A Folding Farm PC Made of Lego

By Marcus Yam
published

The ultimate DIY job.

Having a modular, custom built case would be a dream for any DIY-er, which is probably why Mike Schropp decided to build his own server-class case out of Lego. Yes, that’s right, the learning toy from your childhood is used as parts of a case for a folding farm.

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Schropp wanted to fit a triple CPU and motherboard system into one case, which slimmed his pickings considerably.

"I had an idea in my head what I wanted the case to look like, but after researching I couldn’t find something to fit my vision," Schropp explained. "With every project I do I always invariably arrive at the same point, 'Can I use Legos?' VOILA! YES! Lego! Lego and computers definitely sounded like a good combination. In reality the structure of a case built from Legos was going to require a fair bit of thought. I needed to get my case laid out correctly and able to support the weight of all the components without Legos buckling or falling apart."

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He then set out with the following parts:

3X Sandy Bridge 2600k CPUs
3x Thermaltake Frio Cpu Coolers
3X Asus P8P67 Micro atx motherboards
1x Antec 1200 HCP Power Supply
2x Corsair SSD (System 1/Workstation)
1x Mushkin SSD (System 2/Touchscreen)
1x WD HD (System 3/Folding Only)
3X DDR3 for each system
8x Aerocool 140mm Case Fans
1x Metric Crapload of Lego Bricks (Technically it was about 2,000pcs)

Read all about his full build here.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sundragon
    LOL, this was news 2 days ago... Tom's please get with it...
    Reply
  • bennaye
    Will lego work for a standard desktop set-up as well, or will the heat kill it?
    Reply
  • stingstang
    I doubt the heat would melt legos. I'm a former lego master myself, and this was a terriffic idea. In fact...I'm willing to bet that with a little ingenuity, a desktop case maker could make a winning design which lets the user create the shape of his or her case to fit what's inside, sorta like legos. In the meantime, I may actually try to do something like this.
    Reply
  • cookoy
    oh the joy of building your own system! now you can mix work and play when assembling the components.
    Reply
  • winterblade
    Maybe I'm just not hardcore enough but... why in the world would anyone want 3 complete computers in one case?? isn't it cheaper to virtualize??
    Reply
  • bennaye
    Well, I'd never thought of using lego as a material. Guess I really can build my own pc in a more literal sense of the phrase. And I think using lego is fantastic, as you can customise it the way you like, and can be made very strong by supergluing the pieces together, allowing for less supports and thus more ventilation space/fan space. And it's pretty cheap as well. My cousin has enough spare lego to build 5 of these things.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    That is intense. The hardware, the case...its a dream
    Reply
  • chewy62
    not to mention it looks pretty good too...
    Reply
  • warmon6
    winterbladeMaybe I'm just not hardcore enough but... why in the world would anyone want 3 complete computers in one case?? isn't it cheaper to virtualize??
    You obvious miss the key detail in the title.

    "A Folding Farm PC Made of Lego"

    virtualizing 3 folding@home clients/computers is not ideal for the project.

    To understand the folding@home project, Come to our team thread and learn more about F@H.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268010-28-folding-home-thgc-team-40051

    Team 40051!


    Reply
  • warmon6
    warmon6You obvious miss the key detail in the title."A Folding Farm PC Made of Lego"virtualizing 3 folding@home clients/computers is not ideal for the project.To understand the folding@home project, Come to our team thread and learn more about F@H.http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ team-40051Team 40051!
    Well, tom's forgot to mention this was a World Community Grid computer.... Although points are still valid between WGC and Folding.
    Reply