[REVIEW] 42140 Technic App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle

[mostlytechnic]

App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle

Thanks to Lego and EB for this review set. 

Over the years, Lego has made a lot of motorized, remote controlled vehicles. Most have been in the Technic line. At a glance, this looks like another tracked, remote-controlled racer. But.... flip the box over....

 

Name: App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle

Set Number: 42140

Pieces: 772

Price: $139.99

Minifigs: 0

Theme: Technic

 

The Box Front

That is a lot of text on the front of the box. The name, well, not a fan. "Transformation Vehicle"? What is that? And then you have all the warnings that you need batteries and a smart device to make it work. Lego fans could guess that just based on the price - $140 for less than 800 pieces? Must be motors in there! 

 

The Box Back

Wait, I thought we already saw the front. Where's the features and functions (I'm not even expecting a B-model anymore, sadly...) Ok, so this is the back since you have the perforations to open the end, and you don't have the batteries not included notice. However, it's definitely a different way to do the back. For this set, it makes sense though. Clearly, this is a tracked vehicle with two different sides that can flip over. I remember having RC cars like that as a kid. But wait... those did it by having the body be very thin so the wheels were always above/below the body. This orange cab is definitely higher than the treads. And so was the race car body on the other side. I guess there's more to the transformation than just a flip.

 

The Sticker Sheet

Here's a closeup of the stickers. There are a lot of them to decorate both sides of the vehicle. 

 

The Interesting Parts

NEW PART ALERT!!!! Let's start with the biggie. That is a 3x19 frame piece there on the left. I see SO many uses for this. Think how much easier crane booms, vehicle chassis, or anywhere you need size and strength. It has pinholes going all directions, so it will be pretty easy to attach anything you want to it. It's also NINETEEN studs long - making it the longest beam currently made. That also will simplify structures!

Moving on - not all of these pieces are new, but they're uncommon or interesting at least. There are several of the liftarms with perpendicular holes in the set. In the top middle, those are two new gears. They're 20 and 12 tooth, but not double-beveled. I'm not really sure why they're necessary - the existing double-beveled gears work fine as standard gears. Plus I'm old-school - not a fan of the blue gears in multiple shades like this. Give me black and two greys for my gears please, with the occasional tan or white 

Below that - 3x3 "biscuit" pieces in unusual colors, along with wire clips in the same. None are new, but they're uncommon. 

Moving along - new 2x1x1 curved panels, to match the other recent new panels. These are included in blue and neon yellow. The liftarms are also neon yellow. It's a difficult color to photograph accurately. But think of a yellow highlighter and you've got it. It's a VERY bright color, new for 2022 found here in Technic and also in some of the City sets. Last in the line is a 2x5 quarter ellipse piece. That's new for 2022. You can find it in dark grey in the small motorcycle set, but this has it in blue. 

 

The Build, Part 1

The build starts with a solid core, using the battery hub as the center and adding some beams around it, holding two motors at the back. Everything will be color coded - you have the biscuits on the ends of the motor indicating right and left, and more will be added to keep the wiring organized and correct as we go. 

 

The Build, Part 2

The new frame piece makes for a very solid connection across the body of the vehicle. The wires are neatly clipped into place so they don't get caught in the "transformation" mechanism later. And unsurprisingly, the two motors just drive the two treads almost directly. There is a slight gear reduction, but not much of a geartrain to be found. There's certainly no transmission or gear selection or anything like that. 

 

The Build, Part 3

The frame for the treads comes together quickly. There's not a whole lot to it, but there's definitely been some geometry work done at Lego designing this. 

 

The Build, Part 4

Now we can sit the frame aside and start on the body. There's a long beam with dual cabs on the end. This side is - very blatantly - for RACING. I think the paint roller pieces for dual-lever throttle controls look great. (and note, there's a little wheel built into the top of the cab above the seat...)

 

The Build, Part 4 (flipped)

On the other side, there's a very orange cab. It also has wheels on the roof, plus we have a pair of shock absorbers....

 

The Build, Part 4 (flipped, closeup)

Here's a better look at this cab. There's a yoke-style steering wheel, just for looks, and a lot of gauges on the sides of the seat. The other stickers are, well, interesting. I think they're supposed to be industrial, like construction-equipment-style, but there's a little sci-fi looking too. Why are there fake yellow and pink lights at the back of the cab? Boats and aircraft use red/green lights to indicate left and right sides, but nothing uses yellow/pink. 

 

The Build, Part 5

The dual-cab piece gets attached to the wheel/motor frame and a lot of cosmetic panels are added. It pivots at the back and has the shock absorbers connected at the front. It can pivot and the shocks make it snap up or down - that's the transformation function. As a bonus, the racing side has a spoiler at the back. It uses that dark grey liftarm pressed against the battery hub to push it up. When the vehicle flips, the rubber band around the two red balls pulls it down flat. Simple, but very effective. 

 

The Build, Part 5 (flipped)

The other side doesn't have anything else added yet. There's not much to come, since the battery box has to remain exposed for battery replacement (and yes, this has the new version with the battery door screwed on. FOUR tiny screws. It's a pain.)

 

The Build, Part 6

There's a simple "truck bed" built around the battery box, plus some heavily-stickered panels sticking out the sides. In the most repetitive part of the build, you make 8 of these bogies that attach to support the treads.  

 

The Finished Vehicle

The last step is adding the treads, which thankfully DO include the single-stud rubber pieces to give some grip! There's just under TWO HUNDRED pieces of the part count right here. This is also a rare case where a motor gets stickered - since it's exposed here at the back, the graphic designers decided it needed decoration. Thankfully, it's pretty generic and won't look out of place elsewhere later. You can also see how important the cable management is. The wires from the motors go right under the treads, so if there was too much slack, they'd get easily caught. 

 

The Handstand? Just "The Stand?"

The vehicle CAN stand on the spoiler like this and balance. But just barely. I tried getting it to do this by driving up a wall and could not. The momentum from going up always carried it the rest of the way over. Even if you could, it won't be stuck. Just drive a little and it'll flip down. 

 

The Drive

I had to drive it with a handicap - the Control+ app has not been updated yet to include this set. That makes it difficult to operate an app-controlled set. I had to use a user-customizable app. Using the basic controls there, I was able to drive the vehicle around. It's reasonably quick, but not blazing fast. According to the Lego description, when the app is updated, it will recognize which way is up and change the controls (both functionally and visually) to match. That will help, and it's a great usage of the sensors in the battery hub.

The transformation works very well. You can drive into a wall and the car will climb (thanks to the rubber grips on the tracks) to vertical and fall over backwards. The center section pops into place and it's ready to take off. You can of course also just grab it by hand and flip it over. Thanks to those tiny wheels on the roof, it doesn't scrape up anything doing this. 

 

The Ratings

Design: 7 - The two sides manage to look VERY different, and they also are pretty well hidden when the other side is up. The racing side looks like a weird toy racecar, so I think it hits the mark. The orange side is less successful, mostly due to having to leave the battery box accessible. 

Build Experience: 5 - It's pretty short, very simple mechanically for a Technic set, and over a quarter of the part count is consumed in the tracks! It is though a 9+ set, not an adult-oriented set. 

Features: 8 - I was very torn on how to rate this. The car works well, it flips well, the functions work well. My issue is really the name. "Transformation" to me implies more than just flipping over and a hinged body. If they'd called it a Flip Vehicle, I'd have been much happier. 

Playability: 9 - I see kids playing with this for a long time. It's a well-working remote controlled car (though I'd prefer a physical control over a phone screen) and they'll enjoy the flip function.

Parts/Value: 4 - I have to mark this down. Yes, it has a hub and motors. However, the aftermarket has valued these much lower than Lego. At Lego, the hub retails alone for $90! You can get them brand new on Bricklink for under $20. 

Overall: 8 - I'm rating this here from the target market's view. This is a 9+ set. It has enough pieces to make other tracked vehicles. It works well for what it's intended to do. It's a fun toy. 

[Dylan M]

Your review is good , but the image that you attached is sooo stretched...😊

Edited February 25, 2022 by Dylan M

[freakwave]

 

7 minutes ago, mostlytechnic said:

.... In the top middle, those are two new gears. They're 20 and 12 tooth, but not double-beveled. I'm not really sure why they're necessary - the existing double-beveled gears work fine as standard gears. Plus I'm old-school - not a fan of the blue gears in multiple shades like this. Give me black and two greys for my gears please, with the occasional tan or white 

As I had also the opportunity to review this for a German site, I could take a look at those new gears, and IMHO, those have an vast advantage over the beveld ones, as their interlocking is much better/deeper. So you won't experience slip under heavy load as the teeth of the beveled gears only go half that deep, compared to the new ones.

[mostlytechnic]

5 minutes ago, freakwave said:

 

As I had also the opportunity to review this for a German site, I could take a look at those new gears, and IMHO, those have an vast advantage over the beveld ones, as their interlocking is much better/deeper. So you won't experience slip under heavy load as the teeth of the beveled gears only go half that deep, compared to the new ones.

That's a great application! Sariel also pointed out in his review that the main part of the gear being thinner could reduce friction, since the double-bevel gears can rub on the sides.

[Maaboo the Witch]

Cool and innovative! Yes, technically speaking (the best kind of speaking ) there's no B-model, but since this is essentially two vehicles in one, I'm giving it a pass on that point. And as I've stated before, the arctic explorer side would go great with 42038.

Plus, it's pretty clear from the orientation of the power hazard symbol that the arctic explorer side is the main body. Fight me. 

[Jeroen Ottens]

Nice review.

One thing that I have been wondering: how do these new gears mesh with the old ones (if at all)?

 

[freakwave]

2 hours ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

Nice review.

One thing that I have been wondering: how do these new gears mesh with the old ones (if at all)?

 

they do very well:

 

[Jim]

Those new gears are interesting!

Other than that, I am obviously disappointed that this isn't a Transforming vehicle as I hoped it would be.

Thanks for the review though 

[Seasider]

Great review but can you check the images. On my iPhone they look stretched when in portrait mode and still don’t look completely right when in landscape 

 

[mostlytechnic]

3 hours ago, Seasider said:

Great review but can you check the images. On my iPhone they look stretched when in portrait mode and still don’t look completely right when in landscape 

 

Thanks for the heads up on that. Just checked on my android phone and see the same. It's something with how the Eurobricks forum software handles embedded images - not sure I can do anything about it, but I'll definitely pass it along!

[ninoguba]

I was hoping for a more advanced "transformation" like the AirHogs toy my kids have where it transforms from a track flipping vehicle to a standing self-balancing robot.

[Gimmick]

On 2/25/2022 at 3:37 PM, Maaboo35 said:

Plus, it's pretty clear from the orientation of the power hazard symbol that the arctic explorer side is the main body. Fight me. 

The "push-in" markers in on the boxes are on the back  :X

[kbalage]

On 2/25/2022 at 3:37 PM, Maaboo35 said:

Plus, it's pretty clear from the orientation of the power hazard symbol that the arctic explorer side is the main body. Fight me. 

The power switch is on the other side, so...

[Ngoc Nguyen]

I think this interesting fact has slipped a lot of people's minds, including Sariel's and @mostlytechnic's  :

Panels #3 and #4 are not available in regular blue until now. This set is the first set ever that contains those panels in regular blue. Isn't it shocking?!

@kbalage I hope this will be mentioned in your review videos.

Their shorter variants (panels #1 and #2) have been released, but they are no less rare. They have appeared in only 5 sets so far, with the 42123 McLaren Senna being the most recent and 42042 being the second most recent.

[kbalage]

@Ngoc Nguyen I usually mention new parts and occasionally new colors, but I don't go through all the part list so I also missed these. I already recorded the review and it waits for editing, as the studio is half-dismantled now I won't add these parts. If you would like to see all new parts and colors precisely listed from a new set then the best source is to check the reviews at New Elementary

[mostlytechnic]

5 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Panels #3 and #4 are not available in regular blue until now. This set is the first set ever that contains those panels in regular blue. Isn't it shocking?!

You are correct! I did miss that - regular blue is such a common color, and that's such a common panel size, that I didn't notice. Thanks for the update!

[vladoniki]

 

I like this set!

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by vladoniki

[mostlytechnic]

Now that I have the updated Control+ app, I can confirm that the controls are well implemented. It handles flipping very smoothly - so it flips over and goes forward again as it should. There's some cosmetic changes to reflect the orange or blue color, and there's shortcut buttons that spin it around quickly. 

However, it's still not nearly as nice as having a physical controller.

[Cyborg_Samurai]

Its target audience seems to be intended for younger kids just like the Pullback series rather than technic AFOL types so I'm sure the kids would like this one.

Though I am still a fan of the concept/design but I'd definitely give it a lot more modifications that makes it more realistic like making it look more like a Ripsaw maybe or removing the goofy double contrasting color cockpit feature. In that case, would anyone know where I can find a cad file of this model built in LDD/Studio/Ldraw?