multiples of four, and see some of the clever design choices in the LEGO gear family. Early Days The first LEGO gears, the Samsonite gears back in 1965, had no axles. They were simply round plates you could put on wheels. Five years later, the Expert Builder gears looked very similar, but they now have axles. A big improvement when you want to turn something! These gears have long, thin teeth, almost like spokes....

For each issue of BrickJournal Magazine, the BrickNerd team creates instructions for a LEGO mini-model to go with the theme of the cover story. For their recent issue about minifigures, we created a LEGO builder’s dream studio. Building a LEGO Studio To celebrate the minifigure, we decided to make a studio for all their building needs. Who doesn’t need a sleek building desk for their LEGO hobby? The studio has drawers full of colorful pieces, a stack of baseplates on the floor, a nifty angled lamp, and even some awesome gear on the walls for decoration. Some of those decorations include a Classic Space tile from the Galaxy Explorer and a LEGO logo brick from the 1970s! You can, of course, customize your studio habitat with whatever you like. Imagine a studio with the shield of your favorite Castle faction or the dark red LEGO tile from the Pickup Truck hanging...

Today’s guest article comes from BrickNerd patron Wayne Tyler. We’ve featured Wayne’s architectural work many times, and today he takes a look at the LEGO Architecture 21061 Notre-Dame de Paris. Half and Half There are two things that really set me off when talking about LEGO architecture sets. First, I complain bitterly when an architecture set only gives you half the model. Can you say 21030 U.S. Capitol Building or 21058 Great Pyramid of Giza? View fullsize View fullsize In both cases, I bought a second set so that I could have one complete model. Second, though I own them all, the Skyline series of architecture sets strays from what attracted me to the architecture line of LEGO sets in the first place: stand-alone builds of iconic structures. Think 21005 Fallingwater or 21045 Trafalgar Square. View fullsize View fullsize An architecture set doesn’t even have to be intricate or complicated. My favorite set, which is...

With the arrival of 10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System, let’s look at the history of LEGO launch pads, analyze their scale, see what fans have built, and then see how the new set stacks up in comparison. It’s a LEGO space race starting in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Space is Big and Fuel is Heavy As Douglas Adams says in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” Adams is not wrong; in fact, he’s understating things quite a bit. A rocket, especially one going to space, is a complicated balancing act. A rocket’s payload is essentially weight, and the more weight, the more fuel you need to get it into space. But more fuel means...

A special expedition awaits your LEGO characters! Today, all the Arctic researchers, fishers, hikers, and tourists of the LEGO world will become the real Aurora Hunters because we are going to visit different corners of the Earth and paint the night sky with the colors of the Northern Lights! The Aurora Borealis, better known as the Northern Lights, is an optical phenomenon when the charged particles from the sun hit the upper atmosphere of our planet, causing a luminous display! If we “translate” it from physical attributes to artistic ones, it’s a breathtaking natural show full of pulsating shapes and colors. Image credit here. Today, we’re going to study its different forms, recreating them with simple lighting equipment. Let’s get started with our new light painting project under the stars! Ribbons of Light Formed in periods of high solar activity, these bright stripes appear in many colors depending on different elements...