A Romanian man and an Australian entrepreneur have teamed up to successfully buidt a super-size car made entiely of Lego bricks, which runs on compressed air.
Raul Oaida, a 20-year-old Romanian Lego fan, along with Melbourne-based entrepreneur Steve Sammartino started the project of building a Lego car in April 2012 and within just 20 months they have conceptualized, designed and made the finished product.
The Lego car, dubbed "Super Awesome Micro Project," is made from over 500,000 pieces and only a few structural parts such as tires, wheels, and gauges. The car has four orbital engines, which comprises 256 pistons, running on compressed air.
The pair did not have enough cash to build the car and, therefore, Steve Sammartino used Twitter to ask people to invest in the project.
"Anyone interested in investing $500-$1000 in a project which is awesome & a world first tweet me. Need about 20 participants...," tweeted Sammartino.
Anyone interested in investing $500-$1000 in a project which is awesome & a world first tweet me. Need about 20 participants... #startup
— Steve Sammartino (@sammartino) February 29, 2012
Fortunately, the duo received money from around 40 interested investors, which means that the car costs thousands of dollars to make.
"(I wanted) to do something interesting that shows there are a myriad of possible innovations for cars. We wanted to be an example to open peoples minds... something the car industry needs," said Sammartino.
Oaida built the car in Romania and then shipped it to a secret location in Melbourne.
The car can reach speeds of up to 18 miles per hour. Sammartino says that they were afraid of a "lego explosion."
Lego is well known in the toys industry and quite popular among kids. The Lego pieces are designed in such a way that kids find it very easy to make their desired objects. However, it was not the same for Oaida and Sammartino as they faced a few technical issues while building the car. The duo says that the biggest challenge was to build the engine and get the gearing of the car right.
The duo does not have any future plans for their latest invention; however, there are rumors that the car may be bought by a collector in the U.S.
Check out the Lego car in action.
