Mustang at scale

Now that we talk about Mustang - the grand master of pneumatic engines nicjasno published a whole album about the details of his own Mustang. This is much larger than mine and its main task is to test pneumatic engines, but it is very impressive on its own. At about 30 studs wide it is very similar to the details of a real car.

Mustang project

Although I am a Technic fan, these days I run into many realistic models. I like cars and aircraft most especially if they are not too large like the mini-Technic models from the Arvos or the cars from the Ralph.

I got so enthusiastic that I started thinking about how I could build something like that. First I considered replicating the excellent Porsche from the Arvo brothers. I did not drop the idea completely but so far it seems to exceed my capabilities. It would take a lot of time to find out how the invisible parts are done and it would take many special bricks like the windscreen ($26 used) or the a rear windows ($15 new), making it expensive.

Building small models leads to different challenges than large ones where the scale gives you much more freedom. With small ones one has to brainstorm about putting each brick to its place, considering different alternatives in many cases. It needs special pieces in unusual colors to return the characteristic features of the original. I have no clue about how pros do it but it seems impossible that they have all the bricks on their shelves in advance in the desired colors (it is worth to take a look at the color chart).

Finally, I have made up my mind. I have decided to try a Ford Mustang convertible (the current one, not the old one). Decisions so far:

• I have many bricks (ask my wife) but not enough. The car will be built solely from newly bought bricks not to limit building. I am also curious how much it will cost. Also, I would like to keep it in one piece forever.
• This makes designing a bit difficult. I have built prototypes for certain parts from the bricks I have but the final car is modeled in LDD because I do not know LDraw very well. LDD also makes some sanity checks like checking if all the bricks are connected.
• The car will be 6 studs wide. This is small but it allows me to use some special parts like the mudguards.

This is where planning is at the moment. There will be some parts that will look different and I will use other colors too. But the basic shape can be seen.



It seems like $40 will cover the financial side. Ordering was a bit complicated because there are some part I could find only at one merchant, so I had to order from 4 different shops to cover everything.

So far so good. When it is ready it will go to brickshelf and of course I will tell you about it on the blog too!

Explore the Mad Physicist

Ralph probably noticed that we are talking about him and created a nice page to explore his creations so far. If you would like to have more of the pleasure click here.

Favorite cars from the Mad Physicist

We already covered airplanes from the Mad Physicist (Ralph Savelsberg) (here and here), let's take a look at his cars (click on the images).

VW Bug and Mercedes "Heckflosse" alias the "Autobahn":

Shelby Cobra:

Ferrari Testarossa:

Tourist coach:

Pontiac Bonneville:

Chevy Impala:

Ford F150:

Chevrolet Camaro from Chicago City Police:

Mercury Sportsman, 1946:
Each single one is perfect. It is worth to take a look at details like the wheels - almost each one of them is different even though the scale is roughly the same. Likewise, the mirrors, etc.

Now I am only waiting for a Trabant... If I stare at these images for too long, I may build one myself...

Lego Digital Designer

We already discussed how one can play Lego with a computer instead of real bricks. We mentioned LDraw and SR 3D Builder. Let's go back to the alpha an omega of virtual building now: Lego Digital Designer (LDD).

The most important difference is that LDD is Lego's own official product available for free from ldd.lego.com. Unlike the other apps mentioned LDD is not open source. This is a drawback because there is no way to hack it and insert new bricks for example. This is also a plus because hacking is not required - you just need to download and install it. Another plus is that it is well integrated with other services from Lego. What you build can be uploaded into a public gallery and even bought as real bricks (depending on your country).

Key features:

• You get a photorealistic view while building.
• LDD models the physics of elements. You can put bricks only where they fit. They can be rotated or selected based on connections. It does not model rotating gears, though.
  
• The ready model can be rotated or viewed between different backgrounds. Since this is built into the app it is convenient, but our images will not be as nice as with the LDraw - Pov-Ray duo.
  
• After a click and some thinking it presents you with building instructions too. Handy if you are about to order physical bricks.
  

I am sure free software believers will not like me but I think LDD is more intuitive and easier to use than say LDraw. If you would like to try virtual building for the first time I recommend LDD.

After starting it you have to choose whether to build from Factory, Mindstorms or Creator bricks. Building from the Factory bricks allows you to order your creation online from real bricks. If you made up your mind, you can choose from half-ready models, starting from scratch or from your own earlier models.

On the left hand side you can choose the bricks - not all of them are available in all colors, this limits building a little bit. Technic elements are very rare, the selection support City-style building most (in case of the Factory bricks).

You can place new bricks with the mouse and rotate them with the arrows. The program helps you to attach new bricks to existing ones. In the Tool Box there are the following tools available:

• Select. Selected bricks can be rotated and moved the same way as new ones. You can select single bricks, bricks within a rectangle, connected bricks etc.
  
• Clone. You can copy without limits.
  
• Hinge. You can rotate parts like propeller, arms and legs of minifigs, etc.
• Paint. If the selected part is available in other colors, you can re-color it.
  
• Delete.
• Screen shot.
  

With a little bit of practice you can easily get this far:

Once this is done you can go to view mode, rotate it and make pictures:

In Building Guide Mode it even creates building instructions that can be saved as HTML:

When done you can upload your model to factory.lego.com (after registration). You can even order your own or others' sets - it is not more expensive than a factory set with the same number of bricks.

Some experience:

• LDD does not let you build if the bricks do not fit. There are some borderline cases though that fit in reality but not according to LDD.
• With larger models it happens sometimes that small errors accumulate and some bricks do not fit unexpectedly. For example I have managed to save a design that LDD could not load the next time because of this.
• Bricks available in the Factory change a little bit over time. It is possible that you could order a set yesterday but not today.
• Create building instructions may take minutes if the model is large.
• A "Mirror building mode" would be very useful - SR 3D Builder is better here.
  

As usual we have more pics in the album. Have fun!

Legoland visit

Legoland is a big theme park where almost everything is made of Lego. The first one was opened in 1968 in Billund, Denmark and since then there is only three more worldwide: California, Windsor (UK) and Günzburg (Germany). We visited the latter one with the family.


The facts:

• It has a shop where you can buy bricks by the pound. 100 grams for 8 Euro. I swear, I only wanted to buy a couple of bricks... :)
• You can buy every set, like these. But there are no bargains.
• In the mini-world you can see Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Venice, Amsterdam and Switzerland too. Last year Berlin showed the Love Parade but this year Mr. Obama took over the place in front of the Reichstag with Frau Merkel.
  

But let's finish talking, take a look at the gallery!

Not Technic

When a man has daughters in increasing numbers, sooner or later he will be forced to invest in Lego that is not Technic. Like this:


A loving father is willing to much for the kids... More photos in the album.

Automatic gearbox from Sariel

What is a Lego gearbox good for anyway? How about an automatic one? Sariel has always great ideas, this video explains everything:



The original entry on Sariel's blog.

8880 Super Car

Meanwhile I got a 8880 car in my possession too. I was thinking for a long time which one to get from the many super cars. Although I like the others too, the 8880 is special because it is still made of studded bricks and it has many working parts. Finally I have managed to get one.

The car has so many interesting details that I rather do not spend much time on how it was built. As a short summary, Grandma was here and played with the kids so that I can devote my day to it. At the end I succeeded.


How does it work? First, it has double wishbone suspension on front and rear. On the image above the blue items are the front wishbones. All wheels are driven, universal joints carry the rotation between the wheels and the differentials. The car has three of those - above you can see the front one but there is one in the rear and one in the middle too. In contrast to real all-wheel-drive cars there is no self locking feature, wheels can spin easily. But an owner of a Lego car can live with that.

The above picture also shows the gears of the gearbox. It is more sophisticated than
classic Lego gearboxes: there are freely rotating gears on two axes and moving the lever will attach them to the axles through special transmission rings. This set has 4 forward gears and no reverse but it has a fully functional neutral state. The lever can be operated the same way as on real cars. On the picture below shows the lever in fourth gear.


The car sports all-wheel steering as well: rear wheels steer in the opposite direction and less than the front wheels. It requires a good amount of force, there is no power steering :)


At the end of the drive chain there is a V8 engine driven by a real chain. The amount of moving parts can be felt when we try to push the car - it is much harder than with the 8458 racer. Engine brake is also realistic - the selected gear influences it a lot besides the speed of the pistons.

If you are interested in more visit the album too.

Arvo Porsche

Besides Lego Technic the other thing that gets me excited is realistic and not too big models. Like this from the Arvo brothers:


How much time have they spent to put all the bricks in place? How could they get so many special bricks? And how could they build such a curvy thing from bricks?

And how could I have one too?

Via Brothers Brick.