Coffee has a seemingly unsolvable problem: how are you supposed to make coffee if you havenโt yet had coffee? Itโs the Coffee Drinkerโs Dilemma, a catch-twenty-brew, if you will. Itโs an impossibility, like picturing an object that is simultaneously only blue and only red. Impossible, that is, unless you are good with Legos.
Brought to our attention by Nerdist, one Lego mastermind figured out a way to turn tiny little childrenโs bricks into a mechanized add-on to a Mr. Coffee that makes the automatic machine a little more automatic. Posted to his YouTube channel, Brick Scienceโwhose real name is Rileyโsought a means to having coffee brewed and ready when he woke up. And being a Lego wizard, the medium for doing so seems pretty obvious.
Over the course of the nine-minute video, Riley creates a four-stage Lego machine to handle each step of the Mr. Coffee brewing process: opening the lid, pouring the water, adding the coffee, and pressing the brew button. Using a pump, four Lego Technic motors, a programmable โintelligent brickโ to code the steps, and a whole host of Lego pieces, Riley builds the entire contraption in around 3.5 hours. And perhaps to everyoneโs surprise, it works pretty well.
Now, the cynics out thereโof which I am most certainly notโmight note that all the issues the Lego machine is solving can be overcome in simpler ways like, say, just loading up the coffee maker with water and ground the night before and using Mr. Coffeeโs programmable timer to start brewing before you wake up. Again, itโs not me saying that, itโs the cynics. (An even more cynical person my advise Riley to purchase a better home coffee maker, but that’s none of my business.) I love fun and this solution is certainly way more fun. And it answers the question: why spend 3.5 hours over-engineering a solution when you can just wake up 10 minutes earlier? Because Legos, thatโs why.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
