howitzer

Would be interesting to know the numbers excluding black 2L blue 3L friction pins as those are the most common Technic parts by a wide margin.

This is so cool! Looking forward to see it in action.

Kinda true but those stupid tracks instead of proper wheels...

Container yard seems cool but I haven't examined it in detail. 42061 is quite a small set and I'm generally not very interested in smaller sets so while it's fine in itself, it won't make or break the year's lineup. I mentioned Ocean explorer mainly because it's on the larger end while being in a category that doesn't receive nearly enough love from TLG. But yeah, it's not that great set, which makes 2017 seem even duller year.

Dunno, depends a lot on what kinds of sets we're getting. GWPs, books and such are nice but I'd take proper, highly functional "normal" sets any day over them. Right now it seems that we're not getting much of either though... Dunno, 2014 had a couple of nice sets like the Volvo and the Cargo plane. Even the construction crew was kinda fun set with lots of play value. The best thing about 2017 was probably the Ocean explorer, as watercraft are always nice to see in Technic but other than that it doesn't have much going on for it.

Somehow all the sets in 2017 were totally forgettable, both 2016 and 2018 had more interesting sets, and 2015/2019 too. I'd consider 2017 the low point of 2010's and while 2020's hasn't been that great either, I think so far we're still ahead of 2017. Your mileage may vary of course. I wouldn't even compare Technic to other themes, it's very much different from System-based building. In the early days they were closer (Technic was basically System builds with some functions to make parts move) but from the late 90's and especially since the full transition to studless construction it has been quite different. Apples to oranges comparison, rather than System-based themes where you can closely compare parts usage, building techniques etc. That being said, I of course agree completely, Technic is hands down the best theme of Lego

Yes, I thought it would be something like this.

Wow, that's a lot of examples on your gallery, though many appear to be variants of a few arrangements. Did you use some kind of algorithm to find all these?

It wouldn't be hard to make such a mould from aluminium for example, but of course you'd need the right tools for that, which I don't think many people have.

No 3x19 frames or new gears available here either.

The hoop originally from Friends sets is now available in DBG:

The RI hub used here has 6 outputs, so it should be enough, assuming 4 wheels with independent motors each.

Your entry is great and would surely make strong yet lightweight builds easier. The contest has already ended though, and the winners have been announced. Too bad it was hosted by New Elementary, so while the results are probably being followed by TLG, I doubt much will come out of it. There were no Technic parts among the winners/honorable mentions, and as for System builders, couple of them might eventually be made while others won't be. Either way, for a Technic builder this contest didn't have much to offer.

This is a possibility for small companies but TLG must think patents are valuable, otherwise they wouldn't patent stuff like the wave selector either. They of course also have the financial capacity to attempt to patent anything they want. Perhaps they even patented the flip-flop beams already in the 90's, along with other beams and thus the patent would've already expired? Hard to know without diving into the patent databases. And yeah, mostly patents on these kinds of things are pretty stupid, but sadly that's the world we're living in. Of course the models themselves are very important, that's after all what they sell. For a MOC maker with large parts inventory it's mostly the new parts that are of interest, but they are a small minority of customers, which makes the model quality all the more important.

Tried but didn't succeed I believe. Which makes my argument valid, as I don't think the flip-flop beam presents such a novelty that it could be pantented. If it could, I believe other manufacturers would've patented it, which isn't the case as we know.

I have a hard time to believe the flip-flop beams had not been considered long ago by TLG, they probably just weren't seen as necessary or worth the production cost of another element before a competitor started dealing them out. Note that they are obviously not patented, so they're even less of a novel idea than the wave selector. What I want to see is a new, useful part that a competitor can patent, and thus force TLG to either ignore it (to their detriment) or to invent a similar workaround as we've seen from CaDA here.

Of course the idea existed before that, nobody contests that. But still TLG patented the toy application for it, and not CaDA or any other competitor. I'm not sure how long it will hold, but clearly TLG still has the edge on innovation. Patents of course are weird, but at the moment that's the way things are. I'm actually waiting for the moment when some competitor releases something truly new, something that puts TLG to shame but that day is yet to come.

No offense taken. I also find it quite funny that they have to invent these kludges in order to make stuff work, as TLG is still far ahead in the game.

I mean, of course it is. But probably also different enough to circumvent the patent.

Very interesting that selector part. It's obviously made as a workaround to the TLG's patented wave selector and it shows, considering the many parts and even screws it has. Must be much more expensive to manufacture than TLG's counterpart, but I wonder if this one has any advantage over it?

I believe there's an internal relief valve inside the pumps, exactly for this reason. Motorized pumps start to vent excess pressure in only a few seconds at most, without popping any hoses.

Very interesting, I'm curious to see where this goes! Do you plan to make all movements happen with just a single motor, like in the original Ball Factory?

Fortunately, that's one colour inconsistency that doesn't matter at all.

I've never seen that movie, but the truck looks awesome regardless. I love those old foam tyres, in my opinion the best ones ever made for Technic.

So maybe it's 9 months instead of three?