andythenorth

Examples? Bricklink list 26,785 parts. For many of these parts, you could pick any two, and they will connect together somehow, or via the use of only one other part (also this without the use of illegal building techniques). To prove your claim of 'most', I think you'd need to show at least 50% of technic parts don't fit with any of the other thousands of parts. I'm guessing, but I don't think you can show that. @Paul Boratko - the example you gave is totally valid. You could connect them with this bionicle tooth though http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=42074 (first example I found on BL)

Okay, on that basis, let's try some philosophy. This seems a bit like the 'chair' problem in philosophy. When pushed, it's surprisingly hard to define exactly what constitutes a chair. We know about chairs with 4 legs, a seat, and a back, but many people will be able to find counter-examples that don't match that pattern, but are still chairs. Yet in general, people simply seem to have no problem identifying chairs when they see them. Defining the meaning of 'technic' precisely is boring dictionary semantics. Sure, someone could try. Not that interesting. But what can we claim about technic? 1. technic (mostly) doesn't involve mini-figs. I can't think of many sets or mocs that are definitely technic, yet also involve mini-figs extensively. Sure, counter-examples can be found, but I think this one stands up as a general claim. 2. Function is integral to the gestalt of a technic model. What's a gestalt? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Technic sets and mocs have function as an inherent part of the design and the playability. Of course, City and other themes have this too. However technic is the theme where functionality is the absolute primary element. When you perceive a technic model, you perceive that it has a demonstration of functionality embedded within it. 3. Claims about types of pieces used won't stand up. There are far too many counter-examples. It's an absolute principle for Lego that all parts fit together. 4. I think that claims could be made about 'resolution', but I'm not sure they stack up. I'm looking right now at the small technic mog tow truck, towing the city car + caravan (on the floor, where my two year-old left it). They have similar sizes, similar parts for front grilles, lights etc, but the resolution of each is quite different. It's the equivalent of different styles in art (or computer generated imagery): e.g. cartoon rendering (black outlines) versus photo-real rendering etc. However I think there are too many counter examples in sets and mocs. 5. There is an absolute claim for official sets that if TLG mark it as Technic it's Technic; they maintain the canon, not the fans. cheers, Andy

They don't. Basic maths shows that.

+1. The point of this thread escapes me.

Current count of technic sets on lego.com (UK): 17 (excluding the PF accessory set) Sets containing PF: 6 Sets that don't contain PF: 11 Percentage of available sets containing PF: 35% (somewhat less than 'every set' or 'almost every set'). I enjoy this link about traumatic events for Lego fans, you might too: http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=43860

I'm confused what the issue is for this thread. If it's Technic, in my experience Lego mark the set as being part of the Technic theme.

Flex track is awesome: fills gaps, makes bigger curves, and eliminates hassle with geometry. Standard curves - I have so many I'm going to give some to the nearest charity shop, hopefully bring some benefit to other people

I was trying to be helpful (hence the wink). In some forums a post like 'is there any news' would be called a thread bump, and you'd get flamed, or warned by moderators about it. Thread bumps seem harmless, but they irritate lots of other people who see that the thread has been updated, click on it hoping for news, and are disappointed. Eurobricks is quite a nice place, so we don't have much flaming or strict moderator warnings Sorry for going off-topic, I probably just caused the same sort of irritation I mention above

If there were postings of news or updates, they would have been posted here. There's no magic bit of the thread that you can't see, but others can tell you about

If it cheers him up any, the Emerald Night has a few play issues for kids. The wheels bind easily, the couplings are easily knocked off etc. I'm not knocking it as a model for older kids or AFOLs You could go on a bricklink mission, and build a custom steam train with him?

Really liked this set. £15.99 initially seemed steep, but there are a lot of parts and the truck is very solidly built. My toddler loves the truck and the tip mechanism. The banana and fish are nice touches. The 2012 vehicles are great toys, probably the best city vehicles ever from TLG. Good review too

The big news from the car park picture is the green train locomotive at the right of the picture

Nice difflock From experience, two XL motors used in that way with a diff will shred gears quickly. You need a much bigger custom diff, or make it easy to remove and swap the broken gears out.

At uk prices: 8 straights = £15.28 Or buy 8 straights + a bunch of flex track, boxed in 7499, for £15.99 +1 for track on Pick a brick. -1 for this pricing (although I can understand why)

The white ones look like rapid prototyping output...ABS can be printed.

Happens a lot. Go slower :) My toddler loves crashing them. Among his first words: 'bang', 'crash' and 'uh oh'.

Possibly the best value set of last year in terms of price / play. Really nice toy.

Nice

Looking at this again - I think the chassis is heavy by design - to balance against the roof which is heavy, and would cause this boxcar to overturn on curves at speed

Would a lego vehicle with a gas envelope (balloon) be flying?

This is a great set. Very intricately designed, very well finished. I only bought this because it was on sale for around £50. If I had known what a nice set it was, I would have been happy to pay full price. Good points Intricate mechanism. Understated, but pleasing functionality, well executed. Great design. Nice colour scheme. Affordable / good value. Robust + highly playable. My toddler likes this truck. Weaknesses / Flaws None. Meh / Neutral / Could be better Rear lift fork - I rebuilt this several times. I followed the instructions for orientating axles, but found I needed to rotate + remesh some gears to get the correct performance. Disassembly of cab to remove batteries - meh. I don't like that on the 8285 truck either. Other sets do it very nicely, e.g to 8043 B model. Braking effect on winch (using friction pin) would improve playability - similar to rescue helicopter B model.

? The exposed engine? Or something else? http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/hank_rabe/2005/nov07/07.jpg

Nice. It would be nice if TLG would release a large, full-RC mining truck. They've never released a really good dump truck in Technic (City has had lots of great dump truck).

Ach. The lego community is so weird. Opinions seem to be either "TLG have rendered my entire collection worthless with some new colour / part / theme", or alternatively "TLG can do no wrong, and there must be no criticism". 8110 has some minor flaws. TLG are pushing how far Technic can go. The flaws don't stop 8110 being a great set, but they're still flaws. The crane is lame imho - when compared to how epic the rest of the set is. TLG keep including these knuckleboom cranes in sets. They're fun and offer lots of functionality, but so far few of them actually perform well (try lifting something with them...). The most playable one is the small crane in 8049 Log Loader. http://www.brickset.com/detail/?set=8049-1 Creating a powerful smooth knuckleboom crane using Technic parts is a very hard problem, but one day TLG will figure out how to solve it - same as with 8043 they finally created an excavator that can actually dig. For what it's worth, in 1992 the Airtech Claw Rig (which was a flagship of equivalent awesomeness to the mog) had a similar crane with the same control issues. http://www.brickset.com/detail/?set=8868-1

Built the mog today. Pros It's awesome. My toddler likes it. Good possibilities for adding accessories. Cons Performance of the crane is not great. Insanely slow rotation, poor control over the pneumatics (common for large pneumatic models). I'll swap it for the snowplough. Appalling turning circle. Like many others I put the center diff in the wrong way round initially. Seems easy to make that mistake. There is one instructions page with a ruler for pneumatic tube where the ruler starts at 3cm. Why? Bonkers. Meh / neutral The offset front axle doesn't bother me. No tipping rear body? No drop sides on the rear body? (So I have to mod for those?) Size. Big is fun, and it's impressive, but the steering is heavy and slow, and the model feels like it's pushing the limits on size. The mog is about as big as I'd want in a technic model (I've built bigger MOCs, they're unwieldy). Cost. It's a lot of money - but was worth it. I did plan to buy two and mod the second one, but I don't think I'll bother now.