howitzer

While I have chosen my model for the contest and many great models of the past have been started by others, there are still few which I'd like to see remade: - 8852 (Transforming robot) - 8850 (Rally offroader) - 8839 (Supply ship) - 8872 (Forklift transporter) - 8858 (Rebel wrecker) - 8460 (Pneumatic crane truck) - 8443 (Log loader) - 8459 (Front end loader) - 8462 (Tow truck)

Couple of progress photos: I decided to add controls to the cockpit, as modern sets in this scale (and even smaller) generally have those and the original emptiness in front of the seat just didn't seem right. I also had to use DBG connectors for the windshield as I don't own enough of the correct parts in LBG but I think this minor divergence from the original colour scheme is acceptable. The front wheels I positioned a bit further forward, as I couldn't find a way to fit them near their location in the original. The scale matches the original quite closely, it's going to be 1 stud wider (at 15 studs) and maybe 2 studs longer (at 24 studs) at the skirt.

Gotta love you interpretation of the contest theme. Looking forward to see your progress!

Ok then, I hope I'm not judged too harshly for the scaling issues with my model selection Still, the above discussion made me rethink my options and I came up with several ideas, but as the entries are limited to one per person, I guess will stick to the original. Not that I have much hopes of winning anyway, looking at the other entries which have been posted so far. Doing this mostly for fun and building practice.

Yeah, it isn't exactly against the rules, but the model I planned would have been about 2,7 times larger than the source material (according to Sariel's model scaler) so that's a pretty big discrepancy.

So 80's and 90's City and other vehicle sets are pretty much out of the question due to the scaling issues. Back to the drawing board I guess...

Haha, nice Though technically it's still based in the shape of the balls, not their colour, even if the colour happens to match the shape. Now I'm expecting someone to build a mechanical separator that takes advantage of the subtle differences in the texture caused by printed/unprinted areas of the balls...

I haven't had much interest in train modules, but more generally I'd say that when you do a GBC, you should always aim to make it fully mechanical OR if you're going to use EV3 or whatever, you should find something that would take advantage of the possibilities that the smart bricks offer. In other words, do things that are patently impossible with purely mechanical systems. Classic example is the colour sorter that puts differently coloured balls into different tracks, as there's no mechanical way to distinguish between balls based on their colours. I guess train systems are a bit of a problem here, as in theory they could be made to work as purely mechanical system but reliability is going to be an issue and it's much easier to make the system reliable with smart bricks. Taking advantage of the smart brick in GBC's has been in my mind for a while but I don't really have any ideas which couldn't be made to work purely mechanically so I haven't got around to actually doing anything with it.

For Technic sets there is Technicopedia: http://technicopedia.com/ Unfortunately it's incomplete and detailed descriptions end on 2001 with all information after 2016 absent. And yeah, even for the limited scope of Technic sets, making detailed descriptions of everything is a huge amount of work.

I asked that in the previous page, though regarding building sets with vehicles as sidebuilds. @Jimsaid he's okay with that, so I guess one vehicle from a multiple vehicles set would be okay too?

8480. Technical marvel of its time, and still stands up fully to the current standards of functionality and complexity. It was also great on looks, even if it wasn't a closed design like today's Technic sets. Too bad I was never able to get it when if was available, and today those sets cost too much and might not be even be in very good condition...

Full ban on any part that has a stud or studs would make for a pretty stupid limitations as for example 6587 (axle 3L with stud) and engine block pieces would be forbidden. I'm quite sure the spirit of the contest is to take a set that uses studs as the main method of connecting parts together, and rebuild it so that the main method of connection would be by pins, instead of excluding every part that has a stud.

Yep, that's my interpretation as well, no altering colour schemes. Recognizability of the source material is an important consideration here. This does pose a difficulty with some sets though, for example there's no green 1L or 2L liftarms and the parts palette in green is pretty limited in other ways too so some Octan sets might be difficult to recreate in studless Technic.

Awful lot of Technic there, for a non-Technic set...

I thought of this one too, there are some great sets which had motors like the Space Shuttle which couldn't really be made into modern set without motors. But then: Motorized studded sets weren't actually very common so it's not a huge number of sets overall. There are the two control centers, which couldn't really be made into a modern set without either the original control unit or a Mindstorms unit, which takes it far outside the scope of this contest. Then there's the Shuttle, which requires micromotor and fiber optics, unavailable to most people and without modern replacement. Same goes to 8082 and 8456 as they also had a micromotor/fiber optics. 8479 would be great but I'm not sure how you would implement the functionality without, again, the original pieces or Mindstorms. As for the other motorized universal sets, I believe those could be made into manual versions without losing any important functionality. Then there's the 8868, which would have to be fitted with manual pumps to replace the compressor, but I think it has been done so many times already that it's not a very good choice for an entry anyway. 8457 straddles the line between studless and studful, but those tyres are pretty rare and the set wouldn't really work without them so I don't see excluding it a problem either. There were couple of other motorized racing sets at the turn of the millennium which are similarly a mix of studless and studful construction and probably not very interesting either. And that's it I think. Did I miss anything noteworthy?

I'm getting mixed signals here! Maybe some sort of recognizability criteria? The recreated build must have all the functions the original had, plus more that an example of the thing in question would typically have, scale allowing? Like building steerable front wheels and driven piston engine into a car etc. even if no City set has ever had those. This of course in addition to the looks being faithful to the original. --- Beside the previous, I was wondering if I building only a part of a set would be OK? There are tons of larger sets with a building + vehicle(s) so would it be OK to build only the vehicle? (I don't think a static building would make a very good entry but many Town sets have interesting side builds in vehicles etc.)

I was here thinking of making a scaled up replica of an old City vehicle, with all the functionality the scale would imply. In original scale (4 studs wide) they are almost unbuildable in Technic, but if you for example took a City truck and rebuilt it into Mack Anthem scale you could include lots and lots of functions imitating those of their real life counterparts. Of course it would have to have styling and colour scheme as close to the the original as possible, in order to be counted as a remake. I'm in agreement with @Lipko that licensed sets should be excluded from the contest. This way we would have a limitation which enforces at least some creativity in model selection.

If a line had to be drawn on which Technic sets were acceptable as source material and which were not, I'd say that anything released before the year 2000 would make a nice division. There were studless sets before that but I don't think they are very interesting for the competition (most are micro sets) and 2000 onwards most sets released were studless, the only clearly studful ones being re-releases from the 90's. 8457 and 8458 mix the line quite a bit though so maybe they could be included too.

No B-models there though. --- Keeping it to Technic sets might pose a difficulty for someone who doesn't have any studded era sets or only has a few. Technicopedia is great for information on the functions etc. but nothing beats getting your hands on the set and trying it yourself. If it were limited to Technic sets, all B-models and universal set variations would definitely have to be allowed too. How about making a City vehicle into a Technic model? Scale could be set in the contest rules so that entries would be similar in complexity/functionality but beyond that you could make a motorcycle, car, truck, boat or whatever. Of course these could be two different contests too.

Maybe a Convertables-contest? http://technicopedia.com/8244.html (Just kidding of course)

I think I'd skip the modular car contest, it's complicated and thematically not very interesting. Might be a good challenge, but I prefer to seek challenge elsewhere.

I've never had these slotted parts break around the axlehole (except maybe couple of crushed bushings), but one U-joint broke from the center long ago. But many people have reported problems with these while others (like me) seem to be mostly unaffected so there must be some consistent quality variance somewhere in production, which affects some people but not others. Of course the U-joints are relatively weak anyway, probably the weakest parts you can put into a drivetrain so no wonder they break the most.And of course Buwizz etc. which can exceed the torque of official motor/powersupply combinations go easily over the designed limits of the parts, so if you break parts using those, it's not TLG whose to blame. I don't think there's any planned obsolescence involved though, just quality control issues and overstressed builds.

If I'm not mistaken, it uses no more than 6 motors (and no sensors except the infrared one for the remote) so one could build it with just one RI brick instead of two EV3 bricks, am I correct?

I've been thinking taking apart my 8868 for a long time in order to build the B-model and actually examine the pneumatics in it... I only had it built once as a kid, and while it was as cool as any big Technic set, I couldn't perhaps appreciate it properly back then. Nice to see a modernized version of this one too!

Agreed with the above. The grille in the video looks pretty boring, panels would've made for so much better looking grille as Ngoc Nguyen said...