Photo by Mild Du Tessa Jenson tests out her Lego creation on Tuesday during Marshall community education’s Lego engineering class.

Learning about the concept of momentum doesn’t always take a science textbook. Youths in Marshall community education’s Lego engineering class found out sometimes all you need is a model of a gymnast.

Earlier this week, the youths used Lego bricks to build vehicles that looked like horizontal bars on wheels. Hanging from each bar was a human-shaped figure, also made from Legos.

Blake Citterman said he named his Lego gymnast “Steve the Stupendous.”

The class also learned how to make the Legos move. When they made their model gymnasts swing on the bars, the momentum from each swing would roll the vehicles forward.

“Yay, I did it!” said Easton Colvin, when he got his model to move.

“These are the best Legos I’ve experienced in my life. I love it,” Harper Hansen said.

The Lego engineering class is one that’s been offered for quite a few summers, said Sam Jens, 4-H youth development coordinator for Lyon County. But this year, Marshall Community Services received a grant to purchase new Lego kits with some different engineering experiments.

“This kit is focused on utilizing the laws of energy and motion,” Jens said.

This week, groups of kids in grades 2-4 and grades 5-8 got a chance to build models that showed the science of motion. The Lego projects included the gymnast-powered cars, a ski slope, a spring-powered soccer game, and more.

“Legos are a great resource for learning engineering and architecture, because you can build models that replicate real-life engineering,” Jens said.

This summer, the Lego engineering classes had a total of about 30 students sign up. Jens said that’s a typical crowd.

“It’s something that’s stayed popular,” he said.

Kids in the class were having a great time building with the Legos.

“Love it,” answered Maxton Willert when he was asked what he thought of the class.

The hardest thing for students might have been packing the kits up at the end of a session. James Walker expressed his disappointment at having to disassemble the Legos.

“We worked so hard,” Walker said.