Featured image: A Technic truck in the wintry elements.
Once Upon a Brick · Chapter 4
The story of how Infinite Brick came to be: the people, ideas, and moments that shaped it. Each chapter reveals another piece of the journey connecting LEGO creativity with the community around it.
Welcome! If you're new to the series, start with Chapter 1: Before the Beginning
LEGO was no longer just a way to imagine new worlds.
It became a way to experiment with the one I was in.
I remember standing outside in the middle of winter, freezing my fingers off with a 9v controller in-hand, tethered to my build by the never-long-enough wire, stiffening by the minute in the sub-zero temps.
In 1990, you needed 6 AA batteries and a wire to “power up” any Technic sets (or MOCs). Somehow, I was fortunate enough to have 2 of these sets growing up.
Would it work this time?
Would my build – my invention – actually make inroads on my snow-covered deck?
Getting a LEGO vehicle to move in (or preferably on) the snow – a snowmobile of sorts – became an ongoing challenge in my early teen years.
There I stood, rocking it back and forth, much like a real vehicle stuck in too much snow.
It wasn't working as well as I'd hoped.
The motors didn’t have enough torque.
The wheels slipped.
The snow stuck to everything.
I’d analyze what was happening:
Could I improve the gear ratio? Was something binding in the all-wheel-drive system? How could I get more traction: 6 wheels – 8? Tracks? A combination?
All I wanted was something with enough traction to push through snow, enough power to keep going, and enough control to not just spin its wheels in place. Of course later, I tried to emulate actual snowmachines and snowblowers (which bric_workshop has now mastered)
Of course, I didn't have the high-torque first- and plethora of third-party options of today at my disposal, let alone the wireless technology that I would have done. questionable. things. to get my hands on!
It wasn’t an imagination problem.
It was a real-world engineering problem… with plenty of constraints.
That was the shift.
I'd lie awake in bed at night coming up with new potential solutions and bounce out of bed the next morning before anyone else to set my new plan into action.
Those were the days!
Looking back, that was when LEGO started being less about following instructions and more about figuring things out.
Not just building something that worked but understanding why it worked… or why it didn’t.
Every failed attempt meant adjusting something.
Ground clearance.
Weight distribution.
Torque over speed.
And every small improvement felt like progress.
Around that time, LEGO started to feel different.
None of this would have been possible without Technic.
The skis from my Ice Planet collection even played their part, helping keep early builds from sinking into the snow.
Don't get me wrong: I still had my space displays… but the draw of pneumatic cylinders and dual-motor chain-driven track systems allowed me to explore new curiosities.
Unfortunately, my parents didn't ‘revere' my creations as much as I did, and the comparatively high cost of photography back then meant I have no pictures of these creations, save this one shadowy artifact.
A relic of my youth: tracks, dual 9v motors, chain drive… all tethered by wires.
Maybe you had builds you were particularly proud of too.
↓ Tell Your Story ↓
I probably built more MOCs out of Technic than standard LEGO SYSTEM bricks. I loved how it all came together into mechanisms you could see and understand. The broader idea here is that LEGO changed for me; it grew with me as I grew up.
Those transitions looked different for everyone.
How do you approach LEGO today?
That same curiosity may show up in different ways now. I'm curious about how you approach LEGO today:
Until the Next Chapter…
Technic allowed me to invent, to truly create.
It also became the theme that “grew up with me”.
I remember thinking, “I’ll easily still be into LEGO until I’m 16… maybe even 18.”
Especially with Technic as my focus.
And for a while, that felt true.
But I could have never imagined what was in store for me next…
Thank you for being part of this.
Chapter Five is in the works.
— Tyler | Infinite Brick
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