Anyone with a wide enough scientific education would know what a sundial is: a device that tells time via available sunlight, which casts shadows on a dial of hour-lines, said shadow being cast by a raised gnomon. There are so many variations on the sundial structure, including “ring dials”, where sunlight passes into a hole and falls on marked hour-lines. Recently, Chinese-based LEGO educational group Playable Designs attempted a new LEGO-themed, Guinness Record to make the world’s largest sundial built using LEGO- to be exact – Duplo pieces. The group used a ridiculous number of large Duplo bricks in order to make a sturdy structure.
With some 45,000 LEGO Duplo pieces in several colors, the Playable Designs team went to work on the world’s largest sundial, out of these many Duplo bricks at the Beijing art district. Upon completion, the largest ring sundial in LEGO Duplo measured 2.81 meters in diameter and 08 meters in thickness, and proven to indeed tell time from the sun like any ring sundial would. Watch this featured video from Guinness World Records.
Playable Design group founder Mrs. Hou remarked that the project was primarily a teaching tool to encourage and inspire children to learn about science, astronomy, math and history, all subjects that pertain to sundials. Still, she adds, they’re very happy all the same that their work was recognized by Guinness as the new title holder for the world’s largest sundial made entirely of plastic bricks.
Playable Designs specializes in developing LEGO-related educational programs in Chinese schools. Their largest LEGO Duplo ring sundial project took three months to design before the actual building process, and involved Astronomy professionals and mechanical engineers.