I’m blown away by this ingenious AI-powered Lego mosaic printer

Sometimes the internet can be an absolute goldmine of content you never knew you needed to see – my latest online obsession is no different. The Pixelbot 3000 made by YouTuber Creative Mindstorms (a.k.a Sten), is a custom-built Lego mosaic 'printer' that builds masterpieces from simple AI prompts in an ingenious feat of engineering and art. 

Gone are the days of believing that Lego is just a children's toy – you only have to look at the countless Lego sets for adults to prove my point. Not only is Sten's work a masterful demonstration of Lego's creative possibilities, but an inspiring innovation in Lego building technology, opening up exciting new artistic avenues.

Made entirely out of Lego, the AI pixel art robot is programmed using Python. To generate the mosaic artwork, the user's prompt is sent to OpenAI’s DALLE-3 which then develops a simple cartoon version of the prompt ready to be made into a Lego artwork. Working with a 32x32 canvas, each piece uses only 15 of the 70 Lego brick colours available to create each pixel art design. Taking approximately 3-3.5 hours in total to print, the two pieces are an impressive show of craftsmanship and ingenuity.  

According to Sten, the entire project took around half a year to make but the outstanding results are certainly worth the effort. Fans on YouTube seemed to agree, with one user commenting "This might just be the most impressive thing I've ever seen done with Lego, great job!" Another commenter added "I'm literally thunderstruck by the multiple layers, scales and magnitudes of awesome creative work of Lego engineering, coding, video production and editing, writing and presentation. This video should have many many more views."

For more design inspiration, check out these stunning Lego art pieces that prove just how versatile simple bricks can be. If you're after more Lego news, check out the trailer for Pharell's upcoming Lego biopic – it sounds insane but for some reason, it works.