Alright, I have to admit – it’s hard not to be impressed with this latest craze going around the LEGO fan community. I’m sure you have already seen a version of this one way or the other. When I first saw it, the logical, methodological me immediately tried to find a way to explain it away. But alas, I decided to give up. The good thing is that Jason Allemann (aka JK Brickworks) is up to the rescue to explain the mystery behind this custom LEGO Tensegrity contraption.
Short for tensional integrity, “tensegrity” is a structural concept where the mass of the upper in build, like in LEGO, for example, is evenly distributed across the chains that supports them. It’s pretty cool really, making you feel that you have somehow stumbled upon on the ultimate anti-gravity solution. But of course, a fair grasp of the basics of structural design and some dependable LEGO chains or strings is all that you need to do the trick. Watch Jason’s video tutorial below and you’ll be surprised how relatively easy it is to create with a bit of tweaking and experimentation. You may also download the building instructions for this particular LEGO Tensegrity model for free.
Like other LEGO fans who jumped on the LEGO Tensegrity bandwagon, you can also modify your model and come up with pretty crazy setups. Such as these LEGO builders who dared to explore the mystery of this brick phenomena.
There are plenty more examples out there, and thankfully Jason gave us the basics of the principles behind this contraption. Mystery solved – now time to gather my bricks and see what floating sorcery my LEGO pieces have in them. Thanks again to Jason Allemann for sharing his expertise. If you like this latest video demonstration of his, be sure to also check his free tutorial on the inner workings of his LEGO Ideas Pursuit of Flight product idea.
