This LEGO Typewriter Actually Works, But Not How You Think

A few years ago, LEGO released an official typewriter model kit. It had some moving parts, like a carriage. But it wasn’t actually functional in the can type something sense. Koenkun Bricks wasn’t satisfied with that, so he built his own working LEGO typewriter — except it doesn’t type in the way you’re probably thinking.

Real typewriters from the days before electronics and electrical subsystems were among some of the most complex machines a person would encounter in day-to-day life. Every single key has multiple moving parts and that’s before you even get to the carriage and paper feed mechanisms.

Reproducing that using official LEGO bricks wouldn’t have been possible without scaling the entire machine up to some absurd size. Koenkun Bricks wanted his LEGO typewriter to be a normal size (roughly similar to a classic Remington Cadet). To achieve that, he reinvented the way typewriters work.

You see, this LEGO typewriter doesn’t print ink onto paper. Instead, it sticks LEGO character tiles onto LEGO bricks.

When the user presses a key, a corresponding hopper opens up and drops a character tile down a ramp. That ramp leads to a channel with a mechanism similar to pinball launcher, which pushes the tile onto the brick “paper.” The act of pressing down the key already armed that by putting tension on rubber bands, so it is ready to go.

The final part of the build was feeding the paper horizontally after each key press and vertically after reach row. It moves horizontally with a sort of reverse ratcheting mechanism, actuated by the key press and timed to the key release. Advancing the paper vertically is a manual process, with the user winding a spool to lift the whole sheet.

The whole thing is genius. I don’t know about you, but I’d be really curious to see what Koenkun Bricks would be capable of if he wasn’t staying with in the LEGO constraints.