The end of summer vacations and going back to school is a hard time for everyone (going back to work is quite similar…). Matt shows us why we really should be afraid to come back: hungry school bus.
I know. You have been waiting for his like for ages. My apologies. It was a tough call. But finally, we have selected the top creations for all categories. Now - your turn. Review the entries and vote for your favorite one. Here are the links:
Voting will end August 7th, at 21:59:59 GMT
This weekend, a major LEGO event will take place in Museum of Toys and Play in Kielce, Poland. Annual exhibition coordinated by Maciek Drwięga (ovation) and friendly Museum (kudos for Ms. Agnieszka) is getting larger and larger each year. Here are the events scheduled for this year (abstract from longer announcement in Polish):
(Kielce 2007, photo by Ciamek)
Weekend with LEGO, Month with LEGO
- 9-meter diorama of the “Klocki Zdroj” town, with houses, train station, moving trains, park, manor house, parking lot, gas station and stores.
- Custom creations presented by LUGPol members, including giant trucks, diggers, cars, movie scenes including Indiana Jones
- Contest for visitior, with prizes sponsored by LEGO
- Legendary Truck Trial contest
- LEGO-LOGOS workshop
- Play-area for kids
- Almost all models will stay in the Museum for the whole month, so it you can not make it for this weekend, you can see it later.
- Additionally, Museum organized a small exhibition with historical bricks made from stones.
So, if you want to see our models live, pay a homage to Misterzumbi or just chat - feel invited!
Lugpol’s Zgrredek (eng. Grrumpy) is going to river rafting during the summer holidays. He says there only this on his mind right now, so what else could he build?
I like how the water flows over the fallen tree. The cliff is also great: with very clever use od dark tan and these falling tree roots!
Have a nice rafting, Zgrredek!
At last, we can provide you with an ‘at first hand’ info about the new elements of the Power Functions system:
The lights
Their full length is shown above. The lights are powered via a new-type-only plug, and a surprisingly huge brick that separated their wire, which has the exact dimensions of a classic 2×2 brick. Pity it has no electric contacts at all, otherwise it would be a way to connect the lights to the old 9V system. An advantage of the lights’ design are long, quite flexible wires that connect the forementioned brick to the actual lights. The lights can be inserted into any 1-stud wide hole, and they take up to about two thirds of a stud in depth, which allows to put a transparent 1×1 brick on the other side of the hole. The lights give strong, white light, that strongly brightens the transparent brick of any color, thus trans-orange brick may appear yellowish, etc. The lights’ design seems to protect them from any damage caused by the cables being pulled. It’s hard to tell how much power the lights need, but when powered from regular, not fully charged batteries together with a motor, they become apparently dim while the motor is running.
The switch
Not too big, it has a lever that can have an axle put through. The lever itself is very much like the one used in the PF handset, except it can swing roughly twice as much. Nice thing is a pole reverser on every switch, identical with the ones used in the handset. But there is a surprise too - unlike the PF IR receivers, the switches are sensitive to the direction in which the battery box switch is put in. It works like a pole reverser on them, which seems inconvenient (you need to keep in mind how to turn the battery box on in order to avoid all the switches working in the opposite way), but may have some use in future.
The linear actuator
Their range is not their main advantage, as it is merely 5 studs compared to the 4 studs of a traditional pneumatic cylinder, and 8 studs of two connected pneumatic cylinders. But the actuators make up for it with their excellent strength and accuracy - it takes 26 full revolutions to extend or retract them fully. Compared to the traditional Lego worm gears, which need 6 revolutions to extend by 2 studs, it means that we just got the most accurate Lego element ever: with accuracy of 5.2 revolutions per stud against 3 revolutions per stud of the regular Lego worm gear.
The speed of full extension / retraction of an unloaded linear actuator for various motors (in seconds):
The actuators need their tips to be locked in order to extend or retracted - when let loose, the tip is simply revolving. It may be the consequence of some kind of an internal clutch that protects actuators from the damage when they can’t be extended / retracted further and they are still driven. We have been testing them with PF XL motors, and observed that when an actuator reaches its extreme position with the tip locked, something starts to snap rapidly - obviously something inside the actuator, as no snapping PF XL motors were ever recorded. It seems to be an intended behaviour, as the actuator is apparently not damaged, and continues to work normally as soon as the motor changed direction.
A pleasant surprise is to see two kinds of braces that come with actuators - one allows an articulated mount, the other a rigid one. The first type will be obviously more popular, but it’s a good thing to have them both.
Both braces are 3 studs wide, and need actuator to be driven with at least 3 studs long axle (the latter, rigid brace allows longer axles). With the articulated brace, the actuator can be driven via the new, shorter universal joint, or with two possible setups of the bevel gears (shown above). The older, 4-studs long universal joints can’t be used here.
The first MOC contest in LugBrasil is now open.
The theme is Science Fiction and the ones who want to participate must build a vignette 8×12 studs with no limit of parts or height of the moc. You can use every LEGO part or even LDD or LDraw!
You must enter your entry between 09-07-2008 from 00:01 hs until 27-07-2008, 23:59 hs. The entries must be entered in THIS topic.
The voting will be between 28-07-2008 until 03-08-2008, 23:59 hs.
The Prize for this first contest will be an honourable mention in his profile and a special article in LugBrasil Portal.
Everyone’s invited to participate!
If you have any doubts, post them Here.
Lego Customer Service published an on-line instruction for the main model of this year’s Technic flagset, the 8297 Off Roader. It can be downloaded from here:
There are some surprises inside:
The new Towball Couplings. Yes, they are shorter, yes, they allow to transmit the drive, and yes, they use the already known steering parts from the 8466 set.
Completely new differential. It’s narrower than the old ones, is only 3 studs wide and meshes easily with a 20 Tooth Double Bevel Gear. Inside, we can see part that prevents internal bevel gears from bending, which used to lead to breaking gears. We don’t know yet whether the new differential can be locked or not.
The doors. As anticipated, they open thanks to the pneumatic shock absorbers mechanism known from the 8448 set.
The lights. They appear to go through a 1-stud-wide hole.
All the Power Functions in a nutshell. The distributing gearbox at the model’s bottom allows to drive either the front winch or the mechanism that changes the ground clearance.
It seems we just got plenty of reasons to buy the new Off Roader. Especially the Truck Trial lovers will have several new interesting parts for suspensions and drivetrains. Not to mention the four big wheels!
The happy first owners of the 8294 set show how it works. Apparently, the new parts that control the digging arm - linear actuators - offer excellent precision. It’s also obvious that the excavator has a distributing gearbox based on a transmission driving ring, that allows to control both actuators with a single knob.
The exact dimensions of the actuators are finally known:
To commemorate the 50 year patent of the LEGO brick, 0937 Community is having a contest in wich you have to build a MOC inspired in the 2×4 brick. This contest will end on September 6, at our exhibit in Viana do Castelo (Portugal)- Club Meeting - 0937 in Viana. The jury will be Jan Beyer.
The rules are:
- The construction must have has in its base a 2×4 brick multiplied by 4. The brick will be 8×16 studs by 4 bricks height. To make it easier, you can add one plate on the base and another one on top of the brick. The studs must be 2×2 round bricks.
- The brick can be “broken” for creative effects. But it always has to be noticed its presence.
- It’s not mandatory that you use the brick laying down like the example.
- The creation may exceed the size of the brick (horizontal and vertical).
- The creations must be entered in the MOCs entry page from 0937.
- Only creations with LEGO parts are allowed.
- Digital creations are not allowed (LDD, etc).
- Everyone may enter the contest, but be aware that you need to bring your creation to 0937 in Viana (don’t forget to register here if you’re coming!) for the selection of the best one. If you want to build a creation for this theme and don’t want to participate in the contest, that’s ok, just present it in the Moc entry Page from 0937.
-Every situation not predicted will be solved by the Forum 0937 Moderators. (myself included)
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