48-Hour MOC Challenge General Discussion Topic

[2GodBDGlory]

Now that TC24 is done, I figured it would be a good time to bring up an idea I've been thinking about for a bit:

Namely, to see what kind of interest people would have in doing a 24-Hour MOCing challenge, where essentially we would choose a start time, then semi-randomly choose a topic at the start of the 24-hours (So the whole building/planning process can't start ahead of time), and then just see what we can come up with fitting that topic within a 24-hour time period!

I think it would be quite fun to do a marathon build session like that, especially if it could be done as a community thing with a bunch of other people building at the same time!

The thought is not to make it an actual contest, though, with winners or prizes. For one thing, enforcement of the time limit would be very challenging, and for another, I'd want it to just be a fun event, where people don't get frustrated about the compromises for what they can get done within that time.

The big question for me is what start/end times would be chosen to work best for people from all the different time zones we represent, but we can worry about that later. For now I'm just wondering if there'd be much interest here to actually put an event like that together, so let me know your thoughts!

Edited March 11 by 2GodBDGlory

[Aurorasaurus]

I would like to take part in this. Also, perhaps 36 hours would make it fair so everyone can get "a day".

[Lixander]

It sounds interesting, but I didn`t quite understand: we would have 24 hours to come up with a design or to actually build something?

Edited February 5 by Lixander

[howitzer]

21 minutes ago, Lixander said:

It sounds interesting, but I didn`t quite understand: we would have 24 hours to come up with a design or to actually build something?

I believe the idea is to take 24 hours of time to design and build something from start to finish.

The different timezones etc. of course pose a challenge but it's an interesting idea, and I'd like to participate if possible. But taking 24 hours off from normal life is a tough deal...

[Alex Ilea]

I did do a challenge similar, I think about 6-7 years ago. But it was a 1 hour challenge I did with a friend. Here is the result:

Yes, 1 hour :)

[Jundis]

The idea of such a mini-contest is really cool :-)

But the 24h challenge is really hard to keep "fair", as most of us with family can hardly take a whole day off. Maybe a contest with a duration of 3 days or even a week would be better suited for a first test...?

Also there could be a part limit (Polybag or 10€ Set), which will even out the time to spent for such a contest.

[langko]

Sounds like something of a game show haha. I’m not sure I’d have the time but would definitely be interested in seeing what people could come up with. Surely this would favor those that have the largest part inventory? When there’s no time to order anything those with a much larger variety of pieces will find it much easier. 

[jorgeopesi]

We can not be creatives with only Lego why we have to have a limit of parts?, I agree with the time limit whatever will be.

[howitzer]

1 hour ago, Jundis said:

But the 24h challenge is really hard to keep "fair", as most of us with family can hardly take a whole day off. Maybe a contest with a duration of 3 days or even a week would be better suited for a first test...?

That's why it's a challenge and not a contest. No prizes, just show-off of creativity. Most people don't work on weekends so I guess that would be the best time for it. And of course you don't need to spend the whole 24h on it, you can build only 8 hours or whatever if you feel like it or can't spare the whole 24h but could spare less.

[Jundis]

Ah ok :-)

Some ideas for possible themes:

- a vehicle with at least 3 axles
- pneumatic, baby!
- usage of a dumb battery box and 1 motor (PF or PU)
- animal & wildlife

[Rebel_Lego]

Maybe something with alternates? So everyone has the same pieces?

[2GodBDGlory]

8 hours ago, Aurorasaurus said:

I would like to take part in this. Also, perhaps 36 hours would make it fair so everyone can get "a day".

That's a thought! My preference would be for it to be 24 hours for each participant, since "I built this in a day!" has more ring to it than "I built this in 1.5 days!" That doesn't mean that we couldn't overlap start/end times for people from different time zones, so each person gets 24 hours out of a total 36 hour build period

6 hours ago, howitzer said:

I believe the idea is to take 24 hours of time to design and build something from start to finish.

The different timezones etc. of course pose a challenge but it's an interesting idea, and I'd like to participate if possible. But taking 24 hours off from normal life is a tough deal...

That's correct

It's true that it could be a real challenge for some to make that much time, so I realize that something like this isn't for everyone's schedule, by its very nature.

5 hours ago, Alex Ilea said:

I did do a challenge similar, I think about 6-7 years ago. But it was a 1 hour challenge I did with a friend. Here is the result:

Yes, 1 hour :)

Fun! Not bad for the time limit!

5 hours ago, Jundis said:

The idea of such a mini-contest is really cool :-)

But the 24h challenge is really hard to keep "fair", as most of us with family can hardly take a whole day off. Maybe a contest with a duration of 3 days or even a week would be better suited for a first test...?

Also there could be a part limit (Polybag or 10€ Set), which will even out the time to spent for such a contest.

Yeah, I understand that taking a full day could be very hard for some. I'm tempted to just say that something like this can't practically be for everyone, and that there's nothing that can be done about that, especially since the longer the time is extended, the closer it gets to a traditional contest, and the farther it gets from the idea of a marathon build session. At the same time, I realize that a lot of people have family responsibilities and full-time jobs, and I have a lot of respect for that! I'm thankful that my parents took that seriously and didn't take huge chunks of time off from that.

4 hours ago, langko said:

Sounds like something of a game show haha. I’m not sure I’d have the time but would definitely be interested in seeing what people could come up with. Surely this would favor those that have the largest part inventory? When there’s no time to order anything those with a much larger variety of pieces will find it much easier. 

True, there definitely is an advantage in having a good variety of parts at hand, but it's meant to be a fun challenge rather than a serious contest, so as long as one has enough parts on hand to take a shot at it and enjoy it, I don't think it needs to be a huge issue.

4 hours ago, howitzer said:

That's why it's a challenge and not a contest. No prizes, just show-off of creativity. Most people don't work on weekends so I guess that would be the best time for it. And of course you don't need to spend the whole 24h on it, you can build only 8 hours or whatever if you feel like it or can't spare the whole 24h but could spare less.

Yeah, that's the concept I'm going for! I'd hope to keep the time somewhere between Friday evening and Sunday morning for everyone, regardless of time zone, and I'm not personally planning on staying up all night building if I can help it! I'd probably plan on finishing in 15-16 hours if possible, and only cut into my sleep if things go slower than expected!

3 hours ago, Jundis said:

Ah ok :-)

Some ideas for possible themes:

- a vehicle with at least 3 axles
- pneumatic, baby!
- usage of a dumb battery box and 1 motor (PF or PU)
- animal & wildlife

Yep, that's the idea! I'm not sure about the pneumatic and electric options, though, since it might prevent some people from participating, since pneumatics are fairly rare, and not everyone has electronics. (And for people who only got into Technic in the PU era, and haven't picked up the very rare PU hub)

It'd be good to get some more suggestions for ideas--maybe ten or so options to select from randomly on the day of would be good?

2 hours ago, Rebel_Lego said:

Maybe something with alternates? So everyone has the same pieces?

Hmm, that could be interesting, but then it would be limited to only people who own the chosen set, and again, it's not really meant to be competitive in the first place, so I don't think differences in collection needs to be a problem

[Lixander]

7 hours ago, howitzer said:

I believe the idea is to take 24 hours of time to design and build something from start to finish.

The different timezones etc. of course pose a challenge but it's an interesting idea, and I'd like to participate if possible. But taking 24 hours off from normal life is a tough deal...

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

That's correct

It's true that it could be a real challenge for some to make that much time, so I realize that something like this isn't for everyone's schedule, by its very nature.

I see.....now it sounds even more interesting.

And I also have a suggestion: it would be nice if this contest would be held in the summer, because more people will have free-time (including me).

[aFrInaTi0n]

From the point of not everyone having the possibility to dedicate 24h at once and for the idea of fun with this challenge a proposal: Go with one Challenge per weekend, it would allow for:

• Exact timeranges could be defined and would be a "known regular thing"
• A broad range of ppl attending with having a whole weekend (2.5 days for most of the folks) to spend 24h in smaller portions 8h/8h/8h for e.g. - it may allow for others contributing more than others, but I guess thats possibly true in all ways for one taking a day vacation and overdoing it by doing a 24h marathon... Werent there some reports some years ago of young guys dying in the gaming-dens after over 50h of playing Diablo?!

Generally a great idea - but hard to set a good framing for everybody to participate I reckon.. For the "24h" concept my greatest fear would be of missing the start and then not participating (because of the wrong thought of less hours not being enough to compete - but could be a dumb thought and a miss of fun, even if one would just have 12h of the 24..).
I am also more for "take whatever sotock of parts one has" as its no competition as you mentioned before.

Looking forward to see some nice format jumping out of this thread and giving us all a nice challenge :D

[Aurorasaurus]

A thought, something that can be built with just about all technic sets is cars.  since most of them are just that :/

 

Another thing, digital submissions for those who prefer it or have limited collectios. You could record and time-lapse your build.

 

Another potential challenge could just be "A B-model" for any set, since theres no prizes, it wouldnt matter much if someone used the 42100 or 42164

 

And finally, time limits. I think a weekend makes more sense because everyone will get at least one day. Could be one GMT weekend since all time zones are GMT + or - offset, hinting that GMT is 0. Though one NZT weekend would obviously favor me :))

[2GodBDGlory]

2 hours ago, Lixander said:

I see.....now it sounds even more interesting.

And I also have a suggestion: it would be nice if this contest would be held in the summer, because more people will have free-time (including me).

That's a good point--that might work better for a lot of people (Though personally, the winter works slightly better for me)

2 hours ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

From the point of not everyone having the possibility to dedicate 24h at once and for the idea of fun with this challenge a proposal: Go with one Challenge per weekend, it would allow for:

• Exact timeranges could be defined and would be a "known regular thing"
• A broad range of ppl attending with having a whole weekend (2.5 days for most of the folks) to spend 24h in smaller portions 8h/8h/8h for e.g. - it may allow for others contributing more than others, but I guess thats possibly true in all ways for one taking a day vacation and overdoing it by doing a 24h marathon... Werent there some reports some years ago of young guys dying in the gaming-dens after over 50h of playing Diablo?!

Generally a great idea - but hard to set a good framing for everybody to participate I reckon.. For the "24h" concept my greatest fear would be of missing the start and then not participating (because of the wrong thought of less hours not being enough to compete - but could be a dumb thought and a miss of fun, even if one would just have 12h of the 24..).
I am also more for "take whatever sotock of parts one has" as its no competition as you mentioned before.

Looking forward to see some nice format jumping out of this thread and giving us all a nice challenge :D

Hmm, so is your suggestion to do more of a one-weekend challenge? I could see that being fun too!

43 minutes ago, Aurorasaurus said:

A thought, something that can be built with just about all technic sets is cars.  since most of them are just that :/

 

Another thing, digital submissions for those who prefer it or have limited collectios. You could record and time-lapse your build.

 

Another potential challenge could just be "A B-model" for any set, since theres no prizes, it wouldnt matter much if someone used the 42100 or 42164

 

And finally, time limits. I think a weekend makes more sense because everyone will get at least one day. Could be one GMT weekend since all time zones are GMT + or - offset, hinting that GMT is 0. Though one NZT weekend would obviously favor me :))

Yeah, I don't see any reason we couldn't do digital builds!

Are you suggesting cars as a potential topic? I can see the "B-model for any set" being another good option for a random topic

Good suggestion about doing a weekend based on GMT--it probably works well to base it around a European schedule, since that's where most users here are from. The only question is when we consider the weekend to be starting and ending--6 PM on Friday until midnight on Sunday? 

[Aurorasaurus]

20 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Good suggestion about doing a weekend based on GMT--it probably works well to base it around a European schedule, since that's where most users here are from. The only question is when we consider the weekend to be starting and ending--6 PM on Friday until midnight on Sunday? 

I was thinking midnight friday/00 saturday to midnight sunday/00 monday, all GMT

[2GodBDGlory]

1 minute ago, Aurorasaurus said:

I was thinking midnight friday/00 saturday to midnight sunday/00 monday, all GMT

That'd work for me! 

[aFrInaTi0n]

Was just thoughts of mine in regard of "could work for me" - don't need to be considered for your idea of the challenge. My main fear with the "real 24h" challenge would be for ppl being staying motivated in the mid to long run because of the short amount of time (even if its just of fun).

Just think of a person from AU / NZ with their wonderful ~12h-whatever offset to UTC. Also our summer is their winter and vice versa.. :D

Edit2: Should have f5ed before posting regarding other timezones as it was covered already.. 

Edited February 5 by aFrInaTi0n
missing word

[Aurorasaurus]

35 minutes ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

Just think of a person from AU / NZ with their wonderful ~12h-whatever offset to UTC. Also our summer is their winter and vice versa.. :D

Yeeep, we exist. Hence why a weekend works better :)

[SNIPE]

The trouble is, how can we tell that someone didn't start designing it before the challenge commenced.

I think a normal challenge would  be better but the twist is that contestants are grouped together at random, so they have to work together in a team, and there is several teams.

Edited February 7 by SNIPE

[Lipko]

I don't think you have to overcomplicate it. Programming jams are a pretty common thing, might be a good idea to look into them for some inspiration. Once I participated in a 72-hour contest and won it. This didn't mean 72 hours of non-stop coding and asset making, I did maybe 10 hours a day for three days. There were some rules but in general you were allowed to use whatever tools you had, no-one could/wanted to chenk if you reuse code, assets or whatever.

The key is to make these event frequent and schedulable (say every months or two weeks) and to vary the topic wildly but make each topic specific enough to minimize the propability that someone has already got a finished model that fits, so that differences between the participators' possibilities equalize in the longer term. But it's impossible to make one singe building-jam as balanced as a big contest.

Ideas:

• machine for a very specific but stupid task, say cigar lighter and sucker machine. This cn be reused many times
• some vehicle from a not very widely known cartoon/film
• dunno

Edited February 7 by Lipko

[nerdsforprez]

On 2/5/2024 at 3:37 AM, Jundis said:

as most of us with family can hardly take a whole day off.

This is my concern as well.  I think one would be evaluating a demographic rather than actual building ability.....

[2GodBDGlory]

6 hours ago, SNIPE said:

The trouble is, how can we tell that someone didn't start designing it before the challenge commenced.

I think a normal challenge would  be better but the twist is that contestants are grouped together at random, so they have to work together in a team, and there is several teams.

Well, the idea is that the topic would be chosen randomly/revealed on the day it starts, so that people wouldn't know what to start building. If they already happened to have something built, that could make things easier, but it's not a judged contest, so I don't think it's something we need to worry about.

4 hours ago, Lipko said:

I don't think you have to overcomplicate it. Programming jams are a pretty common thing, might be a good idea to look into them for some inspiration. Once I participated in a 72-hour contest and won it. This didn't mean 72 hours of non-stop coding and asset making, I did maybe 10 hours a day for three days. There were some rules but in general you were allowed to use whatever tools you had, no-one could/wanted to chenk if you reuse code, assets or whatever.

The key is to make these event frequent and schedulable (say every months or two weeks) and to vary the topic wildly but make each topic specific enough to minimize the propability that someone has already got a finished model that fits, so that differences between the participators' possibilities equalize in the longer term. But it's impossible to make one singe building-jam as balanced as a big contest.

Ideas:

• machine for a very specific but stupid task, say cigar lighter and sucker machine. This cn be reused many times
• some vehicle from a not very widely known cartoon/film
• dunno

Thanks for the ideas! That is roughly the idea I'm going for, but since I'm seeing it as a challenge rather than a contest, it might be fine to have a somewhat vaguer topic

3 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

This is my concern as well.  I think one would be evaluating a demographic rather than actual building ability.....

Well, I see what you mean, but I really didn't intend for it to be an evaluation at all--just a fun challenge for an individual, with the added fun of knowing you're doing it alongside other people. It's really not meant to be competitive! Perhaps the number of people willing to participate is limited, but we already have the official Eurobricks contests for a quality competitive contest that (almost) everyone can enter, so I think it's fine to run a small side event, even if only a few people can participate by its nature

Edited February 7 by 2GodBDGlory

[grum64]

Hmmm… any chance it can be changed to 24 weeks? 😉