The Moment Makers

In LEGO Inspiration today, we will show you what we found interesting in LEGO Friends set number 41133 Amusement Park Bumper Cars.

Gear Train

Although this set is really cool and has a lot of details, we thought that by far the coolest part was the swing attraction.

As the swing attraction spins, the seats roll. In one rotation of the swing, the seats go upside down twice! It makes you feel really bad for the poor LEGO people riding it.

We decided to investigate to see how this works.

The gears on the side make up a gear train. In a gear train, there are three types of gears: the driver gear, the idler gear(s), and the driven gear. The driver gear is the one that will be turned by inputing force by either manual power or by a motor. The idler gear or gears are used to change the direction of the driven gear and/or to make the distance between the driver gear and the driven gear the necessary length for the structure. The driven gear is the one that moves the output, which could be an arm, rack, or, in this case, spin the attraction of doom.

The driver gear is attached in relation to the base. Because the rest of the gears are attached to the swing, the swing has to spin around the driver gear. As the driven gear turns, the seats which are attached to the same axle spin as well. This creates the nauseating feel of this attraction.

I hope you can use this information in your LEGO Technic ideas!