ShaydDeGrai

Good for you. I'm glad it all worked out for the best. Play well.

I think you might be attributing too much power/control on the part of the CuuSoo team. This whole venture is a novelty/experiment for TLG and I doubt Tim and his people have much say in the matter if established corporate entities come down and say "we control your budget and we're never going to approve a line item to do X" or "the Legal Department talked to Disney, don't even bother to do Y or Z, they'll sue us…" Now if you want to be pissed/disappointed/embittered/whatever at TLG upper management in general for the way the CuuSoo experiment has been handled, that's perfectly legitimate, but I wouldn't take any of the rule changes personally (even when the delete your project - lost one myself). This really rings more of CuuSoo passing on new restrictions handed down TO them rather than something they cooked up just to tick us off. Could the form letters have been kinder in their wording? Probably. They may even have started out that way. If it's like most contract related correspondence (and by posting a project to CuuSoo, you did actually enter into a form of contract as defined by their terms of service) the "nice" letters were probably sanitized by lawyers to avoid mentioning any details or using any narrative tone that could be used against them in a court of law. It's not good public relations from a "feel good" standpoint but it is common practice from a "good business sense" side of things. PS: Sorry about you Duplo Batman guys. For what it's worth, I thought they were nifty.

No, unfortunately, it wasn't a joke. When it was debated at the meeting a lot of the faculty didn't think it was real either at first and were immediately accused of being so chauvinistic that they could even see how "serious" the issue was... Ultimately the measure got voted down, but not before a subcommittee was formed to investigate the proposal and their findings were debated at a later meeting. There were people there who seriously believed that once a big name university took the plunge to ban "history" in favor of "herstory" it would just be a matter of time before political correctness forced all other institutions to do the same.

Speaking as a former academic, I can assure you that your kind regard for academia is a bit of an over generalization. Academics (particularly in disciplines that allow for subjectivity) are often, shall we say, "less grounded" in reality than most people. In having devoted their careers to becoming the world's foremost experts in the dark corners of the human experience that most people don't care about, let alone explore, some academics even project their own opinions and personal biases as facts. They cherry-pick raw data to support their stance after the fact while dismissing data that doesn't fit their hypothesis claiming their expertise enables them to distinguish a clear trend versus "random outliers." Then they get really territorial about not sharing their raw data. The usual excuse is that they have a lot vested in the data and they don't want to get scooped in the publication pipeline ("I'm working on three other papers based on that data set right now, let's talk after they're published" or "I'm talking to my editor about including it as a CD Rom with my book, so once it comes out, everyone can have it", etc.) Usually they just drag their feet until people stop asking and someone else has published something more recently that either supports or refutes their findings, and this other author is now the one being scrutinized. This occurs far less in experimental and hard sciences where results can be reproduced (or not) and clearly _wrong_ answers can be identified. Even in those disciplines, most academics who've seen the inside of the sausage factory know to take the other guy's "facts" and findings with a heavy dose of salt until things have been independently confirmed by multiple sources. Pulling this back toward the topic at hand, at the university where I worked (which was/is a pretty reputable place) I remember sitting in one Arts and Sciences faculty meeting where a small faction of academics were seriously lobbying to have the History Department officially renamed to the HERstory Department because they found the word HIS-tory to be oppressive to women. They also felt that all new hires in the Herstory department should be women because males were "genetically incapable of understanding the role women have placed in shaping human civilization" and therefore could not teach the subject without infusing it with gender bias. Further, they felt that all classes in the department should boycott textbooks written by men (regardless of quality, content or academic reputation) because "the youth of the world needed a fresh perspective". The people behind this push all had Ph.D.s, respected publication records and decades of experience in the classroom and not one of them even considered the notion that the word "history" traced back to the ancient greek word for wise/insightful narration and has nothing to do with the question of "his" versus "hers" (which has germanic roots) they just latched onto three letters and started venting about perpetuating gender inequity, etc. So, by all means, do support academia for the good things it often strives to achieve. Recognize that, while many of us are often socially awkward, we usually know our stuff and do our best to keep each other honest. But don't embrace the myths that we're experts in everything, that we don't have biased agendas of our own, or that we really appreciate how looney we can be sometimes. I'm sure the author of the Janus head proposal thought it was a good idea at the time based on their personal experience (and carefully selected data that "validated" their personal beliefs) but I'm equally sure that the cadre of faculty who thought abolishing the word "history" in favor of "herstory" was a perfectly rational way to make the world a better place. That doesn't mean either of them were "right". I do think there is an issue to be addressed (and have already chimed in on that) but I don't think that just because the "janus head solution" came from a (lone) academic that that magically makes it the ideal solution (or even a mere "good" one). Having been an academic (and married to an active one) I think it's unfair to dismiss or deride them out of hand (as commonly happens when they say things we don't want to hear) but it's equally unsound to put them on a pedestal and assume that every they say is worth listening to and backed by unbiased, statistically significant, hard facts. My former colleagues, were some of the most learned, well-read, inventive and just downright smart people I've ever met, but they were also self-absorbed, biased, petty, territorial and occasionally paranoid. Academics are trained to make mountains out of mole hills, and over time that takes it toll on common sense.

Actually the materials that tires are made from allow them the use cheaper molding technologies (such as balloon molding, thermal stamping, after-molding milling, etc.) that take advantage of the material properties (flexibility, viscosity, tensile strength, etc.) so, despite the end "shape" looking very complex, the amount of engineering that went into achieving that shape is actually a bit simpler (or at least a different school of thought). For example, you can do a lot more with pneumatics and in-mold vulcanization of a soft blank and pull (or suck) a hollow form through a hole too small to accommodate the finished piece when dealing with flexible materials, techniques that simply don't work with rigid ones that require clean separation planes. In addition tires only need to mate to one surface and even then it has a high tolerance. If tires were as constrained (manufacturing-wise) as a Lego brick, you'd never need tire balancing weights or tire pressure gauges because every wheel (and its hub) would be identical in size, density and weight and there'd be no micro-gaps around the value, one the surface or along the hub for air to bleed off. Tires are comparatively cheap to manufacture because early on, engineers recognized where they could trade-off tolerances and maintenance expense. Lego is different. If you extend the auto engineering mindset to construction toys, you get MegaBlocks (warped pieces, poor clutch strength, cracking, color variation, uneven weathering, etc.) I'm sure MegaBlock's molds cost less that Lego's. I'm not saying that the auto industry produces crap (the way MegaBlocks does) but when you buy a car, you have an expectation that it will need regular maintenance and that expectation feeds back on the manufacturing process to keep initial costs down. The engineers know they're cutting corners, but the consequence of those decisions is seen as economically acceptable. Based on my own work with rubber, ABS and Polycarbonate I think the closest analogy (beyond Lego's own (massive) tire molding operation) to your real tire example would probably be flexible minifigure hair pieces (like they used to have with Exo-force and show up from time to time when a part is too spiky to be kid-safe if it were in ABS). These parts only have one mating surface, and, depending on their complexity might be doable with a 1 or 2 part mold. These are probably also some of the cheapest and most long lasting molds in TLG inventory. By comparison there are some technic parts that clearly require a multi-part molds and at an industry average of 50K USD _per molding plate_ for a precision ABS molding system it's easy to believe that a four or five part mold could run in the quarter of mill range. I don't mean to discount your expertise with tire molding; I've seen monster truck tires being made and it's a fascinating subject and I respect the people who do the work; it's just that we're dealing with a different set of constraints when it comes to something like a Technic engine frame or Bionicle torso.

I very much agree. I actually am an engineer so I appreciate the long and complex journey a new part needs to navigate in going from a visualization of a new shape and a consumer item. I remember laughing while reading postings from people who were complaining that, under the old CuuSoo rules, the author of a new part that passed review would get a one-time flat fee. People who knew nothing of what it takes to produce mass produce a part to TLG's exacting standards would say naive things like "That's all I get? But I did all the _real_ work, I even made a wireframe in MLCAD! All they have to do now is start making it…" I think a lot of people take for granted to the vast expenses (in both time and money) that go into bringing an idea to fruition as a mass consumable. (Small tangent) My freshman year in engineering, I had a class with a professor who held several patents. One day he brought in the end product of one of his inventions, a golf ball. His patent was actually for a machine the did quality control checks on the dimple pattern of the ball when it came off the assembly line, but he also came to class with a two wheel cart loaded with paper that (supposedly - I didn't bother to read it) embodied all the patents for all the machines and materials involved in the projection of that golf ball. Literally thousands of man-years worth of work to produce something that people buy in bulk for a few dollars, hit with a heady blunt object and (it my game is any indication) ultimate lose in a lake or the underbrush; and, unlike a Lego block, a golf ball doesn't need to interconnect with anything else - its manufacturing tolerance are a lot more forgiving. Popularity contest aspects of CuuSoo aside, I think Faefrost is right in that the CuuSoo format really undersold the true complexity of what it takes to get a part made and is just one reason why it wasn't a very good vehicle for that sort of "suggestion" to TLG. I think licensing, the feudal nature of Lego working groups and the question of inevitable discovery by the dedicated LSW team trumped any issue of scale with respect the Sandcrawler. By extension, if conflict with existing licenses/themes continues to govern the review process, CuuSoo could end up scoping itself down to a collection of "one-offs" (BttF) and Creator-esque kits with a (stated or not) price ceiling in line with (non-(Exclusive/Hard-to-Find)) Creator kits. The more projects they reject (or disallow) the more it feels like they really don't want "big" projects, they want "safe" ones that don't tax resources or take up too much shelf space in the store. I don't know that they _need_ to put an explicit price ceiling in their guidelines (as the models people propose are never the ones that actually get marketed, they could always consider a scaled back revision as part of the review process) but I'm not expecting to see a $150+ kit come out of the CuuSoo pipeline anytime soon.

I think the closest (in spirit) surviving relative to those old bulk packs of slopes, arches, etc. can be found at the LEGO Education site under spare parts. http://www.legoeduca...and Accessories The offerings are heavily biased in favor of Technic parts and, to be honest, the prices really aren't that competitive compared to Bricklink or filling a cup at a PAB wall, but if you need a bunch of part X and don't want the hassle of trying to track it down an make minimum order sizes from a dozen Bricklink vendors, this is an alternative. The Architecture Studio is a good, readily available, bulk pack if you like white (and the book it comes with is pretty interesting ); personally, though, I wish they had something like the Architecture Studio (same number and variety of parts but without the book) available in a line of core colors (Black, White, Light Bley, Dark Bley, and Tan come to mind) one color per case at a price more in line with a "Creator" brick bucket than an "Architecture" set - I don't mind paying a premium for the nicer packaging and PerfectBound infobook/building instructions if I'm actually building a specific model like The White House or The Imperial Hotel but I thought the "Studio" was a tad pricey for a generic collection of commonly available parts and a couple of cheap sorting trays.

The project culling and form letters have begun (in my case is was for a new part proposal - which prior to this revision _was_ a legitimate (to the point of having it's own rules and compensation scheme) proposal subject. The letter the CuuSoo team sends out to culled projects looks like this: ---------- Dear (username), Today we've updated LEGO® CUUSOO's Guidelines, House Rules, and Terms of Service. These changes help focus the projects on the site toward what we're able to produce as LEGO CUUSOO sets. Unfortunately with this update, a project of yours no longer qualifies under the new Guidelines and House Rules and as a result has been deleted: (Project_Title) (Project_URL) We know you've worked hard to create this project in hopes that it could one day be produced as a LEGO set, so we're sorry to have to share this news. Please know that this update was not made lightly. We've seen a lot of great ideas and models, but not everything fits what is practical or possible to make and sell through LEGO CUUSOO. LEGO fans are infinitely passionate and creative, so we hope you'll continue to imagine and create projects that fit within the revised Guidelines and share them so others can vote and help make them a reality. You can read all about this update on our blog: http://blog.lego.cuusoo.com. Again, we're sorry for the disappointing news. Kind regards, The LEGO CUUSOO Team ---- Given that the proposal in question for me was a stand-alone new part design and the letter makes reference to a "LEGO set", I'm assuming that they're just using a blanket form letter for any projects deleted under the new guidelines rather than going into detail about which new rule was at issue. I would assume that projects that could be modified to _become_ compliant (such as working around the need for a new mold or avoiding a brand name such as "Ford Dealership" becoming "Auto Dealership" ) got a different letter, but I didn't have any projects in that category so I can't confirm that. While I can't say that I'm happy about what CuuSoo has become (compared to where I'd hoped they were headed when the experiment began) I do appreciate them finally writing down (and actively enforcing) many of the previously "unwritten rules but realities of practice" that AFOLs had guessed at but never gotten firm confirmation of. The new guidelines don't really come as any great surprise to anyone who's been following CuuSoo over the years. The early guidelines _did_ say that many, now dead subjects such as theme proposals, parts and non-brick tie-ins, were all kosher but these changes didn't come out of thin air. Every time a theme gained some traction the authors were asked scope it down to a "pilot" set and shift the focus of the proposal, so a one-project-one-set rule should come as a surprise to no one. Set proposals requiring new molds just didn't make sense to anyone who understood the economics of the situation and, for those who don't understand why TLG can't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars mastering new parts that will only be used in a specialty kit with a production run of 10k units, it's probably easier to just explicitly forbid the practice than to belabor the point with exhaustive debate and justifications. As for non-brick tie-ins, were any of these even close to reaching 10K supporters in the first place? The only one I can think of with any real support was a proposal to port LDD to gaming platforms (the DS maybe, my memory isn't what I remember it being anymore, perhaps it never was…) Logos and trademarks and mascots (oh my!) Personally, I think this particular rule probably should have been explicit from Day One just to spare us all the roller coaster of watching things like Purdue Pete and the Android Andy the Bugdroid flush through the system sparking all sorts of media hype, internet chatter, hardcore AFOL v. non-Lego fanboy-folk feuds, etc. only to be shot down in review. I mean no slight to the creators of these projects, but if TLG knows they're not going to fly, then why accept them as proposals in the first place. As for killing off new part proposals, this is probably the most disappointing change as there were actually a handful of well thought out and terribly useful ideas out there that are now dead (to be fair, there was also a fair share crap). Realistically though, CuuSoo never handled part proposals well. People don't rush to CuuSoo in the hopes of supporting a new roof tile design; they go there for the pop-culture tie-ins and cool kits, not a redesign of a Technic pin with a 45 degree double axle offset. I think "My Little Pony" got more votes in a single day than all the parts proposals, combined, did and MLP was DOA (logistically speaking) I never thought the idea of lumping new part submissions in with the vast sea of pop-culture driven MOCs and holding them to the same "success" criteria was a good one. Simon Pegg isn't going to go on national media and tell people to rush over to CuuSoo and support a new SNOT element the same way he did with the Winchester. I wish that TLG DID have a vehicle for giving serious consideration to new part designs suggested by AFOLs, but CuuSoo utterly failed in this regard so they may as well be honest about it and drop the category.

Actually, in my case, I'd be looking for the ZipLock snack bag of 1x2s inside the box of Maersk blue in the bookcase labelled "blues" on the wall for "cool" color tones - but that's just me, I can get a bit OCD with that stuff sometimes. Personally, I rarely rely on just one level of sorting except with parts in colors so rare they all fit in one baggie - but even then, it's a two level sort once by "odd-ball accents" and once by color. Even my Technic, though not sorted by color, has three levels of sorting in the collection over-all: At the highest level the Technic (and technic-like (e.g. Bionicle)) parts are in a separate section, then they're broken out in to storage cases such that, for example, one box is just axles, then within each tray axles of various lengths are separated. I do the same thing for gears, lift arms, etc. The question of baggies vs. trays/parts boxes is usually decided based on volume of parts involved. Storage trays can be a waste of space if the bins aren't really full so usually I only migrate a particular part to a parts box if I _KNOW_ I have a lot of them. For example, my user name is actually a good reflection of my collection, I have a LOT of shades of gray (Black, White, Dark Bley, Light Bley, Old light gray, etc.) so for me it's worth it to break those guys out into separate bins. For example I have a tray that is nothing but 1x2 modified plates in black (clips, half slopes, hinge bits, etc.) another tray is nothing but black inverted slopes, another is all light bley tile is every shape they make. Now if I sorted my ENTIRE collection to this level (by family, by color, by shape, each into a separate parts bin) the combined wasted space in all of the bins would more than fill my office beyond capacity. For a lot colors, like olive green, sorting into zip lock baggies is enough. I think in the early days (well, not the _very_ early days, back then everything fit on one toy box and I never sorted anything) my first sorting methods were focused on trying to help me find the part I was looking for as easily as possible. As my collection grew, the the focus changed slightly; now I think my system is optimized for getting the parts I KNOW I don't need at the moment out of the way so I can focus on the ones I actually want. If I had to unpack my entire collection every time I built a MOC, I'd never finish one. I just don't have the room to open every case simultaneously, let alone lay out every baggie and parts bin in an orderly fashion. I've been known to Bricklink parts I know I own because it was easier than unpacking the closet... True, but I think it also depends on _how_ you work. For parts I use often and have a lot of, I don't bother looking at the piece, I keep my eyes on my model and find the pieces by touch (i.e. "1x2 plate with vertical clip at one end, 2nd row, 3rd bin from the left) You do this stuff long enough, your fingers start to do things you're used to relying on your eyes for. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who can tell (blind) a 1x3 brick from a 1x4 without counting the studs. Yes, we're very visual creatures and plucking a lone purple brick out of a sea of yellow is easy, but color can be tricky. Lighting conditions, context, reflectivity and personal perception can all confound the process. Earth Blue is a great color, but try picking it out of a bin of black of of identical shape by the yellow light of a lone incandescent bulb. Any system is going to have strengths and failures. Despite my own OCD-ish-ness about sorting, I also keep a bin of throughly unsorted parts (technically waiting to be sorted but who am I kidding…) just because sometimes you need to play to get your creative juices flowing and all these wonderful schemes we come up with to help us be time or space efficient get in the way of just being inventive. I gave up looking for a one-size-fits-all solution years ago, I'm not even sure I've managed to optimized the one-size-fits-me one yet, but I'm trying. What else can one do?

I have a pet theory (backed by a wholly unscientific handful of data points) that "sort by color" is a phase that comes and goes based on size of collection. From my own experience and that of others I've chatted with at Lego events, it seems like most people start with a sort by color mentality, but their collections are small and their MOCs aren't that ambitious. Then they graduate to more complex MOCs requiring more and more bricks and they become "enlightened" - they re-sort everything by shape and function and often go off evangelizing the merits of "sort by shape" - some even offer snorts of derision on those "newbies" who haven't figured out what a "waste of time and space" sorting by color really is. Then their collection reaches critical mass (symptoms include buying K boxes to get a case of just one particular type of part and/or buying multiples of kits like the Brandenburg gate (the sand green cheese wedge collection) the Taj Mahal (the white plate bulk collection) or Tower of Orthanc ( the "all things black" box)) and they realize that sort by shape works if you only have a few dozen of something but utterly fails when you're looking for a Maersk blue 1x2 in a 6 liter tub filled with a color-mixed stew of every 1x2 brick you own. All of a sudden, those "silly fools" who sorted things by color don't look so silly any more and the collection gets reorganized (again). The exception to this cycle seems to be with Technic, where function almost always trumps color, but then, Technic tends to be drawn from a smaller palette to begin with. When color _does_ matter, Technic designers are usually rummaging through a bin with only 4 or 5 colors mixed together as opposed to standard bricks where you could easily have the same part in two dozen colors getting in your way while looking for the color you actually want. In the end, the issue simply isn't black and white (no pun intended), you just have to find a sorting method that works for you such that spend more time building with your collection than looking for parts and maintaining your "organization". I think that's really a function of the size of your collection, the types of things you like to build, and the time and space you can devote to sorting and storing the bricks your _not_ using at the moment.

My money's on paper mache locomotive with a really good paint job

I usually classify my LEGO hobby as my "vice of choice." I don't smoke, don't gamble, put my "mid-life crisis car" in off-road storage, and now drink significantly less than I used to As a hobby, LEGO is a lot cheaper than many, such a skiing or golf (at least compared to the spending habits of some of my old college mates). As a collectable, LEGO's innate quality, widespread appeal and long history means that it holds its value much more consistently than many other toys, media tie-ins, sports memorabilia and other collectables whose after market value is dictated by popular appeal rather than historical rarity (stamps, coins) or raw materials (jewelry). I like to MOC and am an engineer by training and a former professor by trade, that means, for me, I can also claim LEGO as an art medium, a prototyping device and a teaching tool. Back in the day, I could lecture on LEGO to a classroom full of freshmen engineers and by the end of the hour they would have almost completely forgotten that LEGO _also_ works as a kids toy. I don't have any kids of my own, but if I did, I'd also point out the importance of family play time rather than babysitting by video screen. I'd mention the key role that haptic feedback (touching and interacting with real objects rather than just viewing them on a screen) as been shown to play in the development spatial relations skills in young children, and, in turn, the role early development of spatial relations skills play in the ability to master abstract math and physics concepts later in life as well as visualization and various forms of artistic exp<b></b>ression. Unlike a video game that a child will outgrow or a puzzle that a child will solve and move on, LEGO grows _with_ your child continuing to challenge, engage and inspire as their interests and skill levels evolve. So frankly when someone questions why an adult would want to 'play' with LEGO, I wouldn't be embarrassed about it; I'd be more likely to pity them for not realizing what a benefits and comforts can be found in something like LEGO. Yes, it can get expensive, but what isn't these days? I can't walk out of a grocery store for under $200, but I have a friend who insists on buying "organic" everything; she and he husband (combined) eat less than I (personally) do and they spend two to three times as much, because they _choose_ to. On workdays, I can bring in leftovers for lunch, or I could hit the cafeteria and buy a sandwich for $10 or I could to one of the local restaurants and get a real meal for $30-50 or so (I usually brown bag it, but I have co-workers who easily spend over $200 a week going out to lunch). You can pop down to the Dollar Store and pick up a cheap bottle of nail polish for a buck or you can go into Newbury Street and get a professional Mani-Pedi at the local Mini-Lux Spa for 150 times that. It's all a question of what matters more to YOU than whatever you have to give up to get it. Everybody makes these sorts of choices every day and it's not really fair for your mum or your partner to call out one particular choice of yours and expect you to "defend" it, unless they are equally willing to look that all the other choices _they_ are making to bring comfort, security and joy into their own lives. If they are like most people, they're too busy throwing stones to realize that they're living in a glass house. It doesn't have to be adversarial. The people who love you and respect you should also accept you (all aspects of you). You might not make the same choices that they would; you might not have the exact same priorities that they do; but if you're honest about who you are and what you value, the burden is really on them to learn to live with that. There's always room for compromise, but compromise should be born of understanding and mutual respect, not threats or guilt or fear or shame. That said, I'm one of the lucky ones, I have a VUSOAAFOL (Very Understanding Spouse Of An Adult Fan Of LEGO) She doesn't have much interest in LEGO, but has come to understand that it means a lot to me and she encourages me to embrace my hobby (well, she drops me off at the Lego Store while she goes shoe and purse shopping in the rest of the mall…) She asks that I not be rummaging through polybags in the living room while she's trying to watch the TV and we've agreed that, outside of my study, I can have a small public display space (which I rotate periodically) in our flat but I'm not to fill the whole house with random LEGO stuff. These are compromises I can live with. She doesn't challenge my spending habits (even though _I_ sometimes feel a little embarrassed about many VIP points I wracked up over the years) or accuse me of playing with toys many decades out of my age range. She did question the amount of time I was devoting to MOC'ing on occasion, but after taking her to BrickFair last year (to help put the hobby in context) and walking home with a couple trophies myself, I think she graduated from "understanding" to "appreciative". I do hope you manage to get things sorted with your family and that they come to realize it's not just a toy or a waste of money. It's an investment in your child's development and your own mental health and if they truly love you, they should be helping you to find joy in that investment rather than stress or shame. Good luck.

I think I'd have to second the nod to the Winter Village Cottage as the best of the breed. It just _feels_ right. I set up my winter village under my Christmas tree each year and you look at that set and it looks so at home there. You half expect carolers to come by and start singing Silent Night or something. As for my least favorite of the pack, as much as I _appreciate_ the carousel, the winter market just doesn't do it for me. The "market" concept isn't what I'm after in a Christmas set (and for me, it is a Christmas set - I welcome others to view it as whatever they please (Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Bodhi, Dongzhi, Yalda, Modraniht, Kwanzaa, Hogmanay, Malkh, or whatever traditions are near and dear to you in the dark days of winter - I'm certain I've forgotten a few...)). As a set, the carousel is nice but doesn't really fit my vision for what i want my winter village to be, and the misc. vender stands are just clutter builds - I'd rather they were polybag sets and the carousel were marketed as a stand-alone kit for a lower price. I see your points about the post office, but with minor tweaking I can _make_ that one work so it sort of blends in. The market, however, remains the (rotating) elephant in the room - like that scene in Love Actually where the kids are dressed up like lobsters in the school's nativity play - nice, creative, fun lobsters, but lobsters none-the-less.

Ditto. I think I've got about two cubic meters full of kits I haven't gotten to yet, including pretty much all of the recent high end Technic releases, the Death Star play set, Ewok Village, Sydney Opera House and a spare City Hall modular (that I picked up because I had such a backlog of sets I didn't realize I already had one). I like having unopened kits on hand to cheer myself up after a bad day at work or to keep myself entertained if my wife is out of town on business. It also comes in handy if friends with kids show up from out of town and we need a distraction so the adults can catch up. I also know from experience that the appeal of Lego sets waxes and wanes with me, sometimes there are dozens of Must-Haves and I don't want to miss any of them - other times I feel almost forced into a dark age because everything in their catalog either doesn't resonate with me at all, or I already own it; so it's good to have a few big kits in reserve to get me through the lean times. I think I'm at a lifetime high in terms of backlog at the moment though. I have so little spare time in the first place, and what little I've had in the past six months has really all been getting poured into a MOC I started last summer, once I get through with that, however, I think getting back to a quiet routine of "just follow the instructions" will be a refreshing change of pace.

I literally cut my teeth on the original Star Trek, but it was really the UFO episode Timelash that really stuck with me as to what TV could do for SciFi story telling. I loved that series as a kid, Space 1999 was a close second. Capt Scarlet and Thunderbirds were great too but the part of me that wanted to grow up to be a special effects artist had trouble seeing past the super marination and model building to sit back and enjoy the story lines for those guys - i wanted to be the puppeteer, not sit in the audience. That's not to say they weren't great shows as well, I watched them regularly, but I was the kid watching the magic show trying to discover the trick rather than being content to be amazed. The Andersons made a wonderful contribution to Sci Fi on the small screen and I think they sparked more than a few young imaginations to greatness. it's a shame their work isn't more widely known by the younger generations these days.

The big problem with perpetual motion really boils down to the three laws of thermodynamics: 1) You can't win 2) You can't break even. 3) You can't stop playing. (Okay maybe I spent more time at the card table then the classroom, but you get the point) The best you can hope for is to minimize loss by trying to control the transduction as much in your favor as you can. Keep in mind that the total mass and energy of a system is always fixed and that only some small portion of that potential is available to effect what you would consider a useful result (such as floating or spinning or rolling) and transducing energy from one form or another is almost always a loss-y process (accidentally created heat, light, chemical bonds, static charge build-up, sound, etc.) All these little losses add up and eventually grind the system to a halt, it's just a matter of time. That said, you can try to milk it for all it's worth (regenerative brakes, induction generation suspension, thermo-electric coupler heat sinks, etc.) but LEGO doesn't make the right parts to build most of these things and even if they did, the scale would be prohibitive and negatively impact the efficiency. In the end, it's probably easier to live with the loss and accept the fact that you're gong to need a power cord or some batteries to keep pumping energy into the system.

I had an NSF grant to explore constructivism in early education (at the K-6 grade levels). As an educational methodology, constructivism is all about putting the problem ahead of the solution, to create a context where students realize that they _need_ to learn something more than what they currently know to get where they want to be; to draw from real life experience and relate it to what they're learning rather than the other way 'round. This is sort of the exact opposite of how most things are taught in the states (at least in the pre-college years). Usually we fixate on memorization in the yearly years, then branch out into instructional learning. In memorization we beat you over the head with a fact until you can spit it back at us without thinking (like the letters of the alphabet or the correct spelling and pronunciation of "neighbor") - there's typically little context, and little justification is usually offered for why things are the way they are, you're just expected to accept it for what it is and parrot back the answer we gave you. In instructional learning, we start to address more of the rules, the formulae, and the cause and effects that govern a given topic and, once we're done, we test how well things have sunk in by giving you a fabricated problem that, if you're very lucky may be vaguely related to the real world (or at least a world where strings have no mass, pulleys have no friction and rounding off to whole numbers has minimal impact on the final result.) In constructivism, you start with a real world goal and let the kids brainstorm how to get from A to B. Moreover, you let them discover the limits of what they know and _why_ they need to know more to achieve their goal. Then, once the need is established, you offer examples and experiments that will allow them to expand their knowledge. It's sort of the difference between teaching someone calculus, then handing them an equation for acceleration due to gravity and asking them to do a double integral to get an equation for linear motion down an inclined track versus building a track, building a car, measuring how fast it went and then asking them to try to figure out how to make a faster car. Same physics, same equations (give or take friction) but one method is a lot more fun and focuses on teaching the students how to discover things for themselves rather than pass a test or apply memorized methods. Under my grant, we build a maze (the wreck of the Titanic actually) with rewards hidden inside. The kids had to build robotic rovers (with cameras) to explore the maze and write up their report (draw maps, integrate photos, give a presentation). It was all done with Mindstorms and regular Lego (except the maze itself, that was MDF) Kids started with simple RC cars that couldn't even steer, but before long they wanted to understand rack and pinion mechanisms, differentials, gear ratios, and all sorts of things that they didn't have the math skills to describe in a physics class, but they could use it in their builds. Over the course of three months in an after school program I had a dozen ten year olds doing Algebra, programming in MAT Lab and cleaning up motion blurred images in Photoshop while their peers in the regular class room were still sorting out long division and forgetting that there's a silent 'b' in 'doubt'. My advice would be, never underestimate the potential of your kids, provided you engage them properly. There's no such thing as too young, and a little frustration can be a great motivator provided it's the student that overcomes the frustrations, not the almighty hand of an instruction changing the rules on them. Kids like puzzles, they like narrative, and they'll absorb a lot of sophisticated knowledge and skills if you give them a reason to care. Good luck.

Well, I'm not sure about the original design, but after reading over this thread I feel like I should sit down and design a Lego Rail Gun. I wonder how much current I could pump through those ME Models replacement metal rails before they melt their mountings...

aurly, on 03 December 2013 - 05:53 AM, said: The real problem is probably that every minifig not wearing lipstick is assumed to be male. Well, maybe the're ALL male and some just like to wear women's clothes. You never know. I live in the college triangle formed by MIT, Harvard and Tufts, and let me tell you, during pledge week at the frats, it's not uncommon to see guys walking around town with full beards, wearing lipstick and eye shadow while wearing ladies lingerie so I guess I've just been desensitized to the whole mix and match thing when it comes to making mini figures reflect reality. I think a more useful way to address gender stereo types in LEGO (and other toys as well) is simply not to promote the cliches. Women are half the population and jobs need to be filled. The days when girls grew up to be (exclusively) waitresses, secretaries, teachers and nurses whilst waiting for the right man to come along and turn her into a stay-at-home mom are pretty much gone. I'd welcome sets that have a 50/50 gender balance regardless of topic. Let's get Rosie the Riveter into some constructions sets, or Flo the firefighter, Kerri the Cop, Barb the banker, etc. If you want your 4 year old girl to believe that she can grow up to be and do anything isn't space shuttle kit that clearly shows one pilot of each gender, equal in skill, responsibility and respect, better than just a reversible head for a neutral figure taken out of context. The failing I often see when well meaning people take up the banner of "gender equality" in toys is that often obsess about what they, as adults, are reading into what they see rather than looking through the eyes of a child what messages are actually being received. Long term, gender equality isn't just about breaking how girls conform to stereotypes; it's about breaking everyone's expectations and not subtly brainwashing everyone into embracing yesterday's status quo. It's just as important for little boys to see girls as potential CEOs, scientists, etc. as it is for girls to look beyond the princess-in-waiting cliche. As a "stereotypical" boys' toy LEGO is in a great position to address this, not by making boys play with Friends sets or only producing that really cool new part in pink, but simply by randomizing gender in the various roles mini figures play in sets. Years ago, Lara Croft taught us that boys will accept a female protagonist so long as the game is still fun, so why not put more women in Galaxy Patrol? Would it be the end of the world if a jouster in a Kingdoms set took off her helmet and turned out to be a girl (a la Brianne of Tarth), granted things didn't end well for Joan of Arc but you gotta admit, she broke down some stereotypes. Granted some themes are harder to balance than others -cough- LOTR -cough- but even there, Galadriel is one of the most important figures in Middle Earth so where is she? We had to wait over a year just for Arwen and when we finally do get one of her, it's the beloved daughter and love interest of Aragon Arwen, not the "If you want him, come and take him!" Arwen that takes on on the Nazgul and races for the Ford of Bruinen. Where's Eowyn ("I am no man!") and her battle with the Witch King of Agmar? All teachable moments that could be so much fun you don't even realize you're (un)learning something. I'm not saying every female figure has to be the next Xena Warrior Princess, but it would be refreshing to see TLG do a better job of mixing things up when it comes to gender cliches rather than entire themes where females don't exist and others where their life's ambition is to find the right shade of lipstick to go with their princess outfit.

Well there's the understatement of 2013

There's no such thing as bad LEGO; every brick fills a need an serves a purpose. The trick is figuring out what to use when. My collection of LEGO has been growing since the late 1960's and a lot of the stuff from 30-40 years ago is in pretty rough shape (scratches, yellowing, some of the old Samsonite parts are even broken) but it's rare that a piece gets so weathered that I actually get rid of it. If you're into MOC'ing, having well loved parts can actually be a bonus. When I built my Pillars of the Kings sculpture (one statute of which is my avatar) I deliberately mixed old scratched up light gray parts in with the new light blueish gray ones I bought specifically for this project because I wanted the finished project to look like old, weathered stone and the using all pristine brick would have made things look to "plasticy" The other major use I have for older bricks is for internal structure. If you build MOCs of any significant scale, there will always be bricks that are needed for structure but are never seen in the finished product. Why waste a nice new brick you could be showing off, when an old scratched up one will do just as well? I grew up Lego-poor, so I can empathize with feeling limited by the size of one's collection and the desire to have more, but unless you've got something very rare (and know how to find someone willing to pay top dollar for it) selling off the old stuff to buy new sets will likely just shrink the size of your collection overall. If you really want a particular set, need the money and don't really care about MOC'ing, maybe this is the right choice for you, but I'm of the opinion that Lego Collections should only increase in size, even if some of those bricks are really old.

Now you're talkin' ! You just gotta love a mini-doll who knows how to use a flamethrower as a precision power tool... I wonder if they teach you how to make those in shop class at Heartlake High. Nicely done.

Welcome from pretty much the far end of the planet (New England). I hope you have many long and happy years building with your daughter. On the question of gender equality in toys, back when I was a university professor, I used to work on a project promoting young girls' (5-9 yr olds) interests in engineering and one of the key things we used were Technic sets. The kids themselves initially branded the LEGO as a "boys' toy" but once they got over that stigma, they really took to it. In a matter of months, they'd doubled their performance on spacial relations tests and had a much better understanding of basic concepts like torque and gear ratios than their male counterparts. So, I applaud your efforts to share build time with your daughter, it's not just quality family time it could also be helping to stimulate cognitive development too often neglected by gender biased toys and instruction.

Just got back from the VIP event, I like last year's set-up better but I won't complain about triple VIP points. I picked up: 6867 Cosmic Cube Escape 9525 Mandalorian Fighter 10235 Winter Village Market 10236 Ewok Village 31004 Fierce Flyer 31006 Highway Speedster 42000 Grand Prix Racer 42009 Mobile crane MK II 79001 Mirkwood Spiders 79002 Attack of the Wargs 79005 Wizard Battle 79008 Pirate Ship Ambush 79010 Goblin King Battle A Tall PAB cup (filled and free) 40083 - L.E. 2013 Holiday set (freebie bonus set) Lego Hobbit Poster (freebie) Post Holiday PAB Box (freebie) All in all a modest haul compared to last year's spree, (I would have spent more if the new Hobblt wave were available - they had them in the back room but weren't allowed to sell them yet) but I earned enough VIP points to get myself a free Parisian Restaurant when it comes out, so that will be a nice bonus.

Burlington, I've been going there since they first opened - I've shopped at the other stores when I've been in the areas, but the VIP system is smart enough to figure out where I typically shop. I asked about the formula they use for the invites and was told it was "largely" based on money spent and that they get a list of top spenders, but that sometimes you can spend _too_ much and the system thinks you're a profiteer (buying sets for resale) rather than a straight AFOL. Apparently sometimes big spenders don't get invited because they tripped one of the flags the system looks for (massive one time purchases rather than a steady buying pattern, buying multiples of the same kit (particularly high end kits), etc.) Originally I didn't get an invite this year (despite spending more on Lego than I did on various luxury items - like lunch - last year and when I asked about it, my contact said it was probably something flagged in the computer and she'd take care of it. A few days later, I got an invite and a confirmation that I was "on the list". As you might have guessed, I really like the staff at the Burlington store.