Ukulele in LEGO bricks

Realising I’ve never owned a uke, I decided I’d try to make one. But instead of using wood, like any normal person, I decided to use LEGO bricks. Of course, there were some challenges.

1. The shape. In case you didn’t realise, LEGO bricks are kinda blocky, full of right angles. Great for buildings, not so great for ukuleles. I tried several techniques to get a rounded shape, also keeping in mind it had to be strong, and the one I finally decided on was a fairly simple SNOT version, using lots of these and these. I was pretty pleased how it turned out.
2. Strength. This model has to be able to withstand the tension of 4 fairly tight strings without exploding. I ended up using a pre-stressed Technic rod up the middle of the neck, which allowed the head to be securely attached to the body, and it works really well. The body (briefly described above) ended up being very strong, but I had to use a saddle attached to the lower end to get enough strength – the saddle I originally designed was attached to the front, and was only able to tune the top string to about B. The final design allowed me to tune it to D (still way short of a real uke, but good enough for me).
3. 

   The head of the ukulele

   Tuning. I had to come up with a way of tuning the strings, that was able to take the tension without slipping, and didn’t look too yucky. I tried a couple of ways, but this one worked best, probably because it’s the simplest! Those of you with eagle eyes will notice the LEGO worm gears are wound the wrong way, so the keys have to be turned the opposite way to normal. I did try putting them on the other side of the main gear, which fixed the turning anomoly, but they ended up way too close to the top of the neck, and I kept knocking them while playing, so I decided this way was best.
4. Intonation. This was always gonna be a problem, because LEGO doesn’t do logarithmic intervals easily. I decided early on that near enough would be fine, as long as it sounds OK when played. I simply mapped out the actual logarithmic scale on paper, and picked the distances to match as closely as possible. I was quite pleased with the result.

So, after all that, I ended up with what I like to call an alto ukulele – it is tuned to C-F-A-D (normal ukes are generally tuned to G-C-E-A). I also thought it needed a stand so I can display it on the mantle piece, you can see it poking out the bottom. And I think it really sounds OK, but you can judge for yourself: Puff the Magic Dragon

Here is a photo of the crane as it currently is, after phase I sorting. I omitted the tracks & slew ring from this pic, as I have kept them together for a possible future project. I didn’t get any pics of the collapse, but it probably looked a bit like this:

Fast Tube by Casper

Burning Up

I never thought I’d build a LEGO vignette, but weird things happen during times like that. This one was built in the days following what would become known as “Black Saturday”, but I only felt like sharing it with my closest friends. Since then, it has been placed on my desk at home, and occasionally it would catch my eye and bring back the memories.

Now, after the 1st anniversary was recently commemorated across the state, I feel I would like to share it with the rest of you. It contains lots of thoughts & memories; it means a lot to me, I hope you get something from it too.

To see more about Black Saturday, I recommend the ABC documentary “Inside the Firestorm”.

Insane? Make up your own mind!

But the big one was public day on Sunday. We should have felt the omen when people started arriving at 10am when our official opening time was 11am. But we figured it’ll only be a few early birds, right???? Five hours and somewhere around 2500 visitors later (we haven’t counted them up yet), we closed the doors and started packing up. Yep, you heard right, 2500. That’s more than 100% increase over last year’s event, and you could tell we didn’t anticipate it – at one stage, the admission line stretched all the way back to Elizabeth Street! But we managed to survive, thanks to the herculean efforts of the organisers, I won’t mention them all here, but Derek deserves special mention for emergency crowd control.

Anyway, suffice to say we have some big decisions to make in the next few weeks regarding next year’s event – while Vic Uni has been a great venue, we have definitely outgrown it, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements about next year’s venue.

And thanks to everyone who contributed, from the smallest MOC to the busiest committee member, we all managed to get it together for another great event, and I for one am looking forward to next year (after a suitable LEGO break of course…). More pics here.

Oh, and happy new year.