In point of fact, I don’t think the particular rounded triangles built by Instructables user sherrycayheyhey to show off this unconventional Lego technique are quite convex enough to be proper Reuleaux triangles. But the general idea—exploiting the small play in each of a large number of individual joints and, to a small extent, the flexibility of the bricks themselves—could probably be used to make very close approximations. You’d just have to make each side longer by the right amount.

0 Responses to Lego Reuleaux Triangles

  1. Now THAT is a cool build!

  2. William Crawford on said:

    If you made the sides longer, they would actually be less convex, not more.  The longer they are, the less each joint has to bend to make up for the square corners on the end of the triangle.  

    • Interesting point.  Of course, if you make them too short, they may not be able to bend far enough at all.  Longer sides are at least capable of greater curvature, although you are absolutely correct that they will be under less tension and will not naturally assume a more convex shape. 

      • I think.

        So, assuming that the sides of the triangles in the picture are at or near their practical limit of curvature, I think that, to build a triangle with more convex sides (e.g. a Reuleaux triangle), you’d have to A) make each side longer and B) apply some radial force, ideally inwards at each corner, to make them bulge out.

  3. Check out Jeff Sanders’ work at brickbending.com for this idea taken to the extreme.

  4. oooooo pretty colorses. I wish I was smart enough to make them. Or had friends to help me. Forever alone.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: