touthomme

Wow, really love this. Just brilliant!

MEC Category A: UCS Style Ent: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=101099

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wishes LEGO would have released a UCS Ent set. I actually started building this model last month, and was thoroughly surprised when this contest was announced to find that I was already building something for it. :) This is also an alternate model for the Ewok Village set (10236), and I have created building instructions for anyone who might want to build it. You can find the instructions and a not-very-exciting video showing off the model on my website: http://jkbrickworks.com/ent-sculpture/ J

Fantastic creation! Will definitely check out your other videos when I have more time. J

Thanks! The hooves are this piece: http://www.bricklink...asp?P=53565pb01 In the current model they are connected using an axle to the end of a bent liftarm (with an axle hole), so they can't rotate. Of course using a different liftarm for the leg, with a pin hole on the end, would allow the possibility of the hooves rotating a bit. This is a great idea worth exploring for sure. J

I wan't planning on making instructions, but I've had a few requests, so maybe. Unfortunately I posted this just before leaving for the summer, so it would have to wait until the fall. Cool! Thanks for all the comments. Much appreciated! J

Not sure if this is the best forum for this, but I guess it is mostly a Technic model. I've been wanting to build a horse for quite a while, and since I've been building a lot of mechanical models recently I figured I might as well try and build one that moves. I tried to incorporate a lot of the subtle movement of a galloping horse into it, including the rocking of the body, forward thrust of the head and a little flick of the tail. I went through quite a few prototypes refining the motion. Any horse expert will tell you it isn't an exact reproduction, but I was really pleased with how well it turned out. All of the movement is driven through a single shaft that runs up through the base, which can be cranked by hand or with a motor. Details of how all the movement works is included in the video. Hope you enjoy! J

I wouldn't worry too much about losing subs. If you enjoy trying new things then that's definitely what you should do. If other people find your new content engaging and interesting enough then you will eventually get new subscribers to replace them. In my experience I've found that YouTube subscribers are definitely a fickle bunch and I lose tonnes of subscribers all the time. You really have to ask yourself what you want your channel to be. If you want to produce high quality Technic videos then your potential audience will be relatively small (as others have noted), and it looks to me like your channel is pretty successful in that area. If you want to become super popular and appeal to the general masses, then you need to cater to what the masses want, and it seems that top two things that they want are stupidity and humour, and preferably both. :) Obviously there is also a lot of room between those two extremes. J

Cool idea! You may want to set up some better lighting for future videos. :) J

Wow, what a great find! I hadn't come across that brickshelf gallery in my research. Would love to see more details on the internals of the power/motor system. So great to see that such awesome stuff was being done 'back in the day'. J

Hey everyone, There have been several posts over the years about people trying to implement a Faller based system for having vehicles driving themselves through layouts. I probably read most of them in doing research for this project. I thought I would add my own implementation into the mix... For ParLUGment's participation in the Ottawa Train Expo this spring I was challenged to build such a vehicle. The obvious choice of vehicle was one of the commuter buses in our city. After some quick prototyping I was actually quite surprised at how simple it ended up being. There were definitely a few challenges, reliability and scale being the two big ones, but in the end it worked pretty well. Reliability seems to be directly proportional to how flat the road plates are sitting. The frame is powered by a Power Functions M motor with battery box. I'm using a belt drive (small white elastic) to transfer power to one of the rear wheels primarily for space savings (I would have rather used gears, but it added just a little too much bulk for the buses I was designing). The steering is a 6 wide basic steering system with a magnet attached to the front. The magnet 'latches' on to a wire running under the road plates. The buses are 6 wide and are about 3/4 minifig scale. I didn't want to make them much larger, as the geometry of the road curves is not very appropriate for large vehicles. You can see it in action in the video below. I wrote up a more detailed explanation on my website, with some notes about limitations and performance. Instructions for building the basic frame can also be found there: http://jkbrickworks....-lego-vehicles/ Thanks for reading! J

Some great observations! I thought about adding more complexity, like steering flaps, but I was aiming for a minimalist design, trying to keep it simple and elegant. Even as is, it was quite a challenge to keep it as simple as it turned out. It seems obvious looking at it now, but I worked through many complicated variations of raising/lowering the model in time with the flapping of the wings. As I recall Da Vinci conceptualized several variations of the flying machine, one of which did have the pilot pulling the wings with his/her arms. I don't think those sketches are as commonly found or referenced as the classic foot powered one though. Thanks for all the comments! J

My brother and I were discussing cool mechanical things I could build and Da Vinci machines inevitably came up. So I decided to build the classic human powered flying machine. I went for a bit of a different style than mahjqa's awesome model from a few years ago. I also created instructions for anyone that would like to build their own, which you can find on my website. And I figured I'd add it to CUUSOO for anyone that still plays that game. You can watch a video of it in action below. Jump to around 30 seconds in to skip my preamble and see how it works. A couple more photos can also be found on flickr. Hope you like! J

It says right above the images that those are the MOCs that have the most views in the last 7 days. I assume that the view counts displayed on that page reflect that. For example, the number 1 model, the Ultimate 42009, actually has over 55000 total views, 1852 of which were in the last week. J

From an AFOL point of view I agree most of their videos are pretty terrible. Every time I stumble onto one I find it pretty painful, for many of the reasons that have already been stated. Clearly their target audience are young children, who probably love their antics and don't notice (or don't really care about) their lack of knowledge. I'm not sure why people would 'hate' them. I mean, good on them for amassing a huge following and making a ton of money, which is clearly what they set out to do. It is a shame they don't do a better job though, especially with respect to knowing what they are talking about. But really, it's their channel and they can do whatever they want with it. I would guess most of the 'haters' are probably just jealous or looking for something to complain about. J

Cool, I can't say that I've ever tried this but I like your style! I'm sure people have done it in the past with the alternate model pictures that were often on the back of the boxes (does LEGO do this anymore?). I could see this being quite difficult for big or more complex models, but for simpler/smaller models I may have to give this a try sometime. I'm intrigued. J

Cool! Again, I never had the patience to build this in LDD. Great job! J

That's cool! I'm I big fan of exploded instruction images. Nicely done. Jason

Cool! I tried building this in SR 3D builder when I was putting together the instructions, but I had a heck of a time trying to get it to do anything useful. Making submodels seemed impossible, adding instruction steps also super annoying and whenever I tried to animate it it would just rotate the whole model instead of actually turning the axle and making the legs move. Someday I'll have to figure out how to use that program. It seems super powerful, but not intuitive (at least for me). Whipped it up in no time in MLCAD, but I guess that's just what I'm used to. :) Anyway, I'm glad to see someone else got it working! Jason

32. Survivors - Teazza - 2 points 66. My God, It's full of Stars - Praiter Yed - 2 points 75. The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) - customBRICKS - 1 point So many awesome entries!! Jason

Thanks for all the great replies! Stacking wedges so the notches look look like windows has been something I've wanted to do for a long long time (like years) and I'm stoked that I finally built a MOC that used that technique. I'm really impressed at the quality and quantity of entries for this contest. Amazing! J

I decided to go with The City of Tomorrow for my micro sci-fi entry. It's a throw back to the vision of the future as it was back in the golden years of science fiction. Here's an edited photo in the style of the classic SF magazine Amazing Stores: And some unedited shots from other angles: Enjoy! J

They've come in a few, mostly older sets, although they were in a couple of game sets last year. Bricklink can tell you better than I: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=3957&colorID=12&in=A Thanks!

Here's a micro city in honour of Sci-Fi Month. I wasn't planning on using this as my Micro Sci-Fi contest entry, but it turned out a lot better than I thought it would. I'll see how my planned entry (which I'm still working on) turns out. flickr Enjoy! J

This MOC came about in a very roundabout way. I started out by experimenting with crankshafts and ended up with this. I'm really please with how the piano section and all of the motion turned out. I think the hand could use some work. Organic sculpting is definitely not my strength, and it does look a little creepy. The fingers can be moved by manually turning the crank on the side of the base, or by connecting a 9V motor on the other side. All of the keys on the piano 'work', and actually feel pretty realistic. I also put together a short video showing a bit about how it works. Enjoy! J