The YouTube team of Brick Technology has posted a step-by-step video guide letting you piece together an air-piston engine using Lego elements. The author starts with a simple one-cylinder design and moves up to impressive 8- and 12-cylinder builds.
The first demo rig shown consists of a single air piston rotating a wheel through an improvised crankshaft. The construction is then gradually complicated with the addition of such elements as plastic bottles, pumps and gears.
Farther into the demo, the author plays around with differently sized pistons and a makeshift reduction gear. These mods enable him to produce such sophisticated designs as a V6 and a V8 – albeit the camber angle is not exactly conventional at 135 degrees.
The most impressive achievement shown at the end of the video is a twelve-cylinder radial engine running on compressed air.