Great Inventors Part 1: The Wheel

Great Inventors Part 1: The Wheel is a 2001 historical comedy brickfilm by Stefan van Zwam about two cavemen inventing the wheel. It was an entry to the Historical Fiction Contest on Brickfilms.com and was nominated for Best Animation. It was followed up by Great Inventors Part 2 in 2003.

Plot
Two cavemen are hungry and decide to go hunting for animals. They are soon both chased by horses, but the horses both crash into a tree and explode into chunks. The cavemen jump up and down in celebration of this new-found feast and cause fruit to fall from the tree. They wonder how they will get all of this food home and begin placing it into baskets. When they try to drag the baskets, they find that they are too heavy, which leads one caveman to an idea. He rushes off to construct something and returns with a square-wheeled cart. The cavemen load the food into the cart but find that the extra weight means it will not roll any more. They try their hardest to move the cart but the square wheel falls back onto one caveman's toe, and he decides he must go revise his invention.

The caveman returns after rounding off the wheels of his cart and they place all the food back on. They now find that the cart will roll with ease, and a montage of the evolution of the wheel begins. It is explained that within centuries, everyone was using the wheel and for many different purposes, although the basic concept always stayed the same. The wheel is seen being used in prehistoric times by the cavemen, in medieval times for horse-drawn transport, and eventually in modern times for cars. A race takes place between many different types of car, showing just how far the wheel has come over the years.

Crew

 * Marcel van Zwam - Original Idea
 * Stefan van Zwam - Writer, Animator, Editor

Awards
Great Inventors Part 1: The Wheel was the winner of the Best Comedic Brickfilm award in the 2002 Plast Awards.