SaperPL

Like I said before - try putting worm gear onto the axle to act as a gear rac, but it'll force you to make clearance around it.

First prototype round: The B-model seems to be designed properly although there are few details I need to fix for it to be easy to disassemble for motorized variant. The suspension on the A-model though is something that I will have to redesign as this behaves not as I expected - it seems that either the similar setup with Technic beams is more rigid or that original shock absorber for this model was significantly softer or both. I also need to tweak few details to attach the bonnet around the steering wheel as I totally missed that. Obviously the colours are not there yet and the new round tile has a different element in the middle - I will have to get the original tiles as the can be attached to two studs thanks to a cross in the middle instead of a circle.

I think I'm pretty close to the final layouts. I'm trying to make it work in a way the I'm not using a lot of additional parts for B and C models of this set. So far so good, but there are few places I'd like to do better than original set I will have to build the physical prototypes and order parts ASAP... And I just figured out the alternate way to handle steering in the B-model that should work properly. @MajklSpajkl how do you think this looks now? I did make the bonnet longer

This is pretty simple though - the string pulls by two pivots at the same time, but the bucket moves first because it's move is made to require less torque but longer string pull with this 4185 wheel which acts as a lever. This is similar to putting together big gear and a small gear where you turn big wheel with a small one - your input torque required when moving the smaller gear is smaller and you get higher output torque on the big gear you're moving as this combination works as a lever, but you have to turn the small gear more - the same principle is applied here with this 4185 wheel piece. Then after you reach the limit on the bucket move, there's the arm move which requires more torque but less distance of the string to pull. I've got the 43.2x14 wheels, but it doesn't feel right when put on the front, steered axle. I don't have a good pivot point for it. And when I would put the 43.2x22 at the front and two pairs of 43.2x14 at the back, it looks weird.

Aren't the stacked wheels in original model supposed to be a representation for tracks themselves? Like you should have tracks arranged this way on such trapeze? Original set for the contest entry, good luck :)

Looks good so far - an actual modernisation of the simple piece, cool build.

I think this steering may not work. That may be a stupid question, but why not use worm gears to have a gear rack that is even number wide? You'll have to make the clearance for it, but it should work.

I agree that the rules are ambiguous. I would appreciate a clarification on the scale rule - whether this scale limit in the beginning of the sentence refers to the scale of your MOC vs original set's size or whether it's about your MOC's scale in general, meaning we don't limit overall sizes of entries, so we would allow or not models of specific size like it was with TC18 where they had to fit the transporter set. My interpretation of this is that the first part states that there is no limit of overall scale of the set, so you can have a model that's 10 meters long, but the second part of the sentence indicates that it's okay as long as you are roughly keeping the original size of the set. So the fact that there is no limit on scale means you either can pick a small city model as a base for your entry, or a medium sized Technic set like I did or a supercar model like 8880 and these all have different scales versus real life vehicle/object, but the second part indicates that you are supposed to get as close to the original scale of the model as possible. I remember that we had an explicitly stated example in the discussion thread to not have something like small lego system city sports car as a base model to be recreated at Technic supercar set scale. And this is really close to what @Jundis is doing with his approach 6352 Cargomaster Crane, with the exception that he is making it not into supercar scale, but into medium/large Technic model scale which is far off from the original scale. I'm not doing this to hate on his build, but letting such exception go through will mean opening for people just last minute dropping their big scale trucks and cars they've been making for last few months as TC20 entries based on some small lego city sets, and it'll blow out whole competition because people will be voting on huge builds, because they look better and have more functions, but it ends up to be competition about who can sink more money into bricks and spend more time on building it. This is not true and ambiguous as hell - first of all, you can't remake it 1:1 with just swapping technic studded beams for liftarms because they don't have the same architecture - you have to change how the pieces ar arranged because they mesh together differently. But the statement "be true to original" may be interpreted as actually making a remake with approach like "how would lego design this model with their current elements and design style". but at the same time, modern style is making closed vehicle bodies with panels, but there are classic sets like car chassis that were meant to show the mechanics, so staying true to that is also against modernisation. Just making a remake is also okay by the rules here as you can do a good job and it'll be a balance between the modern build techniques and original set's style and nostalgia. Anyway I don't want to fight on the latter which one is it, but I'd appreciate if there wasn't anything like "you've just made a remake of the original set with liftarms", because then we will spend days to figure out where's the boundary of what's okay and what's not. As for the scale, like I said earlier, I just don't want people dropping their huge MOCs as anything that closely resembles that from small scale sets. True to the original and keeping scale as close as possible should be followed here and strictly handled by the admins.

I was thinking about this one as well, but I decided to go with something smaller that I actually had. But yeah, the nostalgia on those sets that we couldn't have kicks in really hard :)

The B-model concept: Most of the big pieces should add up - I used the A-model and deconstructed it while build this next to it. The pin count may not add up and I duplicated few pieces that I had to. I'm not sure about the steering - it might be too tight, but I don't have a good plan to move the gear rack up by one stud here. EDIT: the motorized B-model is pretty doable, but I suppose the mod will not be as neat as the original one as I'll need to take whole rear apart. It'll also need some additional pieces, but I guess this was the same with the original set. I also had to shift the rear arches a bit to handle this properly. This is a pretty weird motorized set in the first place - it didn't have motor for steering, just the drive:

Thanks! I know about the bonnet, but I'm reluctant to force it to be longer because it would overcomplicate this significantly. The bonnet is half stud shorter from the front and back due to the change from beams to liftarms and I want to use the frame here because it simplifies things and is also a sign of times here. I can't add liftarm at the back of it, which would make most of the sense to correspond with the original, because it would interfere with steering column and I would also need to move the windshield to the back somehow. At least for now I don't have a good solution for that, but I'll try to figure something out.

I've been looking for a model that would suit me, but I don't really want to make anything big. I went through Blakbird's Technicopedia yesterday and I stumbled upon the 8816 ATV Off Road Racer and the nostalgia did hit me and I knew I had to do it. I went through the original instructions here: https://lego.brickinstructions.com/en/lego_instructions/set/8816/ATV_Off_Road_Racer So here it goes - the original (image taken from Technicopedia, just reuploaded it for the embedd) My studless remake: The thing that hit me just now that I didn't figure out as a kid is that it's a toy car, one of those small electric cars for one child to drive around, those proportions can't lie :) I will have to go through the pins to try and get rid of the black pins as these are not that common. I'm not 100% sure about the round light tiles, these may be expensive as well. I'll have to think about the B-model as well, maybe handling the motor modification with PF XL motor would work as well? I'm not sure though if I'll make it on time with the physical model and actual colours - will have to design fast and get parts asap.

Creative thinking comes from striving to stay within specified rules. It is when we see people creatively constructing stuff that fits at a small scale for example, but other restrictions can force creative solutions as well. TC18 was had really cool entries because of that (I did not pay much attention to TC19). You can always make MOCs you want to do, but it's obvious you can fit more mechanics into significantly bigger models, so the more bricks you use, the more complex it gets. And this gets to a point where it's about the amount of money you can sink into a physical model, and I've seen over and over again that people will vote for bigger, more expensive things they can't have rather than things they could potentially build with what they have. That is why the rules in such competitions are there and entries should be strictly evaluated by admins, so it lets kids with some amount of bricks compete against AFOLs that can spend virtually unlimited money on their models. So yeah, anyone can vote as they wish, but admins should be strict. I don't want to spam this thread with a discussion like that, so that'll be it for me. If my interpretation of TC20 rules (and the spirit of it) is correct, I believe this model should not fit within the rules, but it is a cool project nevertheless.

Thanks! I think it's this one: https://brickset.com/parts/6096956/string-30m-w-2-knobs I got those from Heavy Duty Forklift set.

Well, yeah, about the fun - yes, nothing is stopping you. As for the scale - there are micro scale Technic sets and I believe it would probably be made like that if it was to be remade as studless Technic. I would probably expect something scaled like Mini Class Xerion with long gear rack and it's enclosure to simplify the construction. Before the content was defined, there was a talk about this to not make stuff like there's a small lego sports car and since there's no strict scale restriction, someone could submit something at Technic supercar scale like a C-model from bugatti. The competition is fun when there are reasonable restrictions - when you can make things significantly bigger, then for one you can make a better physical model just because you've got more cash to spend on the bricks. With that said, the model looks nice and it's a fun experience to do something like that, I just don't think it's within the spirit of the contest rules.

While this looks really cool, it's a bit further away from the contest's rule that I would imagine would make sense. The original set was really small and I would probably aim at using wheels like 30.4x14 tires and keeping mechanisms simple if I was going to follow the "try to stay as close to original as possible" suggestion in the rules. Also so far this is only virtual - you are planning to build it physically?

Seems like something that has chance of winning if executed perfectly. I would try to close the sides of the cabin/wheel arches a bit and maybe put the seats further away to add the armrests to them. For the forklift front wheels - why not go for wider 43x2x22 wheel instead of doubling them like in original - 1 stud of space is a lot when it comes to figuring out mechanics.

The subject is really cool and you're doing good on the mechanics, but I feel like the vibe of your model is completely different than the original one. The original was sleek because it was barely covered by the panels with few lines marked with studded beams, what you are doing is completely changing the amount of body work and it feels a lot bulkier than the original one. Sometime less is more and I think you overdid it with amount of panels. I would also favour using currently manufactured wheels for such modernisation.

Really cool model and the video is awesome. I think there's something wrong with the image sharing you've used to post here. And of course props for free instructions. Talking about those - you're missing the wheels on rebrickable parts list because you've used them as assembled piece in studio, I think. You should add the wheels and tyres manually to fix that.

This is something I came up with after starting a build of wheeled excavator from scratch. My previous model had overcomplicated design of the chassis and used small linear actuators for arm movement which was pretty bad for a manual model due to the amount of cranking required. I also got rid of steering elements I often used in my previous builds as they are not that common anymore. The one of the arm controls use single lever for two arm movements - bucket movement and arm movement - this is made possible by differentiating the torque required for string pull with a wheel. The video shows building of the chassis and operation of this excavator arm prototype I'm planning to build a full excavator model on this, hopefully with full fledged instructions, but it'll take some time, so stay tuned if you like it.

Or like any classic/old car of that era. It was actually inspired by this build: I wanted to test this kind of steering.

I did a thing: Here's the video of the prototype with a bit more showing off the functionality: I'm not fully satisfied with this build as I couldn't figure out a way to route a steering knob to the back cleanly and using steering wheel feels really bad. It's still interesting that you can do this kind of chassis with full size front engine, might be a useful core for some other builds.

Another cool little build, the shapes of the cabin are really well made. Just out of curiosity - why didn't you go for gear rack piece when designing the boom extension mechanism? As for free instructions - do your builds get built by a lot of people actually? I've got some free instructions, but barely anyone does that. It feels like it either has to be a B-model or you need a premium instructions promoted on a designer plan for people to start building your stuff.

My second thought why I wouldn't like the contest to be about any set is that the competition might leave people with less bricks with no chance if there is a requirement for physical build because there will always be those people with ton of the money to sink into huge builds and from my experience, people do drool when they see big expensive builds simply because they can't have them, like they do every time someone drops a gallery of their new super expensive PC build with all the RGB bells and whistles. So I'd rather see a contest with specific size limits like the TC18 had.

I'd say B, but how about including the original model team sets (not the modern licensed creator expert sets) to be made into pure studless Technics? With option A it would get all over the place while keeping it to model team and studded Technic sets feels doable - we'd get both bare see-through liftarm builds as well as fully enclosed ones in panels.