Forbidden LEGO: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against!

It just may be impossible to exhaust the creative potential of LEGO® bricks. With an active imagination as your guide, there are endless possibilities——provided you follow the LEGO Company's official (and sensible) rules. This means no cutting or tampering with bricks, creating models that shoot unapproved projectiles, or using non-standard parts with any LEGO product. After all, those little precision-molded ABS bricks can be dangerous on the wrong hands!

Well, toss those rules out the window.

Forbidden LEGO introduces you to the type of free-style building that LEGO's master builders do for fun in the back room. Using LEGO bricks in combination with common household materials (from rubber bands and glue to plastic spoons and ping-pong balls) along with some very unorthodox building techniques, you'll learn to create working models that LEGO would never endorse. Try your hand at a toy gun that shoots LEGO plates, a candy catapult, a high voltage LEGO vehicle, a continuous-fire ping-pong ball launcher, and other useless but incredibly fun inventions.

Once you get into the spirit, you'll want to try inventing your own rule-breaking models. Forbidden Lego's authors share tips and tricks that will inspire you and help you turn your visions into reality. Nothing's against the rules in this book!

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies, which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse this book.

Ulrik Pilegaard was a Senior Designer and Studio Manager for LEGO MINDSTORMS in Denmark and San Francisco, where he worked on projects for LEGO Technic in collaboration with the Media Lab at MIT and designed multiple models for LEGO MINDSTORMS (including R2D2). After LEGO, Pilegaard held the position of Manager of Design at Evolution Robotics, where he helped develop state-of-the-art robotics solutions. Since 2004, he has worked for Energy Innovations as a senior product designer.
Mike Dooley worked as the Senior Product Manager for the original LEGO MINDSTORMS and was later promoted to Director of Development. Dooley is currently Vice President for Product and Business Development at Evolution Robotics, which focuses on next-generation technologies for consumer robotics.