Mechatronics student builds 3D printer made from 92% LEGO for less than $180

Adam Turaj, a Mechatronics Engineering student at the University of Waterloo, built an open-source LEGO 3D printer named “Studprint” with only 13 pieces of the printer not made out of LEGO. The bill of materials only totals $173.35, with $30 of the budget going to LEGO pieces that comprise 92% of the whole build. Turaj’s project got him flown to the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival 2026, where he got to meet Prusa CMO Zack Freedman and presented Studprint to over 4,000 people at the event.

Earlier this year, Hack Club posted a challenge called Infill, calling makers and hobbyists to design their own 3D printers from scratch and receive a $350 grant to build their printers. Whoever submits a benchy with their printer gets a chance to be flown to the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival 2026, and Turaj was one of them.

Turaj joined this challenge, designing his LEGO 3D printer in SOLIDWORKS. He named the project Studprint, referring to the studs on a LEGO brick. What takes this project even farther is that Turaj decided he would only use “classical LEGO,” avoiding LEGO Technic pieces wherever possible. Looking at the repository’s images of the CAD designs, you would easily mistake it for a virtual LEGO builder.

Turaj shared an image of the bill of materials (BOM) on the GitHub repository for his build, showing a final build price of $173.35. There are three major electronics components in the printer: the first is the BTT SKR Pico V1.0, a control board commonly used in open-source 3D printers like the Voron V0; for wireless capability, a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is used; and the whole printer is powered by a Mean Well LRS-150-24 switching power supply — with all three components priced at around $25 each. This printer is built with the backbone of a true DIY 3D-printer build, unlike this cute LEGO 3D printer we covered last year that used a 3D printing pen.

There are five NEMA 17 stepper motors, also popular in 3D printers, whether open- or closed-source. Four of the motors control the axes, while the fifth is used to feed filament to the Trianglelab V6 Extruder. The rest of the 3D printer is made of $30 worth of LEGO pieces; even the build plate is a block of LEGO. Turaj’s only print shown on the GitHub repository is a Benchy, sliced in Klipper and printed in 1.25 hours; it’s surprisingly good considering the leadscrews are all LEGO pieces.

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