Balancing 117 Toys on a Single LEGO Block

Children’s author and photographer Walter Wick decided to balance 117 toys of various sizes and shapes on a LEGO block to create the shot that he was looking for. And then, with some difficulty, he knocked it down.

I created this photograph for the Kids Gallery of the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. It shows 117 objects balancing on a single Lego block. No adhesives, glue or hidden supports were used. The stability of this improbable pile of objects is helped by positioning the center of gravity of each horizontal section directly above the Lego block and by lowering the center of gravity of the entire structure as much as possible through the use of hanging objects.

The process involved about a week of trial and error, with many, many crashes along the way. After settling on a design for the lower half of the structure, I worked on the horizontal segments separately, adding them to the stack with temporary supports in place. This allowed me to swap out different objects and shift them around until all the parts were in balance. I then removed the supports and took this photograph. The stack remained up until I decided to knock it down (captured on video!)

Resulting Photograph via Gizmodo | Artist’s Website