Brick-and-Stick Molecules

The idea represents ball-and-stick models of molecules using LEGO bricks. Atoms are made of cubes with technic holes. Bonds are made using soft axles.

Many chemical compounds can be easily and quickly created by connecting and disconnecting atoms. To represent valence electrons and bond abilities, the hydrogen atom has one connection point (one technic hole), oxygen has two, etc. Soft axles enable the creation of complex compounds with angled, double, or even triple bonds.

Many variations can be made by applying different stickers to the top tiles of atoms. For a set, I have selected 80 atoms and an adequate number of bonds, for a total of 742 LEGO bricks.

I have already successfully used this system to show my kids the difference between atoms, molecules, and various compounds.

The idea is the system. One can take only a few bricks and switch top tiles with stickers, or one can build a whole periodic table of elements. However, for most molecules, one needs multiple hydrogens, but helium is not used at all (because it does not create molecules under normal conditions).

Changing bonds is very quick, so one can also demonstrate chemical reactions.

For myself, I have used simple paper stickers with a chemical symbol, proton number, and oxidation state.

The other possibility is to make stickers with only chemical symbols, as shown in most images. Because I had issues uploading images to the Lego ideas, I used it for most images. There is some rule that texts have to be readable, and in the first image, that was the only way to make all texts readable.

Kids were asking about atoms/molecules/matter etc. So I thought I will find some nice chemistry system using lego and explain the topic. I have found several chemistry Lego systems or ideas, yet all seemed quite complex or too abstract. So I tried to think about something more easy to understand, and easy to build.