Exclusive Video: How Lego Builds the Minifigs

One of the best parts of my trip to Lego and exploring their factory was the minifig production lines, where the head and body of the most famous toy citizen in world gets painted and assembled at uncanny speeds. To celebrate its 30th Anniversary, here's a video showing how they are built, from raw plastic to final assembly. [Update: we are also celebrating a video contest with original—and expensive—vintage sets as prizes] More »

Exclusive: Inside the Lego Factory

This video shows something that very few people have had the opportunity to witness: the inside of the Lego factory, with no barriers or secrets. I filmed every step in the creation of the brick. From the raw granulate stored in massive silos to the molding machines to the gigantic storage cathedrals to the decoration and packaging warehouses, you will be able to see absolutely everything, including the most guarded secret of the company: the brick molds themselves. More »

65-foot-high Lego Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year

Without a doubt, the Lego brick storage buildings were the most impressive part of my visit to Lego. When I first saw their 65.6-foot high ceilings, with multiple giant robots going up and down retrieving boxes full of bricks, I felt like I entered the Matrix. Below the thunderous noise of the flying machines, I heard myself shouting: "It's a cathedral." And as you will see in the video, with a total 65.6 square-miles of shelf space—900 million pieces at any given time—they are indeed The Lego Cathedrals. I was in total awe, and the amazement didn't stop there. More »

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lego

You sent the questions and now here are the answers. Do you want to know how many bricks are produced per minute? How many bricks have been produced in history? What's the best-selling set ever? What has been the worst? Do they recycle? How did they survive the crisis that almost killed them? How successful is Mindstorms? What are the actual names of each of the pieces? Why there are no blondes in Lego sets? Why there are extra pieces sometimes? Here's the definitive mega-reference, straight from Lego. More »

Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History

I have to confess that life hasn't been very good lately. Work around the clock, not enough free time, trying to have kids and crashing badly... all while moving to a country I don't particularly like, away from my best friends and family. Maybe that's why visiting Lego's Memory Lane-the secret vault guarding almost every Lego set ever manufactured-touched me in a way I didn't expect. This wasn't amazement or simple awe. I was already astonished to no end by the tour of the Lego factory. No, this was something else, something bigger than the impressive view of the 4,720 Lego sets inside this lair. These weren't just simple boxes full of bricks. These were tickets to ride a time portal to emotions and simpler days long forgotten. More »

750,000-Brick Kennedy Space Center Is the Mother of All Lego Models

Forget about the Lego Airbus A380 and the Lego Death Star, because this video will show you the mother of all Lego models: the 750,000-brick Kennedy Space Center. Using 1,506 square feet, it took 2,500 hours to build. It includes a 6.13ft-tall Space Shuttle on the launch pad, the space center with a 9ft-long Saturn 1B rocket, and the Vehicle Assembly Building—8ft long x 6ft high x 5ft wide—made out of 50,000 Lego bricks. I know. Mindblowing. This thing is so massive that it can probably affect Earth's orbit. Update: if Lego's Kennedy Space Center is the mother of all Lego models, Giz reader Florian Frischmuth has sent us his pictures of the father: the 1,300,000-brick Lego Allianz Arena stadium in Munich, Germany. This titan contains a mindblowing 30,000 mini-figs inside. More »

Lego Airbus A380 Is Biggest Lego Airplane in the World

Behold the biggest Lego airplane in the world, made after the largest passenger airplane in the world, the Airbus A380. Made at a 1:25 scale-9.5-foot long, 10.5-foot wingspan, 3.2-foot tall—the Lego A380 uses 220 pounds (100kg) of bricks. That's a mindblowing 75,000 pieces in eight colours—15 Lego Millennium Falcons. More »

Galactic Empire Cloning Stormtroopers in Lego Factory

If you ever wondered where the Galactic Empire gets all those stormtroopers, look no further than the Lego factory in Denmark: here's an exclusive video about how the iconic mini-figure gets its characteristic evil look after getting out of the mold machine. More »