Every Lego genre has its outstanding AFOLs builders. Today we would like to introduce you to a person who for the Lego Technic genre is not just outstanding, but a pure genius that set a timeless point of reference for everyone else. It’s a person who was building 9 years ago, when most of today’s regular convenient and specialized parts did not exist at all, and yet she managed to build large models of vehicles with a Model Team-like look and full functionality. A person who, when few people were convinced to the idea of using motors in general, was able to build a completely remote-controlled models with lights, advanced suspension systems or realistic drivetrains, models which did not just look real, but were robust enough to function like the real machines. Just a handful of her models was sufficient to change the world of Technic builders, and to remain inspiring up to this very day. That person - a legend to some of us - is Jennifer Clark.

Klocki - Hello Jennifer, it’s an honour to interview you I’m sure that majority of our readers is quite familiar with your Lego Technic models, but for the minority that is not, let’s have a few words of introduction. Who are you, what’s your daily occupation, and how did you come across the Lego bricks?

Jennifer Clark - Hello, it’s an honour to know my models still command some interest and good to talk with you. I’m a musician by profession, playing double bass and bass guitar in many different styles, leading and writing arrangements for various bands, and working as musical director for others. While this may seem a world away from Lego I also have a degree in computer science and did research into robotics in my youth

I first came across Lego when I was really young, I think about two years old - my mother tells me it was the first dexterous thing I did in my life! That was in the early seventies, and I remember having some great sets back then that captivated me for hours on end, such as 367 Moon Landing, 200 The Family and 315 Container Ship. I coveted many others in the catalogue!

- How exactly did you become interested in the Technic scheme? Was it because you already had interest in mechanics, and Lego Technic provided convenient means to develop it, or on the contrary, you were initially into some other theme and the Technic theme drew you into the world of gears and motors?

- My introduction to Technic was in the late Seventies from a friend, who was the first in my area to have this kind of Lego. One of the sets he had was the 850 Fork Lift Truck, which completely fascinated me - it was probably this that drew me into thinking about gears and motors. Between seeing this set and receiving my own, I dreamed up all kinds of things to build, including plans for a perpetual motion machine. Fortunately for my pride I figured out why it wouldn’t work before attempting to put it into practice!

I pestered my parents into getting me a Technic set for my next Christmas present, and they really excelled themselves - they gave me the 8860 Car Chassis, the best set around at that time, and the 870 4.5V Motor. I immediately became completely hooked on building my own models with this new system, and managed to get a few other Technic sets to add to my collection. I still have all the parts for these original sets, but they have seen better days.

- Have you ever had an impression that your work, your vehicles, are unique and outstanding? I mean, it’s been nearly 9 years since you published your first vehicle, and even today, despite the general development of the Lego brand, despite the much better availability of more advanced and more specialized parts, despite the AFOLs’ community being probably much larger and better organised, there are very few builders able to get close to your level of building. The functionality and design of your models has been inspiring other builders for the last 9 years, and it still does. It means that your work surpassed not only the achievements of your fellow builders at the time, but it still remains a paragon of top-level building today.

- A good idea well implemented has a certain timeless quality to it, and it makes me smile when I see one of my ideas used in someone else’s model. I always tried to create models to the best of my ability, with elegant functionality and good appearance, and at least to some extent I think the ability to do this is independent of the technology available at the time. There were some great Technic models with amazing functionality made in the Seventies, for example, despite the limited part selection - the 8888 Idea Book is a good example of this.

- What was it like to build 9 years ago, in general? Many of us, modern builders, did not have any contact with the Lego bricks back then, and the community, I suppose, was very sparse, probably to the point where the term AFOL was almost unknown. There must have been much less constructions published, and less ideas present than today, yet still you’ve managed to exchange your ideas with other fellow builders. I don’t know if you’ve followed the community’s development since then and if you can compare it, but just in general, what did it feel like?

- I really enjoyed the community back then; it was certainly smaller than nowadays, but more centralised. For example, you could publish a model on Lugnet, and it would likely reach the majority of AFOLs of all types connected to the Internet - not just Technic fans. Nowadays groups appear to be more fragmented, to the extent that I couldn’t tell you where the definitive discussion group for a given genre is. I remain unconvinced that this extreme level of partitioning is entirely beneficial, as I think there is much to be gained from the styles and approaches of other genres. On the other hand, there are only so many hours in the day one can spend on the Internet, and the Lego community is certainly too large and global for one or two sites to cater for everybody!

Many of the methods commonly used to disseminate information on models nowadays such as youtube and blogs didn’t really exist back then, so I had to essentially create this functionality myself, by hosting videos on my own website, for example. Youtube makes this far easier, not to mention cheaper!

- What inspired you to build the models of these specific machines? I know that you’ve described the concept of every single one of them in detail, but well… I don’t want to sound like a chauvinist but it’s not so common for a woman to get fascinated by mobile cranes, trucks, excavators, etc., is it?

- I was lucky to have parents who were not sexist, and who encouraged my sister and I to develop our interests regardless of gender. There have been many contributions by women to male dominated fields in the past – for example, someone I particularly admire is Grace Hopper, one of the pioneers of modern computer science. In the music world, Carol Kaye is one of the most recorded bass players of all time.

My usual motivation for building a model was to figure out how the mechanics worked - the hook lift truck is a good example of this, because the way it could tip and roll a container on and off with the same mechanism was a mystery to me. By building the model I was able to solve this, at least partially; for my first hook lift model, I didn’t have access to a real machine, nor plans for the mechanism, so some amount of reverse engineering was involved - it worked, but the implementation could have been simpler. Once I found out how the machine really worked, I made another model, as yet unpublished, that corrects this.

I built some other models because I thought the machines they were based on were fascinating, or perhaps a certain Lego piece seemed ideal for a certain type of vehicle, and became the component that set parameters such as the scale and colour scheme of the model. The wheels on my All Terrain Crane are an example of this… essentially they were the starting point, and model was built round them.

The vehicles that inspired my models usually had some characteristics or features that stood out, and I would attempt to capture that in the appearance and workings of the model. With Lego it’s not usually possible to be 100% accurate, so the proportions of the model would end up as a slightly caricatured version of the real thing; the art is to do this in a sympathetic way that makes the model somehow even more appealing.

- Perhaps a silly question, but have you kept your models intact? Are your amazing machines still whole and functional today?

- Most are still intact, and some still work. The biggest cause of malfunction is a gear breaking or a belt wearing out, and if this happens to be in a part of the model that is difficult to access it can be very awkward and time consuming to fix. In one of my models this has happened, and the workings and structure are so intertwined and complex that if I take it apart to fix it, I’ll never remember how to put it back together again! This illustrates one of the compromises I made in the construction of the models, the sacrifice of modularity for miniaturisation. It was the only way I could think of to build these models at the time.

- If this is an acceptable question, what made you stop building? It appears that your models took longer to build as their complexity increased, because you’ve built 3 models back in 2000, and then you kept building a single model every year. Have you seen no point or no possibility to develop them any further, or have you grown tired or bored of that kind of hobby?

- My music career was gathering momentum and I found that I had less spare time, which I tended to use working on my musical skills. As you point out, as the complexity of the models increased so did the time and skill required to build them, and for me to retain this level of skill requires fairly constant building activity, which I didn’t have time for. Also after making these models I had solved most of the mechanical questions I had, at least for the time being, so there was less motivation in that regard.

I certainly think it would be possible to take model building to another level, especially with the new technology that Lego have released in recent years, although my brain would require some catching up to do so!

- Although our readers know you mainly as a Lego builder, you are much more than that - you’re a talented, successful musician. What can you tell us about your, let’s say, other passion? Do building with Lego bricks and composing music have anything in common?

- In my experience, a significant part of both is about taking an abstract idea and making it concrete. You may have an idea in your head about a model, what it will look like, how it will work, and you somehow have to bring this into the real world for others, and hopefully they will perceive what you intended to communicate. With music, you may have an idea in your head for a sound, melody or accompaniment, or perhaps you wish to convey a certain emotion or evoke an image in other people’s minds, and the writing and playing of music can bring this to them. There is art and science in both of these activities.

- Have you been following the development of the Lego brand since the moment you quit building? Have there been any Lego Technic sets that surprised or delighted you? What changes have you seen in the direction of the brand’s development?

- I have a look to see what’s happening on occassion, and think the new Power Functions components are brilliant. I think the leadscrew part is a great development, giving more accuracy than the pneumatics, although I would say there is still a place for the pneumatic system. Studless construction offers many opportunities for more compact mechanisms, and indeed I used it extensively on the last model I built, a reworking of my original hook lift truck, which I really must get published online.

It also really pleases me to see the success of HiTechnic in providing additional components; they made some prototypes that I used in my models, such as the leadscrew in the All Terrain Crane, and it is very gratifying to see these incorporated into the mainstream of Lego components and construction techniques.

I think Lego have released some wonderful models in recent years, and I would seriously like to get some of them. In particular, I like the 8421 Mobile Crane, 8275 Bulldozer, 8294 Excavator, 8264 Hauler. I had always planned to build one of the latter! The new 8258 Crane Truck also looks amazing.

- What kind of a feedback are you getting from the AFOLs’ community nowadays? I know that your work is a constant point of reference, and probably everybody who is serious about Lego Technic comes across it sooner or later. I know that your concepts, which you have so inspirantly axplained, have been a foundation for countless Technic constructions, and a great benefit to the community. You are, for many of us, the first and greatest Technic builder ever. Do you often come across the references to your work?

- I do come across references to my work, and people sometimes email me having found my website, and I find it very flattering that they continue to find these models useful and inspiring.

- Have you ever been offered a job for the Lego company? And if not, would you consider it if given such an offer?

- I’ve never been offered a job with the Lego company, but if they came to me with some work? I’m pretty busy with music at the moment, but never say never!

- What do you think about the Technic parts available today? I believe that all of the shortages that made you use custom parts in some of your models have been fixed since back then - we have linear actuators, lights, new tracks, new differentials, and possibility to easily create models that are controlled remotely via radio or infrared - not to mention the superb new motors. I think building has become much easier and more potent over the last few years, and it will continue that tendency in future. Don’t these heaps of new possibilities make you want to build something again?

- Indeed, the new parts solve many of the limitations that caused me to use custom parts, and are a welcome addition to the canon of Lego components. I disagree that they make model building any easier though… as I mentioned earlier, in my opinion, the art of model making is in the creation of something special, perhaps unique, that evokes a reaction in people, and that is always the tricky part, no matter what components you have at your disposal.

- How do you think, is there some new system that - if released by Lego - could make you get back to building? A long wished-for hydraulic system, perhaps? I’s sure you realize that this simple thing would open an entirely new area to explore - let’s just say that we could build realistic power steering systems, hydrostatic gearboxes, or very advanced suspension systems.

- While I think these potential new systems would indeed open up further possibilities, I’m not sure that they themselves would inspire me; my inspiration tended to come from external sources, and the components were just a way to realise those ideas in model form.

- If there was one particular part or a system you could design for Lego Technic as you wish, what would it be?

- A subtle and compact way of activating pneumatic switches by remote control would be useful, although to some extent this has already been addressed by the linear actuators and Power Function parts. Washers would also be useful to ensure gears are packed tightly, although I was able to create these, legitimately in my opinion, by using thin slivers of the corrugated hoses.

As I’m somewhat out of touch with the recent Lego releases, I hesitate to suggest anything else in case it has already been added to the official parts set!

- Are you familiar with the activity of modern Technic builders? Has there been any particular constructions, or general concepts, that caught your attention?

- I’m not fully up to date with the constructions of modern Technic builders, but I was impressed by the American truck built by Ingmar Spijkhoven - the model looks great, and in particular the suspension is well constructed and realistic. As you may have guessed, I’m a fan of realistic working models! The models of Nathanael Kuipers are also well built, and I find the ones he made from single sets really appealing. I also really like the idea of the Truck Trials, I would definitely have been tempted to enter this type of contest if they had been around when I was building.

- Thank you very much for your time. And - on behalf of many modern builders - thank you for your precious contribution to the community

- You’re welcome

Jennifer’s website: www.genuinemodels.com
Jennifer’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/jenniferclarklego

Esta entrada foi postada 23 Ago 09 at 19;12 e está arquivada como Interview, Giants. Pode seguir as respostas a esta entrada através de RSS 2.0 feed. Pode deixar uma resposta, ou segui-la do seu próprio site.