A set of Lego compatible bricks, gears, chains, axles, and pistons components, made from metal and/or ceramic, all made to be highly heat resistant, with the pistons able to withstand very high pressures.

Plus, some un-lego-like components:

An assortment of valves (including rotary valves (ball type and butterfly type) and push valves (poppet and gate), with some of the push valves being spring loaded to return to their original position when released, and some made to be pushed one way to be closed, and pushed another way to be opened. And maybe a Corliss type valve.

Braided stainless steel air/gas/water lines (with quick-connect couplings) to connect pistons and valves together (the pistons would be able to be connected using the rubber tubes that ordinary lego pneumtics use, but with a groove to allow the quick connect coupling to attach and not come off accidentally).

One or two sizes of pressure vessel (lego used to make a pneumatic pressure tank, but it's hard to find) .

With the above parts alone, one could build a fairly high pressure pneumatic or hydraulic toy, without even needing heat resistance.

And some *extremely* un-lego-like components:

An adapter to go from a small liquid propane tank to the fluid lines used, a combustion chamber, an assortment of heat exchangers and radiators.

With these, one could build hot air engines and steam engines.

To protect plastic lego bricks from hot metal parts, thermally insulating ceramic bricks would be used.

To protect plastic lego gears (or lego chains) from hot metal axles, there would be some gears with metal in the middle to connect with the metal axle, metal on the edge to connect with the plastic gear or chain, and a thermally insulating ceramic section in between. This type of gear could also be used to protect plastic lego axles from hot metal gears or chains.

And last but not least, a warning label: Only for children age 18 and up.
-- goldbb, Feb 03 2009

Also, at least some of the pieces would be painted in a thermochromic paint as a safety indicator, so that they would change from their starting color, to a second color when hot enough to burn people, and a third if hot enough to melt plastic legos.

And perhaps some pieces which just change color through a wide spectrum, just for the sake of looking cool (oh, and being able to estimate the temperature of the parts, but mostly becaust it's neat).
-- goldbb, Feb 04 2009


//And perhaps some pieces which just change color through a wide spectrum, just for the sake of looking cool //
I thought the idea was to look hot?
-- coprocephalous, Feb 05 2009


Sounds like a great bathtub toy plug it into the water faucet, and it just might be tame enough to pass safety regulations. Sometimes slow and tame is observable and understandable. Limited power is a useful problem. You could just sell the extra fun peices seperatly.
-- MercuryNotMars, Feb 05 2009


coprocephalous, I want it to *be* hot, but not in a way that causes burns :)

MercuryNotMars, if you were just going to plug it into a faucet, then all you would need would be an adapter / pressure regulator (limiter) to go from a faucet to a standard lego hose -- nothing else would be needed.

Under the low pressures that are "safe," then all that's really needed are ordinary lego hoses, with connections that are achieved by pushing the rubber hoses over the plastic connections.

Pressures high enough to make cool, powerful, machines, would cause lego hoses to either just pop off of where they're connected to, or (if connected in a way such that they can't come off, such as with some added glue) to burst.

Oh, and less messy (and more powerful) than a faucet adapter would be an adapter to go to an external air compressor (either the type used to inflate tires, or the type used for pneumatic power tools).
-- goldbb, Feb 05 2009



random, halfbakery