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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.

To get some inspiration: (That last bridge could actually hold 72 kilos of weight.)

Front; I didn't have a specific kind of car or limousine in mind. I just googled a couple of pictures to get an idea, and then tried to make the chassis suitably limousiney. Darth Legolas; 1: The wheels are held on by this part. I simply had to have the spoked wheels, so this worked out nicely. 2: Yes! Brilliant, isn't it? 3: Yup, it resets. Wouldn't have it any other way :) Def; Yeah, I didn't know about that cross-section either. When I just posted it I was a bit hesitant, Richard isn't really for everyone. Had nothing but positive reactions so far, so that's a relief. (Yeah, here too, thanks for that :D ) Besides, what I'm building is mostly for me. If other people like it as well, that's just a bonus. And yes, Richard is/was one ugly mo'fo. This was the best head for him I could find. I had more trouble with the minifigures; there's not many possibilities if you want to work with darker skin tones. That's why everyone is simply yellow.

Made for Team Lino at Lugnuts. Hence the name on the side. The video was inspired by Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker", but as that's not safe for work I won't link it here.

This should improve the construction options quite a bit.

JunkstyleGio; It's a name used by some Dutch writer. There's plenty more where that came from: Bolmikolke, Klotterbooke, De Moraatz, Schattenkeinder, Dreverhaven, De Gankelaar, Tekalopte and Ypsilinti. Or I could follow Iain M. Banks' naming conventions. Prateek; one problem with calling it the lime and teal racing truck; there's no lime in there. Zblj; yeah, the cable was a bit of a shortcoming (heh) but with this kind of filming I can't really do much longer cuts anyway. (And everyone, thanks again for your kind words.) I figure the colors are a 'hate-it-or-love-it' deal, but I can live with that. I didn't want to have a grey chassis, and I think this worked out nicely. Racing vehicles aren't really known for their subtle colorschemes anyway. The dimensions are roughly based on Lego's racing truck and a previous pneumatic truck. However, I don't have either set, so I can't do a side-by-side comparision.

Using the intermediate chassis.

Yes. (Well, these aren't the samsonite, but they're similar.)

In my 20 years of buying Lego I've practically never had a missing piece. If you have so many missing pieces, maybe the problem is not with Lego.

Only if you keep running circles with it. Overheating it would require some significant effort. If this has happened to you, how the hell did you manage that?

I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT *twitch* And it's not just the Bionicle pieces, I also forced myself not to use the new pieces like the T-liftarm, the shiny 3-beam or the H-frames. After getting used to having many weird parts at my disposal, it was a bit weird to force myself to go back to basics again. Thanks! I'm really glad you got them to work. And it's just awesome to know that someone an ocean away took the time to build my silly little things.

I've edited the first post and added a new chassis. It's a bit bigger, but it should solve all maneuverability problems. (By the way, I was wondering about the people who have built the basic chassis; did you use the video or the pictures?)

Boy, do I ever. Mostly because of their odd or useful shapes, but sometimes as decoration as well. There are plenty more. One I like as well is this one: And these are just a few. An additional bonus is that bionicle parts come in strange colors, so if you have a limited supply of (for example) dark blue, you could snap on some bionicle parts to add more. Although my absolute favourite not-quite-officially technic part is still this: I've been using it since 2005, and it remains useful to this day. Link to video of the part's use.

They are well-balanced this way. I don't recommend driving in circles for minutes on end, but for standard driving it'll do quite nicely.

Basic version: Intermediate version: Many people have asked me for instructions to build power functions cars. However, many of my cars use strange techniques and special parts. This is a low-cost easy-to-build chassis, for the folks who are starting out with PF.

Motors are awesome. Ever since I was a wee lad just into technic, putting motors in something added a bit of charm, because then your car, plane or horseshoe factory did things by itself! It's like magic! Of course, the earlier 9v systems were crippled by the use of wires, but with the Power functions systems I like nothing better than to race around with a self-built car, just because I can. Building this and then racing it against other people is even better :D

Yes.

About this month's submissions; I think it's kind of lame that people are submitting old creations. Isn't it the point that everyone has 14 days to build?

Nope, I prefer to build my own chassis. I've linked to a couple in this post. Most of these have enough pictures to figure out what's going on and build your own. I'm still planning to make instructions for a new one, but I'd have to use only basic elements so everyone would be able to build it. However, making instructions is a long and tedious process, and most of the time I'd rather spend my limited time building new stuff.

By the way, I would also like to thank the moderator (I suppose) who embedded the youtube video. Thanks!

Nope. I tend not to use the standard RC chassis, as it's very slow and underpowered. In my Flickr Photostream there are many pictures of PF frames. Here are some: The magnificent city of Rotterdam. It looks quite nice - from a distance.

At our meeting we have PF vehicle races, and for the last one I built two. This seemed like a good way to show them to the world.

The traction shouldn't be all that different. I believe the guy who made these instructions put different wheels on because the dimensions are a bit more realistic.