The three metre high, 3,500 Lego brick turbines rose in popular public spaces as part of the Lego Wind Turbine Building Competition, organized by Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Australia for Engineering Week.
For a gold coin donation, passers-by could add Lego bricks to the turbines, that rose in Federation Square in Melbourne, Queen St Mall in Brisbane, Customs House Square in Sydney, and locations in Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.
EWB launched the event in an effort to raise public awareness of how climate change is affecting developing communities, what EWB is doing about it, and what the public can do to help.
EWB’s vision is of a world where every individual and community has adequate access to the resources, knowledge and technology necessary to meet their self identified human needs. While some of the funds raised will go to support EWB, the organisation said the main aim of the event was to have a lot of fun with Lego.
Speaking with the Sydney Morning Herald, campaign director of Engineers Without Borders Australia Todd Houstein said “Lego is the reason half of us became engineers; as kids we just loved building things.
“In building this wind turbine … we are specifically trying to raise awareness on how climate change is affecting developing nations, and highlighting the work we do there.”
Suzlon Energy, who sponsored the EWB site in Melbourne, said it was a great opportunity to promote wind energy to the general public.
A collaborative effort by the Victoria, University of Melbourne and RMIT chapters saw the turbine reach completion around 4:30 pm.
In NSW, EWB reported the event’s success, with over 750,000 people either hearing about, reading about or seeing the turbine and the appropriate technology displays over the course of the four-day event.
