This Fantastic DIY Lego Typewriter Does What Lego Could not

Again in 2021, Lego launched a stunning typewriter set. As per Lego’s official site, the set was based mostly on an precise real-life machine used within the Nineteen Fifties by the corporate’s founder, and it stays a strikingly lovely piece of design—you might feed an actual sheet of paper by means of the rollers, its carriage moved as you typed, and every key press triggered a lever that whacked a person letter in opposition to a ribbon. The set is now discontinued, though you possibly can nonetheless pay money for it on Bricklink for lower than $200.

However there was one factor Lego’s typewriter didn’t do: it didn’t truly, y’know, kind. The ribbon was a chunk of inkless material, and the letter blocks had been plain 2×1 Lego bricks. For all its cleverness, the set was basically decorative.

YouTuber Koenkun Bricks got down to do one higher. In a new video on his channel, he chronicles the development of his personal Lego typewriter—which, in contrast to the unique, does certainly commit letters to paper. Effectively, OK, not precise paper. If something, Koenkun Bricks’ typewriter is extra ingenious—it takes 1×1 spherical Lego tiles, every adorned with a letter of the alphabet, and slaps them onto a scrolling sheet of white Lego plates.

The Rube Goldberg-esque contortions by means of which Koenkun Bricks’ design bends itself to do that are actually one thing to behold. As a substitute of connecting on to a lever that presses a letter in opposition to a ribbon, every key on this typewriter as an alternative triggers three separate mechanisms: one to launch a letter tile, one to maneuver the carriage into place, and one to press the tile onto the “paper.”

The primary mechanism pushes a lever that slides a single tile out from the underside of one of many 26 separate storage bins mounted atop the machine. From there, the tile travels down a ramp and involves relaxation on a flat shelf immediately in entrance of the paper. Releasing the important thing releases this lever, permitting one other letter tile to slip into place, prepared for the subsequent time that letter is typed.

The carriage motion is achieved through a mechanism on the machine’s rear. All the carriage is tensioned with a rubber band, and its left aspect juts up in opposition to a collection of unfastened 1×1 headlight blocks in a slim race. Every key press ejects considered one of these blocks, permitting the carriage to slip one stud’s width to the left; the rubber band pulls the carriage into this place.

Cleverly, whereas the primary two mechanisms are triggered by urgent a letter key, the third is as an alternative fired when the secret is launched, giving the letter tile time to slip into place. Urgent the important thing down primes this mechanism, drawing the lever liable for pushing the tile into place again just like the arm of a catapult. When the secret is launched, a rubber band snaps the mechanism again into place, offering the required power to “kind” the letter.

There are apparent limitations—regardless of trialing a mechanism that routinely reloaded the spacing blocks, Koenkun Bricks deserted it as too unreliable, in order that they should be changed manually after every line is typed. The paper additionally must be scrolled manually. However these are minor quibbles—in any case, this can be a freaking Lego typewriter that truly sorts. Koenkun Bricks ends his video by placing it to make use of, typing a slightly touching missive to Lego’s design group. “Expensive Lego group,” he writes, “your toy fills my days with limitless inventive crafting.” And certainly, he’s not the one one—Lego continues to each encourage and allow all manner of magnificent lunacy. Lengthy might it prosper.