Almost 10m tall Technic Tower

[Matt The Tuba Guy]

I am putting this here because it is built entirely with Technic parts, but if a Mod feels this belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it.

Over the last two weeks, I have spent almost all of my waking hours building this:

Built for the Christchurch Brick Show 2014, it is a 1:100 scale model of the Kingdom Tower, currently under construction in Saudi Arabia.

It is split into 10 sections, each roughly a metre in height. It has on the order of 20,000 parts, about half of which are pins.

It turns out the show venue was not quite tall enough, so I had to settle for 'only' 9m!

The second photo shows just the top 4m with the intact spire.

here are a couple of photos of it under construction:

As far as I know, this is currently the tallest LEGO structure in the southern hemisphere.

This currently has no mechanical functions, but if I decide to revise it, I will probably add some kind of a lift inside it.

So after building this and nearly running out of pins, I will be getting a few more (bricklink order of 16,000 or so various pins should do!)

Now to start thinking about what I will build for next year!

[TheItalianBrick]

I'm odd, but I don't get the point!

Sorry

[Doc_Brown]

OMG that is huge!

I would love to see some closer pics.

How you constructed it to withstand its own weight is very impressive.

Do you know how much it weighs?

[Jim]

I'm odd, but I don't get the point!

Sorry

Why? Because we can!!

Kingdom Tower will be the tallest tower in the world. Is this the tallest Technic tower in the world?!

[Superkalle]

I'm odd, but I don't get the point!

I don't understand that comment either. What is it that you don't get? That people use small plastic parts and put them together to make models? Or that they then share it on a forum on the internet?

@Matt The Tuba Guy: Great work. I had the plans to something similar last year...not a tower, but still a sort of wireframe structure like that. So it's inspiring to see your work!

[TheItalianBrick]

ok, the first thing that came out in my mind was "quality rather than quantity". It's what I like to see in a model, the quality, not the quantity!

Then I looked close at it...what's impressive it's the height of it, but height it's just "the measurement of something"

The model itself doesn't suscitate or transmitts any feeling to me. Plus it's not funtional.

It's made of Lego techninc parts, but it hasn't the LEGO technic soul at all! In the other hand it could be a "Lego city" theme, but it wouldn't work either.

When I like something I really manifestate it, you know guys, but in this case I'm sorry for my carelesseness!

hope I did explain it well!

Edited July 11, 2014 by TheItalianBrick

[D3K]

Not Technical? This is engineering at a very high level!

If you make an elevator inside it, try to make it so you can lift a GoPro camera or something, and shoot a video of it going to the top!

[legomuppet9]

Engineering with Lego Technic at its finest, to make something this tall out of plastic is very hard, due to the nature of the material good job!

[skriblez]

Very well done! Lots of trail and error to build it so that it supported itself or are you just awesome?

[piterx]

it's not nice, it's not useful

but it's f#%&£# impressive man :D

and i think it's a nice piece of technic engineering as i wouldn't know where to start to build something that tall wich doesn't collapse eheh

so great job!

[Bricktrain]

Well done Matt. It was a shame about the roof not being high enough, maybe a slight downsize for next year so you can fit it all in. Adding a lift would be great too, though would be hard to get it to scale.

[Zimix]

Well done,

I would add with ONLY 20000 pcs for a 10m tall tower, and it does not fall down. Just impressive.

I think one of your next projects could well be a nice bridge, the main parts you already have.

[Rishab N]

Wow this is amazing! It must have been hard to make it so stable. It'll probably be a pain to disassemble it if you choose to make something else

[Kelkschiz]

When you build something as tall as that i am sure it gets quite complex supporting the weight of all that LEGO. Very nicely done

[Erik Leppen]

I always like these kinds of projects! They offer a totally different type of challenge than the regular technic build, and the challenge of keeing a structure strong and rigid is one often forgotten by people (case in point, TheItalianBrick). It is a totally different kind of challenge than normally faced, but that's part of what makes it interesting.

(that said, I'm a fan of "bridge builder" games so I like these constructional challenges).

Anyhow, 10 meters is quite an achievement. Well done! I'm quite surprised you used mostly rectangles and not very many triangles. I'd say the outer structure would lend itself perfectly to add triangular bracing. So to be honest I'm a bit surprised it holds up so well (although it looks like the complete tower has som triangular bracing in the lower sections).

Anyhow, good job :)

[camaudio]

very impressive.

Transporting it must be another challenge

[Matt The Tuba Guy]

A few notes before I go to the show today:

The main reason it is so empty is because I had limited parts. I will definitely have more parts next year, so I should be able to make it fuller.

I also built the entire tower in only two weeks, so I basically made it up as I went along. It really helps that Technic is quite strong!

The whole tower weighs between 20 and 30 kg, exact weight to be posted once I weigh each section, and add it up!

The diagonals in the bottom three sections were put in on Thursday evening, before I had to build it at the show, so very last minute!

Transporting it was interesting. I managed to fit the top 6m of sections in my car, but the bottom four sections had to go on the back of a truck (kept on with a tarpaulin and some rope!) The base was so large, it couldn't actually fit out my front door!

I will post more photos from during the show, the results of the MOC prize giving tonight (I suspect I will win the engineering award), and then some more photos of the structure close up after it has been dismantled.