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It would be a bit weaker connection, and also look kind of edgy (the edge might even collide with the fender piece). If it fits, I'd rather use this piece Does not exist in reddish orange though.. Something seems off on those fender pieces in the clearer images, so I'd agree with @Zerobricks that it might be the AI making stuff up.

Thanks, true that it fulfills (my) playability objectives, though I think that comparing this with the Zetros set would be kind of unfair, even if we factor out the question of electronics. This kind of car is built for very extreme off-roading, while a truck like Zetros is not exactly (even a trial version), so comparing their capabilities would be a bit unfair. So I guess what I mean is that even if the Zetros set was well executed in its class, this kind of car would easily beat it in terms of playability, simply due to the options it can provide due to its low weight, stability and extreme articulation, things that a Zetros will never have even if built really well. But hopefully soon I can publish something that is more directly comparable to the Zetros, both in terms of its class and the electronics used.. :)

Thanks, those are pretty detailed rules! I like that it's precise about many aspects, and also that it expresses penalties and bonuses in terms of time percentages, nice way to ensure those are on a comparable scale to the overall time. At first I was puzzled of the seemingly different wheel sizes, but it turns out those were also factored into the point system in a meaningful way. Also, I like that the models need to have fairly detailed interior and exterior, so people would not build just a chassis with electronics all over the place and a few panels thrown on top. That probably made the entries quite comparable. Well, it seems there's a 10% bonus for that, so it can make sense. Actually I like the idea, as being able to run on open diffs promotes the need to build better suspension technology, so it is in the spirit of a building contest.

Very nice event, thanks for sharing! What were the rules? What scale and what electronics were allowed? I like the track, what is it made of? It seems realistic and hard enough, despite being artificial.

I like the shaping too, and the idea that it is floating on the table, making it playable. Only thing I don't get is the utility of the winch switching mechanism. Wouldn't two independent knobs for the two winches be simpler overall? I don't mean mechanically, but in terms of play. What's the advantage of this switch?

Thanks guys, glad you all point out the suspension, as that's the main technical novelty :) So yeah, there are no springs involved, and only the weight of the axles pulls it down. In theory, small springs could be added to the base of the lower links (though the space to add them is very limited due to the upper links), that could make it more responsive in terms of pushing the wheels down, but the surprising finding is that it is not really needed, as I tested it with air in the cylinders first. I think one problem either with air in the cylinders or with additional springs is that it also effects all wheels, not just the one being hung in the air. So in a situation when the model hang on the rock, if there was a spring, true that it would push the wheel in the air down, but on the other side, the same amount of spring force would be pushing the model sitting on the other wheel upwards, so the end result would not necessarily be better. So in the end, simplicity decides in my case. By the way, I would not say that it's like a pendular axle, because it has more degrees of freedom than a pendular one (which can only rotate around the middle), it's a proper floating axle capable of moving up and down as well as tilting. I think these tires help pretty much, the are soft and sticky, designed for rocks, and of course, even with this, there are many situations when it can slip and spin out (obviously I cut those out from the video :D). Also, one disadvantage of lego tractor tires is that they are very edgy (while this one is rounded) and need more space, for example that can get caught up in the suspension links when steered to the maximum. Also, maybe the edgyness would provide less contact surface than the rounded tires have.

Nice work cramming al those functions in there along with the RC drive / pump! It really shows how hard it is even just to route all the cables / switches, even without RC pneumatics.

I guess you are not alone with this :)

Hi Everyone! This model is long overdue, it's been sitting on the self for a while, and I'm happy that I can finally present it to you! I've always liked proper rock crawler buggies for their extreme capabilities (both in real life and RC models), so I wanted to build one for a while. I believe some of the best ones are made by Jesse Haines, they are race proven, they look cool, so I decided to attempt to build one of those, with as good performance as possible, and this is the result. Let the video speak for itself! Features Highly articulated 4-link live axles with fake portals RC electronics: Injora MB100 ESC, LiPo battery, RC transmitter/receiver Two buggy motors inside PF L motor housing for drive GeekServos for steering on both axles Low center of gravity, good weight distribution Design process and details For a real version to model, I quickly settled on the one raced by Jesse Haines for a while, and more recently by Dave Wong (although I just saw a few weeks ago on FB that the buggy is on sale now). Here's a good picture of it, and here is a very good video overview of it by Dave himself. The main challenges of building it were the following: what electronics to use for proper precise control, how to build a the massive 4-link suspension and portal axles how to build a (small) light tubular looking body in a stable way Axles and suspension As usual, I started thinking from the axles, as those are the most critical part. Lego currently does not have good solution for portals (the existing ones have awful steering properties and also leave little room in the middle of the axle for mounting links and shock absorbers, so that was a definite no-go), but luckily @Attika's axle design comes to the rescue (mounting planetary hubs with slanted lower A-arms and driveshaft), as they raise the axle by one stud, contain a down-gearing by the portal hub, hence I call them fake portals. Furthermore, I have previously used these axles in my Toyota Hilux Truggy with GeekServos mounted to the axles, and those seemed like the perfect option here (the real buggy's axles also have servos mounted directly on them): they provide a strong and precise solution, while still leaving some room for mounting the links. So I settled for RC electronics, along with the custom PF L motors that I have borrowed. However, the Toyota's axles used 9L links and 9L shock absorbers, and I knew those won't cut it here, simply they would not be long enough. As for lego springs, their travel is quite limited for such large articulation, especially as it needs to be fixed far out on the axle, but I also faced another puzzle of the real buggies. At first I did not understand how is it possible that they sit very low, yet they can articulate sooo much. I realized, that those shocks are air filled (and adjustable) and what's probably happening is that they are very soft, so that they sit in almost completely, and the wheels mainly articulate downwards from the base position (instead of up, as usual). I thought this is kind of fortunate because it could be nicely modeled using long pneumatic cylinders, which have a lot of travel. My first attempt was to fill them with a bit of air, adding complete tubing with switches and a small pump to the model. However, the system was a bit complicated, always leaking some air and never really leveling up properly on all 4 wheels. So I decided to try and just get rid of the tubing and the air, and let the model sit completely on the cylinders and only articulate outwards, the cylinders only acting as dampers for the movement. And this worked surprisingly well, simplified the build substantially, so I kept it! For the links, the only option was to build them from parts, but then, triangulation becomes more difficult due to needing to add degrees of freedom to their movement, which makes things clunky and collide with other parts. I experimented a bit with aggressive outward looking lower links, but it just did not fit nicely, so I just decided to keep the lower ones almost parallel (the mounting of the ball socket providing minimal outward direction), simplifying the mounting at the chassis end, and only triangulate the upper ones aggressively. Drivetrain In the real model, the motor is placed on the back, all the front is kept for legroom and visibility. The transmission is routed on the right, while the seat is on the left. So I aimed to keep this layout, I wanted to keep the space for the seat. The two L motors (with the buggy motors swapped into them, same I used for the Hilux) went to the rear, while the front was a good place for the battery to balance out the weight. The only slight difficulty was the routing of the driveshaft with the right gear ratio, in a way that it leaves room for the seat low enough. In the end, this is what worked: The differential is locked in the form of a 12:20 gear ratio, leading to the planetary hubs. This way the final speed/torque ratio is very good because the model is very light compared to the Toyota. Furthermore, it's center of weight is very low, hence it is very stable. Here is the core of the complete chassis: Bodywork and interior As for the rest of the chassis and bodywork, this time I kept it simple and stable, didn't aim for complexly angled tubular structures, just decided to use beams and the paneling itself as the main structural elements, and throw a few angled parts (like those F1 suspension arms) mainly for enhancing the looks. The seat itself is a detailed one (borrowed from my previous rock bouncer), and there's minimal cockpit design with steering wheel and gear stick, but the other half of the cockpit is occupied by the transmitter and wiring, while the ESC is on top of the drive motors for easy access to turn it on. Actually, the usable space is quite small compared to the overall size, because, well, it's all about the huge wheels. And finally some more photos as well in its natural environment: More pictures are on my Bricksafe. The Studio model is available on Rebrickable. Let me know what you think! Cheers! Viktor

Same here :) I wonder if it will get on par with regular orange at some point.

Maybe an opening lever for the hood? That 3x7 panel is already part of the hood, no?

Cute little one!

Really neat packaging of all the electronics and nice body as well. I like that is has some interesting front suspension at this scale :) And great top speed!

This is wild, densely functional and premium with that B model, looks awesome! You do really take this game of minification to the limit!

Thanks @R0Sch for the images, so the axle and the gear are actually not part of it, they can be built however needed, nice.

Now that's really interesting! As far as I see, it works by rotating the gear, maybe 90 degrees, I can imagine that on the inner side it is asymmetric (wrt to 90 degree rotation) and then it either holds onto the wheel hub or not, depending on the rotation. That would mean that the axle part going in to the central hole and the gear on the end have to be a single piece, right? Is this something new to this set or has this been used before in Cada cars? I've never seen it, but the review does not really talk about this, even though it seems like a pretty important novelty to me.

What is that wheel mounting technique at 2:02 in this video? Is that something that form locks the wheel on top of the 3 pins? Or is it just some gimmick?

I don't think that's true. Above a certain age, say 14 maybe, older builders are not necessarily more advanced. I think around that age, people already have the necessary mental skills to comprehend complex builds if they practice it enough. And if they don't practice it, that skill won't arrive just by age. Even quite the opposite can be true; I think it might even be that between ages 14-18, more children build for the challenge (to discover and learn) than grown-ups do, who simply maybe need a hobby to pass time outside of work. And most of those people just want an easy time, not really looking for challenge, because they are already tired after all the work. That is partly true, instruction clarity helps a lot, that's why Lego instructions got more detailed over time. On the other hand there is such thing as build density, which does make things more complicated, both comprehending how parts should be placed and aligned, as well as the actual dexterity required to assemble the dense, complexly locked things.

That's what I suspected! So those axles are properly spaced on grid positions, right? (you just did not include a frame) That's a very useful gear to have, and I don't understand why Lego missed this opportunity when designing the yellow differential.

Happy to see you are experimenting with my model :) I didn't think those large tractor tires would fit on it. I guess sand is kind of the most difficult terrain, as it lacks traction, so these kind of tires are really required, though maybe with this tire size it's a bit underpowered. Are you using 9V batteries or 7.2V rechargeable ones? Have fun with it!

To me those gears look like a different size than Lego's yellow gears are (the large gear looks thicker and the small one looks smaller). Maybe two of those yellow gears can mesh at a 90 degree angle? Unlike Lego's..

I tend to agree with what @allanp is articulating here. There are many builders out there, but the distribution of talent is not uniform, far from it. There are a lot of people who just buy and build sets and MOCs, post them on FB, maybe criticize them, but don't make anything on their own. They don't even know what parts exist in technic. Then there are people who make their own MOCs, but most of them copy ideas from other MOC designers, tinker with the looks and make some modifications. And finally there are the MOC designers who push the limits and design new stuff, concepts that have never been built before. You know, those people who know all technic parts by heart and know exactly what can and cannot be built, and maybe even design and 3d print their own. That's a very small minority, but those are exactly the ones that TLG should be monitoring for ideas of improvement. And exactly those people are highly concentrated on this forum. So we may be a small minority, but exactly the important one. This phenomenon has been observed in many areas of life, it is called the Pareto principle: the majority of the effects comes from a small minority of causes. So if TLG are smart, they do monitor this minority. Also agree on this one. They probably know exactly that they must not f**k this one up, so they might hold this back until they can come out with a good implementation that aims to live up to the expectations, which are pretty high. Also, now they do have the JCB license, so we know that at least that's not a blocker. Well, this kind of easy money is actually very good for us MOC builders too, because it is providing us with parts in colors that would not exist otherwise. And these models are probably not replacing other models, rather they are an addition to the lineup. I think this is a good strategy for having a better parts palette and earning a bit more money too, so it's a win-win.

Here is the link to download for the round one.

Well yeah, it all sounds more like a wish-list than anything plausible. Also, most of the rumored (= talked about by the fans but nothing backing it from TLG) setups make no sense, like motorization of a rocket / speed champion sized cars, or the Porsche at $150 (another PU Porsche after last year?).

I think the one on the leaked image had large tractor tires, not medium. Count length of the green beam above the front tire..