LEGO Woes
It seemed like a relatively easy bit of information to track down. I just wanted to know the dimensions of a LEGO block. A 2×2 block to be specific. It was pretty random, and not very important, but I was curious. Try to find it. It's fun.
I ended up asking a reference librarian for help. We eventually found the information that I was looking for, but only after I had given up twice. I even called the LEGO customer support hotline… which forwarded me to the LEGO "shop at home" number, which then forwarded me to "replacement parts", which got me to a real person, who then forwarded me to another real person. By "real person" I mean someone that seemed absolutely stumped by my question.. the size of a block.. I just wanted a number. She put me on hold. I waited. 5-6 minutes later I hung up.
So, after all that effort, here are the dimensions of a 2×2 lego brick. The height is 9.58mm, the length and width are both 16mm.
Exciting, I know. Next week: The Volume of a Water Buffalo.
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
I looked into LEGO dimensions in the past. I was sorely disappointed to find out that 2×4 LEGO pieces are not proportionate to 2×4 wood.
September 28, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
David Ritchie (2 comments) said,
Is the 9.58 mm highth including the knobs on top or not?
May 25, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
sparx (693 comments) said,
9.58mm not including the "knobs".
May 26, 2009 @ 8:57 am
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
We now must know the height of the knobs! Sparx, work your magic!
May 26, 2009 @ 10:50 am
Dave Ritchie (5 comments) said,
Thanks, was trying to calculate the number of legos (and weight) of a 7 foot diameter lego ball)… see the Mythbusters episode about this….
May 26, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
a seven foot diameter LEGO® ball? Mercy. That sounds like a wonderful thing. It'd be swell if it also was a spacepod. LEGO® spacepods rock.
May 27, 2009 @ 8:35 am
sparx (693 comments) said,
A seven foot diameter LEGO ball would look something like.. this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFGVzt7c5bY
May 27, 2009 @ 8:39 am
Dave Ritchie (5 comments) said,
and the Mythbusters video can be found at
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-lego-ball.html
I am a little skeptical of the claim of 5 million pieces… and I suspect the
original ball was glued together…. and hollow..
May 27, 2009 @ 9:44 am
spudart (638 comments) said,
how heavy is 5 million LEGO pieces?
May 27, 2009 @ 11:12 am
Dave Ritchie (5 comments) said,
well, the mythbusters said '138 per pound' in the full version of the episode. ~7.5 lb/1000, which is ~7500 lb/1,000,000 – 37500 for 5M ~= 19 tons. So obviously someone is screwed up…. also, I think that was for a 2×4 block.
May 27, 2009 @ 9:11 pm
Dave Ritchie (5 comments) said,
the point being if the Mythbusters ball had 5M legos in it – they couldn't have lifted it off the truck or even rolled it…
May 27, 2009 @ 9:12 pm
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
a 5 million piece LEGO® ball would cost $50,000 if each brick was purchased for $0.01.
May 28, 2009 @ 8:40 am
sparx (693 comments) said,
Yeah, I have a funny feeling that it's just a few thousand blocks glued to the outside of some cardboard boxes.
May 28, 2009 @ 8:43 am
Dave Ritchie (5 comments) said,
The mythbusters piece really missed the mark – they went straight to implementation without really thinking through the problem. The 'box
internals' concept would certainly be cheaper to implement… however, I am not certain that a box is even necessary if the ball is glue together. I would
have expected a severely dented minivan if it weighed as much as I would
expect a solid ball to weigh…
May 28, 2009 @ 9:32 am
spudart (638 comments) said,
NINETEEN TONS OF LEGO! Dood. In 2003 LEGO the company destroyed 10.5 tons of illegal imitation LEGOs found customs authorities in Finland. That was one bust. All they need to do is get two big busts and BOOM instant LEGO boulder.
May 28, 2009 @ 9:39 am
Bruce Knack (8 comments) said,
I thought about the glue thing. The Mythbusters "borrowed" a bunch of their bricks. Based on that alone I don't think they were in any position to glue the bricks.
I think they mention that the ball they made was about 300 pounds. Obviously this would have produced dent.
Check out this website for the size of a 1×1 lego: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~elec201/Book/legos.html
I wasn't able to use this in my calculations because I couldn't seem to get my head around this being a 1×1 brick. You can't build much with a 1×1 brick. I always thought of a basic lego brick as a 2×8 (counting bumps) or a 1×2 based on a basic 2×2 brick.
May 31, 2009 @ 9:19 am
Bruce Knack (8 comments) said,
I just looked at the Mythbusters vid again (my daughter demanded to see it) and the ball was 3000 pounds not just 300, so the car woulda been road pizza.
May 31, 2009 @ 9:32 am
David Ritchie (2 comments) said,
well, the lego design page that Bruce Knack cites is pretty useful also and points out the fundamental ratios (6:5 highth vs. width&depth). Just to make it clearer – a 2×4 block would be (9.6 mm High x 32 mm Wide x 16 mm Deep). The 9.58 mm messured highth would be consistant with this ratio, providing a 0.02 mm fit vertically between blocks (to allow for a compression fit of the top knobs against the interior walls of the block above it)
June 1, 2009 @ 2:44 am
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
Thanks for pulling the data on the height of the knobs, David.
June 1, 2009 @ 9:29 am
spudart (638 comments) said,
So the LEGO boulder was 1.5 tons. That means that illegal LEGO raid (the LEGOs were illegal, not the raid) could have produced SEVEN LEGO boulders. Can you imagine that? Seven LEGO boulders flying down a hill at you.
June 1, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
unlikelymoose (355 comments) said,
It always bothered me how LEGO® abuses their monopoly on their product. Striking down counterfeit LEGO products and suing the bananas out of other companies that replicate their designs is fine and dandy. Protect your patents. Fine. But the price of LEGO® is outrageous. And I don't want to hear about how the rising cost of oil effects the production of LEGO®. Yes, that's certainly true, but beyond the oil factor LEGO® products are still too expensive.
June 2, 2009 @ 10:24 am
sparx (693 comments) said,
Also, what if the counterfeit LEGO blocks weighed less than the originals? Maybe they could have made NINE boulders! NINE! Madness!
June 2, 2009 @ 10:28 am
sparx (693 comments) said,
By "originals" I meant "real".
June 2, 2009 @ 10:28 am
me (1 comments) said,
the basic unit of measure for lego bricks is 0.8 mm
a 1×1 lego brick is 8mm x 8mm x 9.6 mm tall and the bump on top is 1.6mm tall.
however, there is a slight take-back of material from the sides to allow a nice easy fit. subtract 0.1mm from each side (total 0.2 mm in each dimension) e.g. a 2 x 4 brick
2x8mm -0.2mm = 16mm – 0.2mm or 15.8mm
4x8mm -0.2mm = 32mm – 0.2mm or 31.8mm
height is 9.6 (so it's divisible by 3) which is 3.2mm x 3.
and the bumps are 1.6 tall.
it all boils down to a 0.8mm base unit. and a 0.2mm gap between bricks.
February 10, 2010 @ 11:49 pm