Sariel

This time I can show you a little more than just my working place :) Note - the audio is in Polish, but there are English subtitles that you can turn on in the player.

Or they can't resist watching hamsters ride their sets ;) Yes, my plan is to publish all reviews on December 1st. No point to keep you waiting.

Well, I feel they do take some risk with both of us. Neither of us is obliged in any way to consult the review with them - just as it should be - so we could give the sets really bad notes if we wanted to. I'm sure I've been harsh on some sets and the designer in question probably wouldn't be pleased with it. But I'm trying to be thorough and explain in detail why I like or dislike something, and that seems to be working out for everyone so far.

I'll try to, but that will probably be after December 1st. There is also one combined model that looks interesting... I know nothing about the 42051. Maybe Lego is planning on reverse engineering contest featuring this set? Oh, I used to do that a lot. But now that I'm older and there's the typical autumn weather outdoors, it's nicer to have the stuff delivered to me ;)

And now a lot of people will want to be a hamster ;)

Oh my... I'm gonna need some private time with the pics of this beauty ;)

Now you're giving me a stage fright ;) Fortunately, hamsters are strangers to such feelings. Or any other feelings except for being hungry or sleepy ;) On a serious note, I will be shooting these new reviews with my Canon 70D for the first time. I expect a huge visual improvement, and if that helps you in your job, then it's a double win :)

BTW, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you guys for your kind feedback (and also to deny any and all responsibility for rodent-related addictions ;)). It's so heartwarming, I've actually sent a screenshot to the Lego employee responsible for shipping the review sets, as a way to say thanks. I'll put some little teaser on my YT channel as soon as the sets arrive and I'll make sure some little furry critter is included :)

Come on, do you suspect I haven't taken some time off already with Fallout 4 coming out? ;) Yes, I post them all right after the embargo date. I hope that works fine for everyone, although some people seem to be offended by a number of videos popping up at once.

I just got word that they're sending the sets today. I don't know which ones, maybe all of them, maybe not, but I'll most likely have something to show by December 1st.

That varies, but the embargo date for reviews is always December 1st. There's little over a week left now, so if I was supposed to get sets to be reviewed by December 1st, I really think they would have been there a while ago.

Looks like not, I'm afraid. As of today I got no sets nor a single word from Lego on that matter. I've tried contacting them and asking what happened but I'm hitting a wall. I guess I won't have anything to show until I can actually buy the new sets, which is probably no sooner that January.

I guess it's worth waiting for since you promised us "god shoots".

Looking excellent and I'm impressed how much stuff you've somehow managed to fit in there (you could compete with hamsters ;) ). I think you could consider adding stickers printed on a transparent sticker foil, would look great on yellow. Any chance for a video?

Thanks, I'm thinking of some kind of a clutch that would allow to shift on the run.

Sorry, fixed that error at my website. I think the reason why the bevel gears survived is that there were just 2 PF XL motors and not for example 4. More torque would certainly result in damage.

I just wanted to have some 8x8 to test my 4-speed sequential transmission with, and somehow ended up with this 4 kg monster: Photos & reading, as usual: http://sariel.pl/2015/11/rosomak-wzt/ There are also free instructions for the transmission, should you want to build it: http://sariel.pl/2015/04/4-speed-compact-sequential-transmission-v11/

You can do all these things except flipping using the standard free Windows Movie Maker. For flipping alone, I believe there's a bunch of freeware.

Oh, thank you, that's very kind and encouraging for me. I guess I'm always trying to balance having fun and making some progress as a builder. On one hand thanks to the very positive feedback I'm getting I feel I don't need to prove myself, to show off, I can build in a pretty relaxed way. On the other hand, I'm trying to always look for new solutions, to set the bar higher, just to keep things interesting for me, and I'm also occasionally kicking myself in the proverbial butt :) for taking too long to finish some projects people are waiting for or for building too many small, simple things in a row. I don't know what's the goal for other people, I don't judge, I was building long before I started sharing my stuff online and that's all it's about for me: building. Finding people who share my quirky sense of humor is an added bonus, and a very nice one: it's rare to find people who, when shown a mechanism that imitates hamster's moving nose and whiskers, react like "you're nuts, carry on being nuts" :) But at the end of the day it's still just a bonus. Over the years I have seen a number of very talented builders burn out and quit this hobby completely. I may be wrong, but I would largely attribute it to being overly ambitious and forgetting about having fun. Some people just put so much steam into a single project that whatever feedback they get fails to meet their expectations. They build to prove something, not to enjoy building. I don't focus on singular projects: some of them will always fail, some of them will succeed. It's only natural. One thing I never quite understood is people who blow enormous budgets on projects that would be equally functional or interesting at one tenth of the size. It's easy to impress with something that is like X meters tall or includes Y thousands of pieces, I get it. I just don't really see fun in it, plus I suppose sometimes money is mistaken for skill. But then it's not my place to tell others what to do with their money. If buying a truckload of pieces is your definition of fun, then by all means, go and have fun.

I think it's got excellent collection of useful pieces for its price and size, but other than that, well, it's overshadowed by pretty much every other Technic set that came out at the same time. Oh, and you can't fit a hamster in there ;)

For now, I just added both EV3 motors.

Thanks for the advice, I did just that. If only making the grey beam the output was easy to do in practice :)

I see. My bad then, I'm removing that part of the calculator.

Are you sure? I found this equation and it seems to check out, but then I may be wrong:

Possible - yes, easy - no. I would have to think how to go about it.