howitzer

Of course you can, but if we're still talking about the possible truck contest, what advantage functions-wise you think could be achieved with a really long truck? What conceivably realistic functions fit into a wind turbine rotor blade or into a road train trailers that don't fit in single trailer? I guess someone could build a road train with several flatbed trailers loaded with an excavator, bulldozer, steamroller, tank, and whatever else could be transported with a flatbed trailer, but that would be a) extremely unrealistic b) huge effort, which make such an entry quite improbable. And even so, I'm sure vast majority voters can discern an obvious attempt to gain a cheap wow-factor with a big but badly built thing from a genuine attempt to make a good model that just happens to be large. I went through the contests of my time here (starting at TC16) and I couldn't really build up much of a real relation with size and contest success, for example in the TC20 you mentioned my own quite small and functionally not very impressive 8824 recreation did quite well, ending in place 13 of 47. For other contests I looked it seemed to be even less true that larger entries do better, there were tons and tons of very large builds with lower rankings and many smaller entries with higher rankings. If you're only looking at size, it seems the sweet-spot is somewhere in the middle, which is to be expected when you think of it: small builds are generally quite easy to build and can't have impressive functions, while large builds tend to be overly complicated and badly designed with the lack of constraints to force good design. There are significant exceptions of course, for example 2GodBDGlory's entry for TC25 and Berthil's entry for TC23.

I find it hard to believe that making a very long trailer (or many trailers) would earn much points or admiration unless the build was also otherwise great. This argument that size equals great success in contests gets thrown around a lot, but does it actually happen? Can someone name a few instances of large but badly built thing outcompeting smaller but well built entries?

I don't see reason why road trains shouldn't be allowed, building one just shows that one has plenty of parts at their disposal.

Yes, for truck contest the scale limitation should be something other than wheel size, probably width would be best. For example, 15 studs wide chassis/exterior, with mirrors allowed to extend outside of that but the rest must fit within.

I've suggested a build a truck -competition couple of times before, and I bet that would make for a great contest. I'm not sure though if there should be a scale target, as otherwise the big entries would have a significant advantage with more functions, more details and overall better looks. Maybe something like 42128 scale?

All systems have their upsides and their downsides and they have been discussed exhaustively in this very topic. Whatever the system, there will always be a possibility of different results if different system were used - and that's ok, because contests are supposed to be fun and not about winning no matter what. Now the time required for multistage process is indeed a valid argument against the system I proposed, it wouldn't have been possible with the latest contest for example. On the other hand, in the studful recreation contest similar system was used successfully, so I guess it all depends on the timeframe of the contest and arrangements for the prizes and so on.

Some contests have had a huge number of entries which can become overwhelming for voters, especially if you're a busy adult having a lot of adult-things to do in your life. In that case votes get cast pretty randomly if at all, and the weight of looks is exaggerated as it's much easier to decide if something is good-looking than if it has nice and interesting functions. In the recreate a studful set contest we had a popular vote for the top ten and jury selecting the winner and runner-ups, but I'd like to propose an inversion of this: jury to select the top ten and then a popular vote for the winner. Of course it's a lot of work for the jury but so it is every time jury selection is used, and this would make it easier for voters to do an actual comparison of the quality of each entry, functions and all.

I haven't updated it for a while but I guess I should try to find the time to do so. So many new panel releases lately that it would be useful to get them all listed. Nice to know that someone actually uses this list though!

Congratulations to winners! It was really fun contest, so many so good entries. Personally I learned a lot while making my entry, too bad I couldn't finish it properly, perhaps next time is better.

Yeah, if there's ranking and prizes, it's a contest. Challenge could be some kind of a "build a solution to this problem and show how it works, then all the different solutions are presented" thing but without ranking or prizes.

Hopefully the truss parts will become available in B&P at reasonable price - still an expensive expansion, but you'll need a lot of them so that's kind of unavoidable. I don't think the pricing of the weight pieces are relevant here.

Oh, damn, I didn't read carefully enough, sorry.

GBC people will be delighted to know that there's a new neon yellow ball available now in the new Friends Sports Center set:

My question here would be... why not have your kid do both, music and robotics?

If there was a PU contest I'd hope that the rules allowed also RI/Spike hub and sensors, in addition to Technic hub and motors. The restriction of max 4 peripherals (sensors/motors) is fine though.

But I could replace the source photos.

Joining the chorus here, this was a very good contest and I'm happy and proud that I was able to enter and finish my entry. I got the missing parts today and I _could_ shoot new photos I guess, and replace them in my entry post but I'm not sure if that's allowed?

Thanks! Mostly I chose the transparent tube because I didn't want to cut original Lego tubes and I have a large spool of transparent tube at my disposal, which makes it easy to cut them in correct lengths. Can't be too short obviously but in a small model like this too long tubes are also problematic.

Nice work! Too bad there's no chance it would ever get released as an official Ideas set - no Technic entry has ever been accepted and this is a lot more niche than other Technic Ideas entries. It reminds me of another gaming console made out of Lego which I stumbled upon a while ago:

Last moments but I think I did it... Too bad my entry is sort of unfinished :(

8868 Airtech Claw Rig Shrink factor: 70% Includes all features of the original replicated as faithfully as possible, except motorized compressor (replaced by manual pump as per rules of the contest). I was unable to finish the build properly due to missing parts which I had ordered, so few details are missing, like the horns on the top of the roof and few are coloured wrongly, such as some parts in front mudguards. The features include: - Rack and pinion steering with HOG control - Two rear axles with differentials driving front V6 fake engine - Five pneumatic cylinders, two of which are used for slewing, one for boom, one for jib and one for claw - Aesthetic touches of the original replicated as far as possible given the scale and functions More photos in the wip topic:

So, I didn't receive the parts I ordered in time. This means my build is missing some aesthetic touches and has few parts in wrong colour. Nothing I can do to fix those as the deadline is today so this will have to do. Here's the final photos as far as the contest is concerned, sorry for the cannibalized and mutilated 8868, it has suffered a lot over the years. Higher resolution images at http://www.jousimo.fi/lego/TC25/

New Elementary did some analysis on the new worm gear and it's mating parts, including a way to drive the worm gear with normal gears: https://www.newelementary.com/2023/08/lego-parts-73763-73764-3863-worm-gear.html

I have the same problem - ordered some parts in the beginning of the week and the seller had them mailed in tuesday so I expected to have them at hand in friday at the latest... but they didn't come. So unless they arrive tomorrow, I'll have to enter with the model I have now which is incorrectly coloured and has some aesthetic parts missing. Fortunately it's mostly complete with all the functionality working. I do understand the hard deadline though, so either way I'll post my finished entry tomorrow.

This project is absurd and awesome in its scope and scale, and in your commitment to continue building and improving it. I've seen large Lego builds before but this is beyond anything I've seen in its complexity. I wonder if you're ever going to call it "finished"? It would deserve a proper documentary film detailing every part and their design and construction.