It’s inevitable that one day all of us will see our jobs taken over by automatons—the real question is whether we’ll be replaced by robots, or some elaborate and surprisingly capable Lego creation like Arthur Sacek created to build perfectly stacked structures made of playing cards.
Over the years we’ve shared some incredibly complex Lego contraptions, from machines that can solve a Rubik’s Cube in mere seconds, to a holiday assistant that gift wraps presents all by itself. Arthur Sacek’s latest creation ranks up there among the most impressive, even if all it’s doing is building a towering house of cards.
Using parts harvested mostly from Lego Education’s Spike Prime sets (which feature powered programmable components similar to those you’ll find in the Lego Robotics building sets) Sacek spent close to 200 hours working nights and weekends for five months designing and building not only the final machine but countless prototypes. Building Lego machines designed to work and interact with real-world objects is always challenging, but especially so when those objects are paper-thin playing cards that are tricky to handle and more inclined to obey the law of gravity than stand and balance on their edges.
Some of the parts used in this build include three Lego Spike Prime Hubs which serve as the brain and controller of the machine, two larger motors, eight medium-sized motors, three-color sensors, and a force sensor. But don’t bother asking Sacek for more details in the YouTube comments because they have no intention of making or sharing building instructions given how complex the machine is.
If you don’t think you’ve got the Lego chops to build your own, just sit back and watch this relaxing timelapse of the robot doing its thing.