when a lego project calls for a civil engineer
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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When a Lego loving kid becomes a civil engineer
Damn, and I thought I was doing well building from the floor to the ceiling. Mine was freestanding though, it didn't need cranes to hold it up.
The cranes aren’t holding it up the cable stays are keeping it from falling over.
Sorry you're right, it's not cranes and they aren't holding it up just keeping it steady. But my tower didn't need that, I built it strong enough it could atand of it's own accord.
Only to the ceiling, mind you. I don't have enough lego to go up 36 metres.
Theirs is strong enough to stand it’s just not stable enough to.
Weird distinction. I could pile concrete blocks 5 miles up. They are strong enough, just not stable enough. So, this would be the tallest supported lego structure.
If you stacked them into a five mile high pyramid they’d be strong enough and stable enough too.
Have you tried designing a TMD system to keep a tower stright at all times
I wonder if there's a separate record that doesn't allow the cables, where teams need to use these kinds of things to prevent it falling. Would probably have to be done indoors, away from wind.
My brother and I did the same thing once as kids. God, that was a blast. Dad even helped us put the last bricks at the top.
Doesn’t count unless those are Lego brand guide wires.
(Although I’d let it slide if they were Mega Bloks wires)
They should have built a Lego pyramid, wouldn't have needed the cables.
It would cost like new data center
How tall can a lego structure get before the base bricks fail?
the corridor crew has a video on this and they mention the hydraulic press experiment @9:40 and added some cool visuals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68oXafUzirE
spoiler
~375'000 bricks ~ 3.6km
And in the end, they show a pyramid around that height (4x higher than Burj Khalifa, just smaller than the mount Fuji) and how much it would cost, which is completely unrealistic at that point, as it'd use up all the oil in the world.
I don't have numbers for you, but here's some Lego vs. a hydraulic press and it survives pretty well.
At least as tall as a traffic cone I'd say.
Well they're on a wide base to distribute load among many bricks.
Do this enough and the only limit is bricks melting under the heat of the pressure.
At first I thought the base of it was blurred out for some reason lol!
Incoming sibling to wreck that tower
Yea! Plastic!
It's fantastic!