Product Description
It just may be impossible to exhaust the creative potential of LEGO bricks. With an active imagination as your guide, there are endless possibilities--provided you follow the LEGO Company's official (and sensible) rules. This means no cutting or tampering with bricks, creating models that shoot unapproved projectiles, or using non-standard parts with any LEGO product. After all, those little precision-molded ABS bricks can be dangerous in the wrong hands! Well, toss those rules out the window.

Forbidden LEGO introduces you to the type of free-style building that LEGO's master builders do for fun in the back room. Using LEGO bricks in combination with common household materials (from rubber bands and glue to plastic spoons and ping-pong balls) along with some very unorthodox building techniques, you'll learn to create working models that LEGO would never endorse. Try your hand at a toy gun that shoots LEGO plates, a candy catapult, a high voltage LEGO vehicle, a continuous-fire ping-pong ball launcher, and other useless but incredibly fun inventions.

Once you get into the spirit, you'll want to try inventing your own rule-breaking models. Forbidden LEGO's authors, share tips and tricks that will inspire you and help you turn your visions into reality. Nothing's against the rules in this book!

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 26 reviews)

Half an instruction book - no way to order parts needed to build

A waste of money. This is a well done instruction book that motivates you to build the design and then stops. There isn't a parts list and since it doesnt give you the Lego parts numbers, neither is there any place you can go to get the parts. The Lego website won't let you order without them and, even with hours of searching, you can't find most of the special gears the authors magically came up with. A good example for business classes of how to foul up a really great idea. I raised this question to the publisher, NoStarch Press and they thanked me for my comments but offered no solution. They said they talked to the authors "from time to time" and would ask them - 6 months later, still no response.
October 30, 2008

Incomplete!!!!!!

This book is not useful!!!! Great ideas, but no parts numbers listed. Too hard to find the pieces necessary to make the models. Pictures are not detailed enough to redesign the machines yourself. You might as well read the project names from the table of contents and design your own machines to carry out the functions.
September 08, 2008

More than just an instruction book

I've enjoyed with this book not only creating some of the creations it has, but also reading the LEGO design-related stories, guidelines and ideas the authors have written through all the chapters.

The pages format and design are very attractive and the building steps are perfectly structured, fun and easy to understand.

For me, a must-have being a LEGO fan.
September 02, 2008

fun to read but frustrating to do

We bought this book for our 8 year old lego-fantatic son. He really enjoyed reading the book and looking at the designs. But as for doing the projects...as others have said, there aren't that many actual projects in there, and most of those require specialized pieces my son doesn't have. In order to get the right pieces, he must either buy a kit that includes those pieces (such as a motor) or go to one of the sites that will sell individual pieces...but the prices are high for a kid.

So, although he was excited to get this as a gift, it hasn't worked out so well for him.

I'd rather a book that gave more projects with more standard pieces.
July 21, 2008

not impressed ...

the boook is fine, but you only get five "projects". for $17 dollars new, you'd think there would be more ... guess i should have reviewed the table of contents before purchasing. also, the pieces aren't identified well enough for me. a name, or piece number would work MUCH better because i don't have some of the pieces and would need to purchase them, so now, i have to order them, blah, blah, blah. anyway, the book is nice, slick and well bound. there, i said something positive.
June 24, 2008

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