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Very, very nice. It's great to hear you've also caught the ACC bug, seeing this makes me want to build a new one again :) The huge rear wheels really add attitude to the car. There's one suggestion I'd like to make to improve the steering; if you replace the 8z gear with 14z gears and place the gear rack directly on the steering beam (removing the jumper plates), your wheels will steer at a much larger angle, improving maneuverability. I've done it right here as well:

15 studs maximum. I've been counting bricks and plates, and there's nothing bigger than usual.

The part you are asking for does not exist. If I were you, I'd use two of these: together. Use a technic pin to snap them together, and the open holes to snap your axle through. dluders; I've got this rule of thumb; if you need glue to keep your MOC together, you're doing it wrong. If you use glue, you're taking an easy way out. By doing so, you stop thinking about other, better solutions to the problem.

Was kinda cute. Didn't get further than 12549. I'm sure that memorising the correct gears will get higher scores, but that takes the fun out of it.

Looking very nice, and it seems to work pretty well. However, wouldn't you think putting less gears underwater might be better, to reduce some friction?

Which is why I always put some kind of (small, inobtrusive) watermark on my pictures.

I already told you this is awesome, and quite likely your best yet. Question remains, of course; where will you go from here?

(also added this to the first post, so people wouldn't miss it)

The lids on those tall ones aren't exactly watertight. And I needed the opening to connect them to technic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28134808@N02/4629803483/

You are completely correct. I eventually replaced with an XL motor. Improved deploying speed a lot. 1) I did. They are used to give the plastic tracks some grip. So, as such, they are not an essential part of the bridge itself. 2) the two LAs work simultaneously. 3) I'm still working on it. So the design hasn't settled in a final form yet.

Two full days, plus some minor adjustments to the tracks and the lifting arm.

Стилзкин or Stilzkin doesn't really -mean- anything. Stilzkin Inc. is a fictional company I made up, which deals mainly in offroading and military hardware. It's Russian because I like the Russian design philosophy. When you make something, make it solid, reliable, and easily fixable should something go wrong. Otherwise, your sorry ass will freeze to death when car/truck/tank breaks down. The vehicle has three PF XL motors, and one medium motor.

Before I start, thank you all so much for your replies. I put a lot of work in this, and your enthusiasm makes it all worthwhile. That was the idea from the start, and the hardest part to accomplish. I wanted the vehicle to do it all, so no human 'help' would be needed. Luckily, gravity helps keeping the bridge connected. Well, orange to be exact. I'm glad that the colorscheme came out so well. The originals are all a drab olive-color (being tanks and all) but that alone was a little bit boring. Adding the orange gave it a little punch. *Noms* Yeah, I'm once again impressed with those turntables. Connecting them to the new H-frames and 5x7 frames made a really solid base to build on. For those who are keeping track, the 40z gears have 16z gears on the same axle, and those connect to the turntable. The battery pack is in the back (300 grams), together with three XL motors (72 grams each). That makes for 516 grams of counterweight. The bridge itself weighs 490 grams. Wasn't intentional, but it nicely worked out this way. I'm still busy with the pictures, which should be on flickr in two hours or so. If you have any more questions or comments, please let me know.

He was. And look closer, the track is made with these, upside-down:

I still say the train is a great idea And your presentation keeps getting better. Putting the remote inside the boat is an inspired idea. Loved that

Short answer: No. Long answer: Hell no. If there was some kind of magic way to turn parts into the right color without quality issues, I would. However, paint scrapes off (with technic this is even more of an issue), is a bitch to apply, is hard to get consistent, and Lego parts have all these kinds of nooks and crannies where paint might not get into or might clot together. Also, the challenge with Lego (for me) is how to work with the parts that you have. Sure, I wish almost daily that a certain part existed in a certain color... but it doesn't. Tough luck. So you'll have to improvise. And that's how you get creative. It forces you to look at other colors, in other combinations and get you to places you wouldn't otherwise have gone. For example, I never considered using purple and orange in a single colorscheme, yet it works wonderfully. Also, I've been collecting strange colors for years now. Tan and brown? Can do. Power Miners colorscheme? Not a problem. Not to mention the stuff I do with Teal. Hell, I could get a long way with purple (thanks to the competition sets) at this point. And if you only have a tiny supply of odd colors, simply using what you have as an accent color could get you some interesting results. I've long ago overcome my aversion to people who paint their parts. Still, I think they are limiting themselves by choosing the easy way out.

And here's the emergency siren; WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP You CANNOT simply use the old 9v batteryboxes to power the PF receiver. Take a good look at the PF plugs. They have four contacts. If you have a PF batterybox and turn it on, two of those contacts are used to give power to motors or lights. These contacts can be reversed to make a motor run the other way, for example. They can even be varied, so motors can run at different speeds or lights can shine at different brightness levels. There are also two other contacts on the plug. These give continuous power. Always. These are used to power a PF receiver. For safety reasons, the 9V - PF connecting cable only connects the first two contacts, never the second. This means that if you hook up an old 9v batterybox to a 9V-PF conversion plug, you CAN run motors. However, the receiver will not work. Unless you do some tinkering, as described here: http://technicbricks.blogspot.com/2009/08/...f-receiver.html Hoping to have spared you some misery, I shall remain.

That kind of stuff makes me wonder why he doesn't just machine the entire thing out of metal.

I've been wondering about that as well. Maybe the technic builders have all taken up building with NXTs instead? For some reason it seems to vary greatly between countries how technic-oriented their LUGs and AFOLs are. I'm glad you're willing to set up some competition in the US, and be sure to tell us how it turns out At any rate, we tried to make entering into such a competition as easy as possible. Anyone who can hook up two motors to a PF receiver can join in. I hope more people do; it's more fun than a barrel of flying epileptic monkeys. (By the way, do you have a link to that battlebot competition?)

Well, it's more like the Dutch Division, as this was organised with our LUG, LowLug. I'd love to do this in an international version, though. Thank you! I try to push myself with both looks and technology every time, and it's getting better. I still think that making a technic creation look good is the hardest part. What's even more amazing is that he built that bus in a single week! In fact, every car you see was. The meeting was announced quite suddenly, and we had little time to put everything together. Considering that, the creative output of the competitors was nothing short of amazing.

The rules Jovel and I set up for our ACC races are as follows: --- -Vehicles should be car-like. No tank threads or silly stuff like that. Skid steering is right out. So is articulated steering. -Remote controlled. No wires, thank you. -Two motors. One to steer, one to drive. One (possibly rechargeable) batterybox, and you can only use one PF channel. -Dimensions: nothing larger than 25 studs wide and 40 studs long. -The vehicle should have a hitch ball for the trailers which are used in some of the challenges. It is also recommended that vehicles have some sort of gearbox. Racing challenges require speed, but maneuvering (like for parking challenges) are best done on low speeds. --- Of course, these can be tweaked according to whomever runs the race, and we're looking into amending the rules for different races to keep things fresh. Some people from Chechoslovakia also had a similar competition: And here's a link to a photoset of a HispaLUG race Looking through my flickr account, I find that a lot of things that I've built are for ACCs:

The concept is simple. Build a PF car, and race it through all different sorts of challenges. As I organised it and had to keep track of the paperwork, I asked some volunteers to drive the cars I built. The vehicles: KoffieMOC: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koffiemoc/4575581727/ Rennuh: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=4457962 JurgenKrooshoop: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=4454791 Bioniclemaster: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=4424072 LegOscar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoscar/4372270539/ Black limo by me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28134808@N02/...57623388679372/ White limo by me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28134808@N02/...57623895423642/ The trailers you see are these: As soon as it's hit from behind, the chair flips up and you lose. Last one to get flipped wins. The results; Bioniclemaster ended fourth, but still got a prize since Jovel (as co-organiser and mastermind of the ACC concept) chose to forfeit his. Aliencat somehow drove the white limo with a half-drained battery to the third place. Jovel got to second place, but chose not to claim a prize. Which makes our winner LegOscar! The vehicles that were built abide by these rules: -Vehicles should be car-like. No tank threads or silly stuff like that. Skid steering is right out. -Remote controlled. No wires, thank you. -Two motors. One to steer, one to drive. One batterybox, and you can only use one PF channel. -Dimensions: nothing larger than 25 studs wide and 40 studs long.* -The vehicle should have a hitch ball for the trailers which are used in some of the challenges. It is also recommended that vehicles have some sort of gearbox. Racing challenges require speed, but maneuvering (like for parking challenges) are best done on low speeds. *this time though, we had a limo rule. Vehicles should be 4 times as long as they are wide. (to a maximum of 60 studs) Vehicles that didn't make the length requirement could opt to add some length with an additional trailer, like LegOscar did with his A-team van.