Back in July, Andrew Carol built a replica of the Antikythera Mechanism out of Lego. Now we get to see how it all came together thanks to this beautiful short by Small Mammal films. Wow!
It’s the oldest known computer, a relic dating back 2000 years and rediscovered at the bottom of the ocean. Now designer Andrew Carol has brought it back to life – using Lego.
That’s not to say this project was child’s play – making the device was an engineering feat that required specialist Lego, and a lot of patience (see stop motion video above).
The idea came from journalist Adam Rutherford who had seen a Babbage Difference Engine built by Carol and got in touch. “I asked him if he’d heard of the mechanism, and if he thought it was doable in Lego,” says Rutherford. “A few weeks later, he sent me some pictures of a demo version he’d knocked up. It was stunning.”
I should really go through those three suitcases full of Technics pieces I have in my closet.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
cool video
I’m more impressed with the video itself! It looks like stop-motion (!!) but is it CG?
Tim, it was stop motion.