Working Lego Orrery
Tom Johnson, creator of the Working Technic Knitting Machine is back with another fun creation: a real, working orrery.
What's an orrery? As any fan of The Dark Crystal knows, it's a device with which to impress gelflings. Tom's orrery exists, "to help explain to my children why we have so much light in the summer and not nearly enough in the winter (we live in Alaska). No attempt was made to get relative sizes, distances, or the orbit periods correct. Rather, this model shows the inclination of the earth's axis and why it causes the seasons."
Lego Orrery [Mac]
Tom Johnson has built this Lego knitting machine out of Technic. It may not be the tightest weave we've ever seen (that honor goes to our Junior Prom date), but it's surprisingly functional for using what seems to be a bare minimum of beams.