brickmack

I never seem to find any REALLY good stuff in stores, but around 2 years ago at a garage sale I found (For 5 US dollars) 4477: T-16 Skyhopper 4485 Sebulba's Podracer & Anakin's Podracer 4488 Millennium Falcon 4489 AT-AT 4490 Republic Gunship 4491 MTT 7103 Jedi Duel The majority of 7159 Star Wars Bucket 7203 Jedi Defense I 7311 Red Planet Cruiser 7312 T-3 Trike And at least 200 other parts that I couldn't identify any sets from (Plus megabloks and some other crap....)

I use Brickset to keep track of sets and minifigs, though I'm still looking for something that lets me add individual parts I've gotten (I think I have nearly 15000 parts bought separatly now). The ACM is useful also so I can keep track of where the set is and if it's together or not. Some people catalog their sets to make it easier to figure out how many of different parts they have so they can decide if they will make a particular MOC and if they will have to get parts online or not. That's mainly what I use it for.

Awesome detailing. I like all the bits at the front, though that blue axle-pin looks rather out of place. Perhaps a 2-long frictionless pin would look nicer? The exposed studs look nice also, though the yellow tiling looks a bit sporadicly placed. I love the design of those little "Wings" on the sides, the click hinges that aren't actually being used as hinges in the middle add a nice bit of detail there. Generally a good MOC though, quite hard to believe it's your first big ship. Also, this has inspired a few drawings that I might turn into MOCs when I get back to my collection.

I'm not really "Leaving" but I am taking a bit of a break from EB for a while. Going on a trip right now that will take about 2 weeks, then I have school after that (Which might take a lot of time up, I'm not sure yet). So for the next at least 3 weeks, possibly much more, I will be doing only a fraction of the posting and stuff I normally do. Also I won't be able to make ANY new things for at least the next 2-3 weeks because I couldn't bring any LEGO on the trip, but I should still be able to MOC at least when school starts again.

Nice angles. I like the exposed studs, not often used in Classic Space MOCs. Don't really like the bley bit on the dorsal tail thing though, looks "off". Nice overall though.

Oooh nice. Not very often I see TECHNIC scifi stuff. Good use of the mask of the cannon. I like the specs pic also.

Oooh Galileo. Finally he won't be stuck with a not-so-good view. Well I think right now with fuel and such it's like 15,000 USD per pound just to reach orbit, much more to get to the moon... I think in like 2 years at current production rates minifigs will outnumber humans.

One of the best sci-fi things I've ever seen. I love the suspension design.

I'm ok with looking at the screen, but I do often find that the PDF instructions from the LEGO site are kinda crappy quality for some reason, so I prefer to find the PDFs on LEGO fan sites or in my own instruction pile. Of course it is kinda hard looking back from the screen to the LEGO and stuff when I build on the floor and the computer is on a desk. I need a tablet PC of some kind... Fortunately I re-build old sets I've taken apart(Mainly because I can't find the parts in my half-organized LEGO room), and I don't sell sets ever so I never need the instructions for part lists.

I did another (much more extensive) search and I THINK it's covered under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act in America. I just skimmed over a website with the law written out linked to on the Wikipedia page, but it seems to be the most likely law that I've found. I guess similar laws in Europe and other areas don't cover LEGO for some reason (assuming they exist, I'm not very familiar with non-American laws since I've only lived in the U.S.).

It says there is nothing available to me. Perhaps they are marked as private or something?

Ooh I wish I was getting LEGO during this time, I would have gotten like 5 from each store... Can you provide a link relating to this law? I did a quick Google search but didn't find anything, kinda interested about the specifics/reasoning behind this.

True. Perhaps the same idea but with some kind of passive RFID tag inside each part which would identify part type (And possibly color if the user wanted to sort by color at a later time) and then have an RFID scanner instead of a color reader? Not sure if a passive RFID tag would have any negative effect on ABS though, and you would have to be careful about what type of tape or glue or whatever was used to attach it inside the brick. Also the glue would have to be washable or otherwise non-permanent if the person wished to resell the bricks at any point. Of course RFID's START at 5 cents (American) each, so when dealing with such massive amounts of parts it might get a tad expensive. Perhaps the robot idea isn't as good as I thought... Anyone have any thoughts?

It doesn't really seem like LEGO would do that probably. I doubt they have the equipment to mold metal, which is expensive. Then the metal itself is more expensive than the plastic they use. And they would probably have to either retrain or hire new employees to operate the metal-parts-making machines. Also it's easier for kids to get hurt by a metal gear or other part than a plastic one, so LEGO probably wouldn't do it out of safety concerns (Even though TECHNIC is supposed to be 14+ (?) there are a lot of kids that do stuff with it). Not to mention that LEGO historically made plastic toys, though I suppose they have recently done robotics and video games and such so this last point isn't quite as strong as the others. So most likely people will just have to buy the custom ones.

Well for color sorting you could perhaps make like a conveyor belt thing that you would dump the parts onto and then have a few robotic arms that would go down and grab parts of certain colors and put them into containers. I saw something like this at brickworld that sorted colored balls but I can't seem to find a picture of it now. Of course the one at Brickworld had the balls in nice orderly rows, so unless you individually put each part on the belt (More effort than sorting after a while) you would need something that could scan an entire area rather than just 1 small spot. I've seen some interesting things people did using a webcam as a sensor, but I imagine writing a program to scan for colors and then tell the arms where to grab the parts at and all that stuff would be quite difficult. Also with such a wide area of dumping there would be the possibility of parts slipping through the spaces between the links in the technic track that would probably used as the conveyor belt, so you would probably need something to catch those parts so they don't slip into the gears and break something. Also if you are sorting through thousands of dollars of parts at a time, the sorting buckets will likely fill up pretty fast. Maybe you could build in an ultrasonic sensor or something that would see if the bucket fills up past a certain point, and then stop the machine and make some kind of sound to alert you to change the bucket. Of course, you would still have to sort through each bucket, but it would probably go faster.

Well some people don't bother keeping the manuals. He might be of that type (He could always get PDF copies from the LEGO site or a few other sites anyway), and perhaps he might even make some money selling them. Certainly with nearly 2000 instruction books this would clear up some space.

Nice cartoony looking fighter. Those cheese slopes on the side look great.

At Brickset they post shopping news for several countries showing sales and such.

Well if you can get that much LEGO, you can probably afford a bigger place/spare house. But if you can't/don't want to for some reason: 1. Choose some (Hopefully less than a hundred) that you REALLY like and display them (I find I like the big sets like the modular buildings and such for this purpose in particular) and break down the rest of them. The parts take up less space when unassembled. 2. Sort the parts. It's going to take a lot of space and money to sort this much stuff, but it's better than looking through a bucket with 100000 parts looking for 1 2x2 red plate 3. Sell any sets/parts you don't want. Depending on the amount of such sets/parts you have, this could be helpful for buying sorting stuff and such. 4. If you're still keeping the boxes, you might want to get rid of them. Same thing with baggies and (unless you want to be able to sell them) instructions. This will free up A LOT of space when over 1000 sets are involved. This might help clean up enough of the stuff at least so there aren't parts overflowing out of your floor windows (If you have a 2 floors).

Nice corridor design. The windows should provide a nice view for the astronauts at the base. I like the use of the frame looking parts on the top. Have you made any L- and X-shaped versions yet?

Well I never really had a dark age (I had some megabloks when I was like 3 that we got rid of because they fell in the litter box, but I don't think that counts). My first actual sets I ever got was 7658 Y-wing Fighter and 7655 Clone Troopers Battle Pack for Christmas 2007. A few weeks later I got 7656 General Grievous Starfighter and 7662 Trade Federation MTT. After that my collection began expanding much more rapidly (A set every week or 2 rather than ever month or 2), and now here I am.

Nice micro freighter J4ke. The trans-green looks surprisingly good with the dark red. Does it have a name?

I could help with this but I'd need scans of the originals to work from if the same backgrounds were to be used. Or my way (Not GIMP though unless I have some time to relearn it) Not a lawyer or anything, but I think they can't do anything against you legally unless it unfairly competes with an existing product (Like selling an exact copy of a set for a lower price) or you charge for it, neither of which you would be doing.

Well, certainly some Star Wars, City (Hopefully construction), Creator, TECHNIC, etc. I'm hoping they continue Alien Conquest (ADU base PLEEASSE), and Pharaohs Quest. POTC will probably continue. I imagine Kingdoms will continue at least for next year, not likely past 2012 though. I doubt Cars will last into next year. And they might get a new license perhaps (Doctor Who?)

Several years ago I tried it and SOMEHOW (Don't ask me how, my guess is alien mind control is the best explanation) I managed to enjoy it for a few months (Got to rank 9). The in-game communication was HORRIBLE, to the point that I went to find another site to talk to people on. (This quest to find a way to talk to people was how I found the LEGO fan community, so I guess something good came from it). The items took forever to "Grow" was the term they used on MLN I think, using modules you put on your page, and many of the items weren't tradable. I probably spent 3 or 4 hours daily trying to move around modules and buy and sell items and crap to finish it (At this point I was starting to hate it already but I get kinda crazy if I don't finish something, so I figured I'd finish it as fast as possible). About 1/2 way through rank 9 the thing got so unbearable that I considered throwing away my computer, so I deleted my account, as well as my accounts on all the MLN related sites I was on (Except for the wiki that I was on, since I still use some other wikis from that company, notably Brickipedia). And using anything on the LEGO site for posting MOCs is absolutely pointless, what with the moderating and having the search function being almost useless, and the fact that you can't really even post a description, and only 1 picture. Ro87n, I notice you're only rank 2 still, it's not too late to get out! You haven't ruined your life yet! </rant>