Friday, May 1, 2009

Mythbusters tackles a LEGO myth

When Mythbusters meets LEGO, amateur detectives and AFOLs have finally been brought together. It's two great scientific pursuits that satisfy the inner dork in all of us. Encyclopedia Brown would be proud.

The theme of Wednesday's Mythbusters was testing Internet myths, which included this video of a guy in Indiana Jones regalia being chased down a San Francisco street via a giant LEGO ball. The show enlisted the help of LEGO Master Model Builder Gary McIntire and brick artist Nathan Sawaya in their attempt to recreate the 7-foot LEGO ball, which was advertised as 5 million bricks big.

It was nice to see the recognition that building with LEGO bricks is complicated, time consuming, and still ridiculously fun. Gary's trademark enthusiasm is on display for the entire show. The Mythbusters' promo video is here (it contains a few spoilers for those who want to keep the mystery alive).

Photo by chasingfun.

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