LEGO Land Speed Records

[BusterHaus]

I built a small vehicle for a speed trial and started thinking about LEGO speed records.

There's no official tally of speed records achieved with LEGO vehicles. There are some impressive results, such as Sariel's Torpedo Trike and jaumeBCN's 27km/h car, but they are not tested according to any official rules.

The first problem lies in measuring the speed. You can strap a GPS to the vehicle, adding weight, but giving you a very good reading. You can run the vehicle over a known distance and time it with a chronometer, risking mistakes in your readings. There are a number of relatively cheap (under $100) radar guns available, but most people build one or two models for attempts at speed records and probably would rather spend the money on bricks.

The second issue are the test conditions. In automotive land speed trials, "the accepted record is fastest average speed recorded over any one-mile or one-kilometer distance, averaged over two runs in opposite directions (to factor out wind) within one hour of each other." Since we won't see a sudden invasion of the Bonneville Slat Flats by LEGO builders, the easiest way to control the conditions would be by doing the speed tests indoors, like in a not-very-busy shopping mall. This would have the added benefit of a smooth surface, increasing the measured speed.

Here is a list of elements to standardize: method of measurement, number of runs required, acceleration distance allowed, distance of the speed run and accepted components (including lubrication). There are probably ones I've missed.

Please let me know your thoughts about this.

[rollermonkey]

Small vehicle, indeed! You can't get much more basic than that.

[grum64]

That's as small as a very small smallish thing

[Kierna]

Nice website dude

[Rockbrick]

how about with an M motor and rechargeable box?