TheMindGarage

LEGO has become more violent - a lot of new themes are about fantasy combat these days. But then (not going to be too political about it), the world has become more violent in some ways. Barely a day goes past without hearing about some conflict/riot. Part of this is down to stuff like improved media, but that isn't the only factor. Plus, people are more tolerant of violence these days (mostly...). When Space Invaders was made, the makers thought "We can't have them kill people... Let's have them kill aliens instead!". Now we just sit back and laugh at this, surrounded by violent games that would probably have been banned 30 years ago. Since people are more tolerant of these things, LEGO is able to have their new themes contain a little more violence, albeit still in a fantasy setting.

I don't think you can really scale minifigs. Their proportions are too strange to work. Starting with height, people come in different heights, so I would say that 1:42 is fine (168cm person), but so is anything from about 1:38 (152cm person) up to 1:48 (192cm person). Then we come to width. A minifig's torso width is 2 studs or 1.6cm. Assuming the 1:42 scale, that gives a minifig a 67cm body width when scaled. The body is 1 stud thick, so the total waist/chest/hip measurement (for minifigs, they're all the same) is 201cm (79in). I hope you don't know many people with those proportions - it's a wonder that I haven't heard of minfigures having coronaries... Feet are an issue as well. Minifigs have square feet around 0.8cm each side, so scaling up 42x, their feet are 33.6 cm on each side. I can't even FIND shoe-size guidance for these feet - the length would likely be something in the region of 15; the width would be literally off the scale. You just can't scale these things - it's like scaling an apple to a pear. If you scale by height, you end up with a REALLY fat minifig. And if you scale by width or volume, you end up with a child . Both ways you get the plague of the square feet.

That's a good point. The most speeds I've seen in a simple non-synchronised linear gearbox with a 16m sliding shaft is 5 (Sariel). With 32m, you could potentially get much more speeds - possibly up to 13. I believe 13 is the limit for these types of gearboxes with an input shaft, sliding shaft and output shaft - there are only so many ratios possible (9:1 5:1, 3:1, 25:9, 9:5, 5:3 and their inverses, plus of course 1:1). As for places where longer beams are essential, I can't think of any, but they would really save weight and space. As an analogy, LEGO differentials aren't ESSENTIAL, but building a custom one is a pain, and it'll take far more space and weigh much more.

I don't think of TECHNIC as a "display" theme. I think TECHNIC is primarily about the functions, not just about the fact that it uses studless beams. Although this set would have been much better received if they dropped the "TECHNIC" and just called it the "Porsche 911 GT3 RS Studless" or something along those lines. Then the 4-speed gearbox would be marketed as a special technical feature, but with the appearance as the main focus. Oh well, looks like I'll be getting the Bucket Wheel Excavator instead.

Probably my first attempt at a car with a body. That was about 18 months ago when I only had the MINDSTORMS EV3 set and a motorized excavator. It had drive, steering, a 4-speed gearbox (manual), a full body and headlights :P. The headlights were done with LEDs and I used a PF battery pack JUST FOR THE LIGHTS. What was I thinking?!? If you're wondering, the car ended up weighing far too much and simply wouldn't drive.

Desks and tables??? I've only been building for a couple of years, so my building area is basically the floor. There are a couple of storage containers for important parts such as gears, suspension parts and some rare aeshtetic parts, then everything else gets dumped into two boxes. Sometimes when I delve into the depths of those boxes, I find random stuff like an old piece of chassis or suspension from 5 MOCs ago - there's a nice feeling when you dig old stuff up.

Nice build and very compact, but not a massive fan of the rear suspension's toe. Perhaps normal suspension would have been better.

I personally would consider a TECHNIC supercar to be one with: 4 wheels... obviously... Either motors for drive, a LPE or a model piston engine. Drive connected to at least two wheels via differential(s). Steering - motorised, steering wheel or HOG. Gearbox - I would say 3+R or 4 speeds is a good minimum benchmark. Independent suspension. A body that vaguely resembles a car, be it a real one or a generic one. As for "car", I suppose any consumer-available CAR would count for me. So if someone decided to make a VW Beetle or something with these features, I would consider it a TECHNIC supercar. However, if someone made a van or bus (not designed for consumers), I wouldn't count it as a supercar. On the other hand, I think of a TECHNIC supercar MODEL as something different. To me, that means that it should be scaled to a real supercar. Obviously, your idea of "supercar" depends on your own opinion - I think that anything with good performance (180-190mph+, 0-60 in 3.5s or faster) counts, but there are some who insist that they have to be super exotic and not that common (by common, I mean Nissan GT-R/Audi R8). Ditto that for hypercar. At least "megacar" has a defined requirement of developing at least 1MW of power - as far as I know, that's Koenigsegg One:1 and the upcoming Bugatti Chiron.

Torsion-bar suspension could work well if you lack shock absorbers. You will want to adjust the length of the torsion bars depending on the weight of the vehicle and the number of road wheels - the greater the weight per road-wheel, the shorter you want the torsion bar to be.

Yeah - I have noticed that aesthetics are becoming far more important in TECHNIC sets than they used to be. I think that this is fine - it's so that the buyers who aren't as interested in features still buy them. However, I think the Porsche went a step in the wrong direction - it went too far towards looks. To show this a different way:

If you really want them, you could always 3D-print them. I think they would be useful to some extent - it's always annoying when I'm building an MOC's chassis/body and find that a 17 or 19-stud beam would fit perfectly, but alas, it doesn't exist. I don't think strength would be much of an issue here - I have only ever broken one beam, and that was when using it as a manual hand-crank for a gigantic flywheel-powered LEGO cannon, which is definitely NOT normal usage...

RC, or better suspension systems. Another idea: a working model of an engine (any kind will do - straight 4, V4, V8 etc) with pneumatics. It doesn't need to run fast, but I think it would be a cool education model. It could have a gearbox integrated into it as well.

I'm mostly about vehicles, cars to be precise. Here are the cars that I would like to see: LaFerrari - Iconic, famous, LEGO has already made a Creator F40. Nissan GT-R - Well-known and has plenty of history (think early Skyline GT-Rs). Koenigsegg One:1 - Became instantly famous after reaching the 1kg/hp mark. And looks cool as well. Bugatti Veyron/Chiron - Fastest production car in the world (officially), iconic and recognisable. Ariel Atom - This track car would be very good as an RC model. Audi R18 e-tron quattro - This would be something "different" for LEGO to try. Another possibility is the Nissan GT-R LM-Nismo. And the features: RC on at least one car. I'm not talking about sluggish models that do 20 cm/s - I would like to see it move at walking pace or faster. I know that 20kmph+ is possible with LEGO RC motors, so at least 10-15kmph should be feasable allowing for extra weight and stuff. Full independent suspension of course, preferably with features like camber/castor angle. Adjustable ride-height would be nice as well. Gearboxes. If LEGO makes an RC one, I wouldn't expect too much - maybe just a 2-4 speed automatic. But for the non-RC ones, LEGO is perfectly capable of making far better gearboxes than the Porsche's *cough* 1-3-2-4 *cough*. Depending on the car in question, a good 5+R or even 7+r would be good, and if the real car has paddle-shifters, LEGO should include them! In short, TECHNIC should focus on features, not on looks. I would happily buy a highly-advanced TECHNIC car with all those amazing features, even if it had NO BODY. But you'll never see me buying models with no features, no matter how good they look. As for other ideas, a mechanical counter/calculator would be a cool set.

Try torsion-bar independent suspension. I've made plenty of cars with it and it's worked fine, with no axle damage! Basically, add beams to your suspension arms so that the pivot point has an axle hole rather than a pin-hole. I would use the 2x4 "L" beams or the thin 3-stud beams with two axle holes. Then build your suspension as you would normally, but fix the torsion-bars rigidly at each end. I recommend a 1-stud gap between the torsion bar supports and the suspension arms - for best performance, this gap should be filled by a small beam which is supported elsewhere. Examples that I have made: http://www.us.lego.com/en-gb/mindstorms/community/robot?projectid=3ae9ca80-3a72-4f34-8f5e-fbd67d9310f6 http://www.us.lego.com/en-gb/mindstorms/community/robot?projectid=d4ec7bdc-b5cf-433e-b125-8f1fc47e862f http://www.us.lego.com/en-gb/mindstorms/community/robot?projectid=6967cb54-cb09-49c5-a33c-07d02dc56f67

This is disappointing . 300 Euros for this? And so many features missed out. I guess not having any motors is understandable, but I think they should have added adjustable ride-height and rear-wheel steering. For a 1:8 model, the amount of features is pretty terrible. Compare that to my current MOC car, a Nissan GT-R. Here are the places where the Porsche wins, or at least ties: My model won't look nearly as good, but then I've only been building for a year or two. The Porsche has a working steering wheel. The Porsche has model disc brakes. Both have a cabin. And here are the places where my GT-R will win: It's a 1:10 model rather than 1:8. The gearbox (already built) is an 8-speed synchronised automatic rather than a 4-speed manual PDK. It has 4-wheel drive. It has working rear brakes. It has a V6 engine that is scaled to the real car's displacement (I found that 6 LEGO cylinders have a displacement of almost exactly 3.8cc). There are knobs which allow the ride height to be changed independently on each wheel, so if you want to drive on oval circuits, you can have an asymmetric setup. These will be under the front hood. There are more knobs for castor angle adjustment. There is a working handbrake/neutral/drive mode switcher. And the killer blow... My GT-R will contain a MINDSTORMS EV3 brick and four motors. Three will be used for drive, giving the car an estimated top speed of around 6-8mph (using data from my previous MOCs). The fourth will be used for steering. If an inexperienced amateur like me can fit more features into a smaller car than TLG can, you know that TLG messed up.