howitzer

Yeah, far too late to change anything about this contest. Maybe next time we'll have something different again!

I'm actually a bit baffled by the decision to have the voting in the first stage and the jury decision in the second, instead of the other way around. I would've preferred a "qualifying round" where the jury decides which contestants adhere to the rules best and also select the best entries, while leaving the determination of the winner to voters. Not that it would've been easy task either way, considering the sheer number and quality of the entries. Still, I'm really happy about the contest, lots of fun were had and I'm really satisfied with my own entry, regardless of which position it'll end up.

Perhaps so. I was a bit concerned about this at the model selection, but then I decided that I want to do a model that's enjoyable to build and one that I can build faithfully to the original, rather than something big and flashy with poor execution. At least many people who have commented about their voting criteria have mentioned that they specifically look for the faithfulness of the model and use of contemporary parts, and so on, so I think the smaller models will get their fair share of attention. Of course big models are harder to execute properly, so some might think that deserves extra credit, but the voting criteria is in the end a personal choice of every voter.

Thanks for the nice and detailed review! The pricing is really irritating, as it looks like this set would be a great parts pack for someone wanting to expand their orange parts collection, but the pricing makes it hard to justify buying it as a parts pack. As a set... well, the review probably said everything that needs to be said.

I went through the entry topic and found only one (the disqualified one) entry without working images, so I guess it's just you. Maybe try another browser or something? The selection was indeed a difficult one, both due to the number of entries and their quality. I don't think there were any entry that I immediately dismissed as undeserving of points - I wanted to reward all of them with at least some points.

20: 10 22: 6 23: 4 27: 3 38: 2 14: 1

I think it's actually a good thing that the voting system wouldn't change the results. That way the most popular entries will win, no matter what, and there won't be much room for playing the rules to gain advantage.

Heavy duty tow truck doing some heavy duty towing: It was a nice build and a surprisingly lengthy one for me, though I did make some mistakes (and also had to take several breaks due to non-building related factors). I would've liked to cut my own hose, or at least they should've included a measuring line somewhere, as telling the different length hoses apart by eye is hard. I applied some very minimal mods right away (swapping the steering 20T and 8T gears for less knob-turning and putting the tiles of the front grille vertically rather than horizontally) and of course I left the stickers out, but beyond that it's like the original. As is 8868, beside a replacement hoses here and there. I might have to do the white panel replacement (like in the Brickset review) in the rear of the cabin though, as it doesn't look that good without stickers. After everything is said and done, it fulfills every expectation I had for this set. The functions work great, though without stickers guiding you, it's a bit difficult to operate them.

I don't have a strong opinion on this either way, but couple of things of note: The 3L driving rings are indeed quite wasteful, especially with the wave selector around. Originally the driving ring was 2L but it was changed to 3L to fit in better with the odd-width studless system - though I'm sure 2L could also be used in vast majority of the cases. The numerous gears in the F1 gearbox (14 different sizes if I'm not mistaken, as opposed to 3 or 4 in the Sian gearbox) you showed would be kind of nice, but I doubt we'll ever see them because most would not be very useful as a Lego part. The current system allows many gear combinations with whole or half stud offsets, and that forces certain numbers of teeth for each respective size. The only size missing I think is the 32T gear, along with the clutch gears for most sizes. I believe those will show up eventually, but TLG doesn't make new parts unless they have to, so we'll have to wait for a set which can make a good use of those. Moulding teeth numbers in the gears is a great idea though. As for the colourfulness, I don't really mind that, as the many colours make it much easier to sort and store gears (like putting normal and clutch gears of same size into the same bin and still finding them easily), and to see the workings of a gearbox. If every gear was the same colour, it would be pretty difficult to guess the teeth number in an already built gearbox, as you can't see most of it clearly. The Sian gearbox you showed would btw. be much more subdued with the old 16T clutch gears in DBG, while most of the rest of the colours come from various beams and connectors holding the thing together. So it's not just the gears, it's obviously a conscious choice on TLG's part to put in all those colours there. MOC makers can of course make their boxes with much less colours, as the 20T clutch gear is probably the only brightly coloured one which you can't easily avoid.

If you look at the various sets branded as 18+, this is exactly what it is. Grand piano, The Typewriter, Botanical Collection, Art, etc. are indeed first and foremost decorations, while stuff like the two Friends sets and Sesame Street are mostly nostalgia trips for adults who want to relive their youth (and as such, will never see much of actual playing with). As for the Technic 18+ sets, they fulfill the minimal requirements to count as Technic. Even the Sian, while it has complex gearbox and suspension setup, is almost without play value as the functions are not that easy or nice to operate and generally cars in that size are too large to comfortably play with. So it should be obvious that 18+ has nothing to do with difficulty, complexity or mature topics (as in violence or sexuality), it's simply meant to appeal to certain new segment of customers, like @1974 pointed out.

While USB-c would definitely be better considering the future, I don't see using micro USB problematic either, it does everything this kind of device needs. The RI hub btw. also uses micro USB for charging and I think it can also be programmed through it, though there's not much reason not to use bluetooth.

That's why I'd include a generous extra length, like enough to fail once at every cut and still have enough left to do them all over again. I, personally, had no problem cutting the hoses correctly at the age of 9 when I build the 8868, and generally the recommended age is higher than that for sets with pneumatics. Some time ago I bought 25m of clear silicone tubing from a local dealer which specializes in all kinds of plastic and rubber products but yeah, you can't find those easily unless there happens to be a correct kind of shop nearby. They're easily available online though.

Nice work! This is one of the stranger Technic vehicles ever released and you nailed the looks and functions pretty well. I especially like how you made the canopy of the cabin, looks much cleaner than the original which was, frankly, quite a mess. The additional features fit well into the model, as it's appears to be no larger than the original. I don't like the tyre choice though, the original balloon tyres seemed to integrate better with the rest of the model and the truck tyres feel too ordinary for this thing...

The hose thing is something I've been wondering about too. Why go to the trouble of pre-cutting and sorting hoses when they could just provide uncut hose and let the builders do it themselves? The obvious problem here is of course that some builders will botch the cutting and end up with too short pieces, but I think that too could be alleviated by providing generous extra, like if a set needs a total of 1m of hoses, pack it with 2m. That way there's room for errors while providing material for MOC making. And I find it hard to believe that the extra hose would be more expensive than all the costs involved in pre-cutting and sorting the dozen or more of hoses. I'm done with the first part of the building, going back to it now.

The local retailer where I buy most of my Lego has it in stock aplenty (I already received mine), but they generally stock huge amounts of new sets, and they too are apparently selling it also a lot. On the other hand Zetros is actually less available in their stock, though it's hard to say if it's because of sales or if they just stocked less of it or maybe haven't received as much of them.

Yep, that's how I envisioned the roofline with the small panels. Though Saper's version of the centre pillar looks nicer than the double angled liftarm.

Not sure if this was mentioned already but there Zetros also gave us a couple of new useful recolours: the thin 1x5 liftarm with axleholes at the ends and the toggle joint smooth are both now available in DBG.

I actually thought the top of the windshield, to replace the 3x11 curved panel with 21/22 panels and some liftarms. The sides of the windshield look nice enough with the old style panels.

Much better, though I believe it could still be improved. Did you try panels 21/22 for the windshield/roof border?

I agree with @SaperPL, while the fender as rear window looks great, it doesn't work as windshield. For me especially distracting is the breaking roofline, as the fender part sits 0,5 studs too high, and the center pillar of the windshield should also be made with a flex axle, as the connectors are too fat and blocky. Otherwise, great work, I really like the lower part of the front, and also the rear side of the car and even the liftarm stacking in the sides don't bother me too much.

I love your contest entries and their creative interpretations of the theme. I, for one, am not that much into minifigs, but your gigafig is great and has earned my vote :) Also really glad you gave it the face (even if it's just a sticker), makes it so much more lively and fun to watch at.

Yeah, adding steering and fake engine is entirely within the spirit of the contest. As you said, no official Technic set would be released at this scale without steering and fake engine.

I know the feeling, and I consider myself pretty skilled in english language. But I also think that one should not place too much emphasis on perfect language, as long as the message is conveyed. It's an international forum so it is to be expected that most people are not that well versed in english.

I see your point, but whenever you start categorizing things, there will always be edge cases where it's hard to say if it should be in one category or another. The more categories there are, the more edge cases there will also be, so this merger should at least remove one place where it's hard to decide one way or another. I still think this merge is the right thing to do considering the inactivity of the scale modeling forum, and maybe the split is now something like having models which are all design and no function put to Special themes forum while those with at least some technical functions belong here.

The pin with bush is available in at least 16 colours, so it's in no way colour coded like most other pins. Apparently it's considerable usefulness in System builds has forced them to make it available in many colours, while other pins are mostly hidden when used in System so no need for many colours there.