howitzer

A PF L-motor and a battery box aren't expensive in Bricklink, but if you feel you don't want to spend money, most GBC's could also be operated with a hand crank, which is of course not great for shows but I'm sure it would suffice for this kind of contest. I'd rather see as little limitations as possible, considering that every limitation you put might exclude someone from participating. If some limitations had to be put into place I'd go for something like 1 main ball-moving function, with optional supporting functions (like a simple conveyor belt lift driven by its own motor). You can do marvels with just a single motor (just take a look at Akiyuki Ball Factory) but those large, complex machines take a lot of time to develop and tune so I doubt we'd be seeing too many of that kind.

I believe cranes are so common because they provide a cool, playable function that's easy to present well in marketing. The low number of firetrucks is indeed baffling, I also mentioned them in my wishlist. A concrete mixer we just got and it's a nice presentation of the problem with them: the drum has to be a big single-use piece as brickbuilt drums tend to be quite ugly, so can't really release those too often. Lifting axles would be cool but that's not exactly a primary function of a truck. Street sweeper might be an option but I guess the coolness-factor isn't really there, and same goes for garbage trucks. Trucks transporting something like Mack Anthem or the old Forklift transporter are great but those get old fast. Maybe a delivery truck with rear lift? I haven't seen much of those, not even MOCs. I once tried to build one but the geometry of the lift is really hard to do properly with Lego.

If such a contest were arranged, I'd hope that there were no limits to the System parts usage, as they are often much more convenient for building walls, ramps and such. Anyway, I'd be really interested in participating, though I have no idea if I have time to actually build something, and then there's the fact that I have almost no experience with these, so it's hard to come by something that's both "new" and works well. Still I'd like to try if at all possible.

Looks great, but I wonder about the price. All those nifty features won't come for free so I'm guessing it's going to be a pretty expensive. I could see myself paying like 50-100€ for this but probably not something like 200€...

This should've been the 42115 B-model. Looks great, and very nice to see a car that's not another supercar. Any photos of the internals, like suspension and engine?

Maybe they've been listening to the complaints about these bushing-type connectors which seem to be breaking down a lot for some people? I wonder if other types are also going to be upgraded at some point.

The need for people to be able to relate to the set is very important, which means it must be immediately recognizable on the box or online catalogue. Now, cars and such fulfill this requirement very easily, but spirograph or milling machine wouldn't, even if it was otherwise the best set ever. So I fear these kind of machines are going to exist only in the realm of MOCs also in the future and official sets won't happen.

One of the greatest sets of all time, the only one I keep assembled in my shelf. Your redux version looks great, but at the same time somehow odd, like something from the original was missing. Maybe it's the lack of studs (which gave the original a bit rougher feel), maybe it's the tyres or maybe the altered width, which changes the proportions slightly... The missing tubing also probably changes the looks in the rear side.

1.If you could choose, what 3 IPs/Brands would you like to have in the LEGO Technic portfolio? - LEGO, LEGO and LEGO I don't like third party licenses. 2.What types of vehicles should we do more of in LEGO Technic (ex: boats, super cars, helicopters, excavators etc.)? - Road graders, backhoes, firetrucks 3.Which LEGO Technic vehicle and which price point you would like to see (please state only one top choice) - Space shuttle, 250€ 4.If not vehicles what would you like to see from the LEGO Technic platform? - Animals, kinetic sculptures 9.What are some improvement areas you see for your experience with the LEGO Technic Control+ platform? - B-models and their respective C+ profiles, low-threshold customizability, physical controller or plug and play-type interface for using a third-party game controller to drive C+ sets. 10.What kind of technologies would you like to see in LEGO Technic? - Micromotor, lighting kits, rechargeable battery kit for C+ hubs, cable splitter for simple motor and lighting control (if more complex control isn't feasible), extension cables, better integration of pneumatics and electronics together, reintroducing discontinued pneumatic parts like air tank, valves with more positions than current ones.

I once read something about painting a picture, which can be extended to many other things too: the painting is never "finished" or "complete" in the sense that there's a final stroke after which nothing needs to be added or changed. At some point the painter just stops working on it, and that's when it's as finished as it ever will be. With Lego, especially Technic, there's the problem of having to take apart the previous build in order to improve it, so I guess it's finished when you can't be bothered to dismantle and rebuild it anymore to fix or improve something.

Wikipedia has a nice explanation of how it works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_steering_geometry

I believe the only budget-friendly answer here is doing it by yourself. Of course this assumes that you already have the necessary tools etc. to build something like this, though those tools aren't complicated or expensive (handheld power drill with some drillbits and a saw gets you pretty far in here.) I once built a jewelry display case from stuff like wooden board, table legs, hinges, etc. from a hardware store and it had glass doors from Ikea. I got the doors first, in order to get the measurements for the board etc. and the rest was just a bit of sawing, gluing, painting and screws. It looked very nice and even had wiring for LED strip lights routed invisibly through one of the (tubular steel) legs. In another case I built similar display case into an old bookshelf, first by taking out the individual shelf boards and then I got some glass doors (again, from Ikea) and as they didn't fit exactly I added some wooden board in the middle to fill the gap between the doors, which doubled as a place to install locks for the doors. Yet another thing was a protective case for polishing station, which didn't need to look nice. So I just took some scrap pieces of plywood, cut them with a jigsaw and screwed them together. The top I made from polycarbonate glass which I bought from plastics store scraps bin for a few euros.

This topic is about unpopular opinions about Lego, is it not? I have no illusions of my opinion here actually affecting anything TLG does and I'm not obligated to support Ideas (or any other for that matter) sets that I don't think are worthy. About needing help in working out which licenses would do well, I'm not so sure about that. The only Ideas submission that has spawned a full-fledged theme is Minecraft, while others like Friends or Sesame Street are obviously not something that could become a long-running product line. Maybe they are useful in catering to 30-40 year old people who have no previous interest in Lego, but I somehow find it hard to believe those people would become regular customers anyway. They take the one set's worth of money from those fans and that's mostly it.

Naturally I didn't mean that all submissions should be genuinely new and never seen before type of builds. What I meant was about using third party IP to turn it into a Lego set. If I had to draw a line I'd say that as long as TLG could release it as a set without making a licensing contract with a third party it's ok. So Barracuda Bay is ok but The Flintstones isn't.

Thanks for setting this straight. It could be that putting in a single yellow version of that part would've still increased the cost slightly, as there would be one more element type then to account for. But yeah, that part really should've been yellow even if it being LBG isn't a huge issue.

Continuing with unpopular opinions about Ideas: Licensed stuff should have a blanket ban on Ideas. The whole point of the Ideas is for people to be able to present something new and original, and there's nothing new and original about taking someone else's already-produced and widely distributed IP and submitting it to the platform. Sets like the Treehouse and Ship in a Bottle are nice examples of how original ideas can be made into a great set, while others like Central Perk and the Flintstones are just about recycling the creations of someone else.

While those parts have existed in proper colour at some point, it could be that they wouldn't be needed in any other set this year so it was decided that it's not worth restarting their production just for these sets, as LBG parts are produced in huge numbers anyway and it's not too much of an eyesore to use that instead of the proper colour.

I don't have any actual knowledge on the topic so I can only speculate, but I think it may depend on which colours are produced in which factories and production lines and how big their capacities are. If you need a certain amount of, say, 1x2 bricks to be produced and one colour, say, dark orange is absolutely required only in few sets while, say, black is all over the place and often in places where it won't be visible, they will have much excess capacity in producing those dark orange bricks, as the machinery can probably churn them out at about constant rate, regardless of colour. Changing colour to be produced isn't trivial as all of the machinery has to be cleaned, new colour mixed and checked for consistency etc. so it's probably just cheaper to put those dark orange parts in sets to places where they won't be visible. It's just an additional bonus when this works in the favour of the builders, who for one reason or another, benefit from colour vomit. The logistics of gathering parts for packaging may also play a role here.

1989 was the last year when those first version friction pins were in use, from 1990 onwards they were the upgraded type.

I believe colour vomit isn't just about making sets easier to build or something, but also about the logistics of parts management. TLG probably tries to minimise the use of different colour/part-combinations across the entire yearly lineup and this optimisation requires that lots of seemingly random colours are inserted where they aren't visible in the final model. About the poll: I think it should be remade in the final form (in another topic I guess?) so that those of us who voted early could change their votes to more accurate ones as various questions and answers were added later.

"Electric 9V Battery Box Powered Up Bluetooth HUB with 2 Switches and Dark Bluish Gray Bottom" There's Bluetooth in this dumb battery box?

Meh, I voted and then more questions were added and now I can't add my vote to those. Apparently there's no way to recast my vote?

According to New Elementary, the black 2L pin has been redesigned: On the left the first (flawed) design, in the middle the design we all have known and loved for over thirty years, on the right the new design, which apparently is being phased in during this year. I wonder what prompted this change?

What a nice little set. Great photography btw.!

I also loved the 8824 and found it odd that those rubber bumpers were never used more as they made a pretty nice looking model. The skirt in this hovercraft is indeed a serious cosmetic flaw, as are the rotating prop guards. Still I believe I'm going to get it, some nice parts and interesting B-model here.