Talk of radically different designs always leads to a single name – Wankel ... This engine is the basis of the modern “Wankel” rotary engine. Piston powered engines, chiefly the Otto ...

Rotary engines were conceptualized by German engineer Felix Wankel as an alternative to the piston-powered combustion engines ...

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.