Dralegon is a robotic dragon built entirely from Lego and brought to life with the Lego Mindstorms EV3 system and PyBricks MicroPython. The robot took 18 month to build and program, mostly during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020/2021. It is linkage driven; there is a single Lego gear mesh which turns the head with all other motions driven by linkage systems. Three full EV3 Educational Kits went into building this robot, with the individual EV3 bricks communicating with each other over WiFi to coordinate flying, roaring and fire breathing behaviours.

All parts of the robot are assembled from Lego Technics plus a large number of red motorcycle kit fairing panels used as scales together with thousands of individual Lego parts. The only non-lego modification is a DC voltage supply cable harness soldered to the battery connectors inside the EV3s to power the robot as the EV3 does not have a DC socket and replacing batteries would be impractical.

Dralegon contains 12 Degrees Of Freedom (DOFs) with 9 large Mindstorm motors and 3 small; 3 DOFs per wing, one DOF per front leg and 4 DOFs for the head, actuating pan / tilt, mouth open and a DOF that simulates fire coming out of the mouth with a scissor lift mechanism. The robot has a wingspan of 120cm (48"), stands 60cm (24") tall and is 110cm (43") nose to tail.

And no, this is not a kit and there are no instructions for you to follow; the beauty and Zen of building Lego is that you make it up as you go along...

 
Video of Dralegon:
 

 
Photos of Dralegon:  


Dralegon on a Mountain


Dralegon Staring


Dralegon Top View


Dralegon Flying


Dralegon Side View


Dralegon Flying

 

1