Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Everything about gears

On his popular website Sariel has published a complete tutorial to Technic gears. I recommend it to everyone.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Lego house of James May is demolished

What is the worst thing that can happen to Lego bricks? Yes, something like that:


As we have told you earlies the house was built for the series Toy Stories. The original plan was to move the whole house to Legoland WIndsow but the company changed its plan. Without alternatives the builders have decided to demolish it.

More pictures and details pulished by Daily.

Turing machine, Millenium Falcon and Counter Strike

Animations made with Lego bricks again. This time I picked videos from two blogs (Stritar, Marx-blog). The first animation shows a working Turing machine. This is an imaginary gadget that illustrates how a computer could work - invented by famous British mathematician and code breaker Alan Turing in 1936.



The next video shows how the biggest 10179 Millenium Falcon is built. The set has 5195 parts - for comparison, the largest Technic set ever made, the 8421-es Mobile Crane has 1884 elements. So the Falcon contains almost three times as many! I cannot imagine how long would it take to build it in real time.



At last, a bit of fun (caution, content not suitable for minors). One of my favorite games, Counter Strike is played with Lego minifigs on the level de_inferno.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Ship in the fish tank

During the summer our kids convinced us to get a fish tank for them. My biggest daughter takes good care of it most of the time and if she forgets then there is Mom who is known to take care of everything.


So far the fish tank had the usual content: fish, plants, decoration, filter etc. But having a father like this it did not take long to get some bricks in there.



What had to happen has happened: there are Lego bricks in the water now. After short thinking I have decided to build a ship that somehow happened to sink right there.



Putting it down was not very simple. As it turned out, Lego bricks are just a little bit heavier than water so it is solvable without additional weight. To get it right, I had to get rid of all the bubbles stuck inside the bricks. I chose the simplest way. With my daughter we disassembled it above the water completely and then built it again underwater with fish watching the show.



As of know it is not known if the fish like it or not. But they are alive and well.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Lego robots, head to the Moon!

The Google Lunar X-Prize Challenge got a smaller sister. The foundation encourages parents and kids to joins forces and create robots using Lego Mindstorms parts that can solve discovery tasks similar to the ones on the Moon. Let the adventure start!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Tantive IV Corellian Corvette

I am not a rabid fan of Star Wars but this set appeared just now is very nice. The Corellian Corvette named "Tantive IV" appeared with number 10198 in the selection of Lego Shop. One look is enough and you already feel in the middle of the action :)

Brickset has already published a detailed review.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

8868 Claw rig truck

I admit that so far I did not pay much attention to this Technic set from 1992.

This excellent computer animation has made it immediately interesting. I recommend it to everyone who likes classic Technic sets:

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Good progress on the Lego house in England

Top Gear star James May has made good progress on turning his childhood dream into reality. By the time when it is ready, he and his 1200 helpers will use almost 3 million bricks to build the house and the furniture, including a flushing toilet. We keep our fingers crossed!