This is how the Lego factory makes its iconic minifigures

This is how Lego made your childhood awesome.

The 85-year-old company gave an inside look into how its factories make minifigures.

What you don’t see in the video is the beginning of the process. Trucks filled with plastic grains or granules deliver the material to Lego factories around the globe.

Giant hoses dump the granules into three-story-high metal silos. Each silo holds 33 tons of granules and every factory has 14 of them. From here, Lego almost entirely automates its production process.

The granules are fed into pipes that move it to molding machines that heat the plastic up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Hundreds of tons of pressure is applied to create each Lego piece perfectly. Then, the pieces are moved by robots for assembly and decorations. This is where our video picks up. 

Thousands of blank heads snap into robotic machines. After each one is transferred down the assembly line a face is printed on. The machine produces 23,000 painted heads per hour.

Next, the bodies are separately constructed. The machine stamps the pieces with “clothing” details, four at a time. Then they’re transported along a conveyor belt to receive some much-needed arms.

Each piece is branded with a black neck square on the back of the neck to ensure the arms are inserted in the correct way. A machine then connects the iconic yellow hands to the arms. This Lego machinery makes 8,000 bodies per hour.

Last up, a machine produces the legs at an impressive rate of four per second. Afterward, the body parts and accompanying accessories are transported for assortment.

Finally, the minifigures are packaged and shipped. The rest of the assembling happens during family time at home!

If you enjoyed reading this article, you might also like reading about this Lego factory in Denmark that’s making protective visors for essential workers.

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