halfnine

My son has decided that he'd like to attempt to build a Scale Model of a Volvo EC750D. I found some schematics and after some discussion and comparison with the size of the 42042B model and the 42055 which are currently built he settled on a 1:20 scale. This would put the tracks at about 30 cm long. The cab around the same length. Width of 21 cm. And a height to the top of the cab at 18 cm. I've printed out a schematic at these dimensions so that he has a hard copy for reference. I found Sariel's tutorial for scale model building as well to get some scope. I have many, many questions. What issues will he face with this size of a model? Would it be simpler to make a smaller scale? He'll likely want to motorize it. The 8043 seems like a good starting point for ideas. What other MOCs would be good candidates? Where should he focus his energy first? Which features/functions are likely to cause him the most difficulty?

I wanted to thank everyone for their responses. This thread spread off into some tangents I hadn't even thought about when I originally posted. Since there were some common themes as opposed to responding to each response individually I'll just try to lump it one post here. As far building together as a father-son joint venture. I can see where others are coming from. But, it's a bit more complicated for us. I am at home with the kids so I already spend 40-50 hours a week around him. If anything we are often in danger of having too much dad+son time. And as with every child he has his gifts and he has his challenges so our individual time is often better spent on other life skills. And, probably the best argument against a joint building venture (at least at this point in time) is that my wife also agrees it is a bad idea. To those who have shown examples of their kids creations and what has worked for you....many thanks. It has given me many options to think about. My kid enjoyed looking at the pictures/videos as well and it gave him a few ideas. One of those ideas after seeing both RohanBeckett's pneumatics and Sariel's hamster was to build a pneumatic hamster. As to visuo-spatial reasoning and executive function. Interesting topic so it might be best if I first explain how we ended up where we did. In order to support skills such as delayed gratification, taking on challenges, focus and self control, and just plain having our kids finish what they started we setup our educational toys similar to what you might find in a Montessori classroom. Now our kids have plenty of objects/toys just to play with but our educational toys (of which I include the Lego Creator and Technic sets) we put up on shelves that they could easily see. And, we generally try to keep something they are ready for now up there as well as well as a few iterations into the future to look forward to. So, for instance when my son felt he was ready for the Formula Offroader he took it down but he could easily see the Arctic Truck and Crawler Crane next to it. And from time to time he would pull those boxes down, study them and then put them back up knowing he wasn't quite ready for them yet. Anyway sometime I think in November or so he saw the BWE on one of the Youtube Lego channels and started pining for it. I didn't commit really one way or the other because I really thought the set was just too big and by the time he was ready he might just not be interested in it anyway. But something lit a fire in him because in December he fired off the Arctic Truck, Crawler Crane, 10220 VW Bus and then ultimately the BWE. So you can kind of get a picture where that left me. In a very short period of time I was left with an empty shelf without a visual and touch and feel representation of what was next and no plan on how to reconcile that and move into a different direction. Hence, this thread. Anyway, back to Visuo-spatial reasoning and executive function. My knowledge is limited only to what I have read but our son does seem to have some favorable combination of the skills required for executive function, as well as visuo spatial reasoning, and to some an extent maybe eidetic memory. And we do try to give him opportunities to use these skills in everyday life. For instance, we will often let him plan and guide our journeys across town using his working memory of the bus routes alongside his eidetic memory of the train map. Now, the main limiting factor he has with executive function is that his emotional regulation and frustration tolerance are definitely not up to the level of his other executive function skills (something he has no doubt inherited from his father). And this is something I do have to keep in mind with whatever challenge he chooses or I might suggest. But, it is quite possible that moving away from mainly visuo-spatial reasoning and towards executive function might well be the logical direction to go in his passion for lego as well. At least in his desire for a challenge. He does have plenty of opportunity to play with his legos and build freely but after a while he does crave the next level challenge as well. As a final note, this journey with Lego has been quite amazing and unexpected. It's certainly been great for my eldest son as it's allowed an opportunity to follow a passion with skills he was innately born with. But even more amazing is how much it has helped my younger son with his focus and self control.

Building something with him would be a disaster Building legos from scratch isn't a skill I have and he wouldn't have the patience for me. I can assure you while I am fascinated by what can be done with Technic it is a passion that is definitely his and not mine.

That's kind of the line of thinking I had. I think you're right. I need to focus on the smaller model MOCs for him. The Rebrickable models do seem hit and miss in the quality of instructions but a smaller model should decrease a build up of frustration. He has been working off a old tiny Kindle Fire tablet but I might have to cave in and get him a bigger screen to work off of as well. Yeah, I've never really pressured him to do larger models. But I have had the next new set or two sit sitting around in boxes on the shelves and have always told him when he mastered the previous set he was welcome to have a go. He generally didn't ask right away and would be content to do a lot of his own smaller builds (mostly system bricks) for a while before asking for the next step up.

I need some help planning out future technic build possibilities for my son who is approaching 6 years of age. He started out with the simple builds but as he finished one I'd get a larger and more challenging set for him. As such he eventually moved from the smaller sets into 42037, 42038, 42042, and then 42055 which he just recently finished. I don't help him out with the instructions but from time to time I do help him find pieces and provide some muscle to get some of the more difficult structures connected together. Now he is asking what's next. It's a good question. Up until now I've mainly kept it to official Lego sets. He found MOC pdf or lxf builds a bit frustrating as they certainly aren't always up to the quality of Lego building instructions. But at some point building MOCs instead of official Lego sets would probably be the next step up for him. Technically we do have set 42043 but I parted it out long ago for him to use the parts for his own creations. We also have the parts necessary to build nearly all the models for both of Isogawa's Power Functions Idea Books. I've also purchased Sariel's Unofficial Lego Technic Builder's guide so that I could try to keep up with what he was building and explain some of the concepts to him. I don't press it as I'd like to keep it light, fun and challenging. But he's picked up a few basic concepts. For instance, he's actually gotten fairly efficient at creating structures that can gear up or gear down (well better than me but that isn't really saying much) and knows when to utilize them. And he has had fun building different steering mechanisms. Recently, he has also shown quite an interest in GBCs and we got a few knock-off balls so that he could use the Bucket Excavator as one. Any guidance on how I can help him continue with his Lego Technic passion would be appreciated.