LEGO Group’s senior challenge supervisor Lukáš Horák has revealed that the corporate spent 8,344 hours to construct the distinctive, spectacular McLaren automotive that the Woking-based F1 outfit’s British driver Lando Norris took to the Silverstone observe.
Lando Norris is used to punching in laps round his residence circuit, however this was a novel alternative in a really completely different sort of automotive than he’s used to as he took behind the wheel of a McLaren automotive that has been constituted of LEGO Technic components.
The McLaren P1 has been designed and constructed by the LEGO Group and McLaren Automotive. Made up of 342,817 LEGO Technic components and a completely electrical motor, that is the primary LEGO massive construct able to steering and driving a whole lap of a racetrack. The automotive has been inbuilt a four-stage course of over 17 days by 82 technicians.
“For us, I have to say, it was the most effective initiatives now we have probably labored on,” says Lukáš Horák, Senior Mission Supervisor in Mannequin Manufacturing, LEGO Group. Horák led a 23-person crew, comprising specialists from design, engineering and constructing from the LEGO Group and McLaren Automotive, who spent 8,344 hours on this challenge.
The drivable LEGO Technic McLaren P1 has been a very long time within the making, with discussions initially starting within the Autumn of 2023 between the 2 groups earlier than improvement and development started in January 2024.
That is LEGO Group’s third drivable automotive, nevertheless it’s by far essentially the most subtle. Not one of the others may tackle corners, nor may they’ve coped with the bumps round Silverstone’s observe.
The LEGO Technic P1 is constructed out of 393 several types of LEGO Technic components, used for the extra superior LEGO fashions. They’re extra versatile and sturdy than conventional LEGO bricks – however completely appropriate – and can be utilized to include motors and pneumatic components.
“There wasn’t any glue concerned, all the bricks are linked, which made it extra sophisticated to construct a automotive that might survive a full lap,” says Lukáš. “I’ve to say, this mannequin and the know-how we developed to attach the bricks survived rather well.”
When Horák and his crew started the event stage in January, they began by utilizing their 3D software program to check the P1 and work out replicate the design in LEGO bricks. In the meantime, the engineers on the challenge had been working alongside McLaren Automotive to provide the automotive’s metal development, which might kind the essential chassis that the bricks could be constructed round, and the automotive’s entrance and rear axles.
“Now we have two forms of bricks,” Lukáš continues. “So, there may be the LEGO Technic core, which is the development out of the LEGO Technic components, after which now we have the LEGO Technic pores and skin, which is actually the physique of the mannequin.” It’s the LEGO Technic pores and skin – a community of interconnected triangles linked to the inside construction of the mannequin through a community of actuators – that permits Lukáš and his crew to recreate the curved form of the P1. “The LEGO Technic core is firmly linked to a metal development, after which the pores and skin is linked to that.”
Weighing roughly 1220kg and able to speeds of as much as 50kph, the automotive is powered by an electrical motor consisting of LEGO Technic Operate batteries and an electrical automotive battery. Mixed with working suspension, brakes, a steering wheel, and the identical lights as the actual supercar, the P1 can journey additional than some other LEGO mannequin.
It doesn’t embrace a windscreen, nevertheless, that means that Norris loved a “good little breeze” on his drive of the 5.891km tour of Silverstone, which he described as “Superior. It was tremendous good. Thanks, LEGO [Group], for the chance, it has been wonderful.”
“We requested Lando for his ideas after he accomplished his lap and he stated that it was similar to driving a standard automotive, which we had been fairly stunned by,” Lukáš says. “I additionally requested him if he used the brake in any respect throughout the lap and he stated no – though we do know they work. He regarded actually positively stunned, I have to say.
“The chance to be with McLaren on that iconic circuit and to satisfy Lando, we’re actually pleased with that and to have achieved every little thing with none points. We’re actually grateful for the chance.”
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