Riding toys have made the crowd happy for many decades. Little games like LEGO are able to give wings to the imagination, allowing you to build whatever you want using the most colorful little pieces.

For the young 14-year-old Leon Overweel went a little further than usual: he was able to build a real-life printer and used the game's accessories as a basis for his invention.

Called PriNXT, the contraption runs on three motors and uses a porous pen to perform the desired strokes on the paper. Printing is controlled by some computer programs, such as RobotC, a popular application for developing LEGO-mounted robots.

PriNXT (Image source: Reproduction / World of MindStorms)

Everything is based on the C programming language. So what you want printed needs to be interpreted and transformed into a binary sequence of digits alternating between 1 and 0.

PriNXT is capable of printing 50 X 50 pixel resolution images and needs about 3 hours to create an image on an A4 sheet. Despite the slowness, the invention is nonetheless incredible.