Orrery

Just in time for the lunar eclipse coming in July, this orrery quite accurately simulates the movement of the sun, moon and Earth.

It came to life as a project I did for my astronomy class in high school. My teacher was quite excited and suggested I post it on Lego ideas, so here I am!

The model design and construction took me about six months from start to finish and I made many changes and improvements along the way. In fact, I still regularly make a tweak here and there when I can.

As a lego set, this orrery could inspire builders of all ages to learn more about how our solar system works. It is actually pretty accurate: a month is 28 days long and the Earth rotates around the sun in 366 days. Of course you don’t actually have to wait a whole year to see this, because this model goes through a year in just over a minute using its built-in motor. A little known fact is that the sun also rotates around its own axis every 25 days, and this orrery has that covered too!

I hope that this project will get your vote. I had a lot of fun creating it and I think many people would have fun building it!