Stereo

I'm curious about the pauldron piece on the panda too, looks like a smooth shell shape with 2 studs at one end (spaced 3 apart) and antistud gaps at the other end (4 apart?). And hollow inside. Can't tell what the interior attachment point is, maybe it's got a bar inside like the other shoulder piece.

I don't know what to expect of "kids these days," I got the Robotics Invention System when I was 12 and didn't have trouble building with it, though old style wires are easier to manage in my opinion (too bad the insulation died over the last 20 years). I did and probably still do have trouble looking at a pile of parts and thinking of something to make from them though. It happens, but most of the time I want to build something according to instructions, or go freeform, any parts that exist go into the model. (easier to build those IRL now that I have a 100k pieces) My 'dark ages' were more because of competing interests, then I went to university for a long time, and lived pretty minimally the entire time, I had software toys. Centralized power with geartrains out to where it's needed is preferable to me over running wires anyway. 3 motors with rotary encoders is really enough for any slow speed machines. With more than 3 outputs you just use one as a selector on one or both of the others. So then it's a question of whether the software supports that kind of thing, makes it easy to share configurations, and so on.

They're really tough to find by clicking around the Lego website, if I remember right I could only see them with the EN-GB locale enabled and there was no page pointing to them, you just had to know the set's number and search for that on PaB. I think the concept of selling all parts for a set through PaB is still in beta.

I finally built this set, I do like the functions and the way the whole vehicle transforms. I'm just baffled by the part usage in the steering. It uses a new 2x3 technic beam, that could just as easily have been 2393 connector hub with 2 pins with 1 stud liftarms on it. Both of which are in the set anyway. And it has half pins inserted that as far as I can see, don't interact with any other part. Also not big on the ground clearance of the rear axle, the gear for the lift mechanism is so low that it can't roll over anything more than 1 plate tall. So it gets stuck on the edge of my carpet. It'll probably sacrifice some sturdiness but I think I'm going to attempt to relocate that control upward.

If you brought the gap down to 1/2 stud, and made the pivot point near the top of the rails where they have electric contacts on the sides, you could probably connect 9V at that end of the bridge. The way tracks interlock means the other end can't be fit any closer together though. Being 1.5 studs longer than normal straight track instead of 2 studs isn't really an improvement for getting it onto the grid, as well. Though from what I've heard, on a straight section of track, as long as the flanges have a surface to ride on, trains are a bit tough to derail. They prefer to continue going straight, and will just get back on track after the gap. So a small gap might run fine and as long as it's less than 6 studs long, 9V motors have enough pickups to keep powering past it.

73763 worm gear has the same 1 stud spacing of teeth, and would fit neatly in the 6 stud gap of the 8 stud long frame piece. So it'd be a very easy to build crane arm, you run axles through the center hole until the end section where there's a worm gear. The 6x13 diagonal I suppose could be used to brace frames at a larger scale? Lots of sets use the 3x5 L beam and 5x9 (32009) beam to keep things square, this is another option to do that, the actual 5x8 diagonal it represents doesn't seem like a special triangle to me. It's not a pythagorean triple, 4x8 would have matched up with wedge plates but I don't think this does. The existing 2637 16 long link I suppose can only do the 9-12-15 triple so maybe this fills a gap in diagonal lengths, between the 6-4 bent liftarm (which does 3-4-5) and 16 link.

Speaking of these wheels, the UCS Tie Interceptor recolours them in Light Bluish Gray: Hopefully they'll get into a set a little less expensive than $230 per 2, now that the option exists...

Oh, this reminded me to check, since I just got one in a used set. The 68325 4x4 with recess also locks to the turntable base.

The sizes I have should be medium & small (from 8266, 8509) and are ~14mm inner diameter, same as the current small white ones, and ~19mm, with 1.5mm square section. I also have a thicker one (from 8720?) of 19mm inner diameter with 2mm square section. I'm not sure Lego currently uses 19mm, they seem to trust the white ones to stretch a lot.

I suppose you're not actually limited to using a single neck bracket though. And this traps a frictionless pin in both directions, so it's not going to fall out. (this is the thick neck bracket variant, cause it's 1/2 plate thick and fits the grid)

You can repeat the pattern of circle-square-circle-square-circle for plates, as that's 2 studs tall, 3 times for a V12, then the last circle is either a tile with bar on top into a half-pin, or use the pin with anti-stud to end the stack. Which is unfortunately a kinda rare piece to have sitting around in Technic collections. I only know about it cause of 42178. Headlight bricks with a bar through their front facing stud would also stack ok, alternating which way they're facing so they touch stud to stud instead of stacking.

https://rebrickable.com/parts/86996/plate-1-x-1-x-23-with-open-stud/ These and round 1x1 plates can stack on a bar (5 plates per 2 studs = 2 square, 1 of the round)

I don't think they're as finicky as the 2L liftarms pushing 3L axle with stop that's pretty common design, lots of MOCs I've tried from the 42093 Corvette need tiny adjustments to the axle locations before they'll even roll. Also you can run them flat or upside down rather than only in a V or inline. But yeah, in situations where one doesn't work, the other won't either.

Would it be ok to space the pistons out more? You could alternate 1x1 bricks and 1x2 bricks with 1 hole so they're 1.5 studs apart, and then use entirely the crankshaft "Type 1" inserted with all the axles in a straight line, so the pistons only rise 1/2 stud, don't drop 1/2 stud.

I don't have the new driving rings yet irl, but maybe you can use hollow 1x1 plate instead, possibly with a minifig skate or something in it? On the old driving rings it looks like it's 1/2 plate thick, so 2 plate constructions like this will fit. I don't know if the pins on the black piece are already engaging the ring either.