We all know how a conventional internal combustion engine works, with a piston and a crankshaft. But that’s by no means the only way to make an engine, and one of the slightly more unusual ...

But it also means that mixing the fuel and air can be tricky, which is why diesel engines have specially-shaped pistons. A diesel engine's piston head looks like someone took a scoop out of the top.

In the video after the break, [Brick Technology] uses LEGO to gain some practical insight into the world of piston engine design, from single-cylinder all the way up to radial twelve-cylinder engines.