Phoxtane

He was wrong? That's fine in my book, as long as they don't keep pushing that argument once they know it's wrong. He did put in a disclaimer in the form of "as far as my knowledge goes". It's not "stealing", but it's also not what many consider to be "good form". AFAIK, MegaBlocks and Kre-O are well within their rights to produce interlocking brick-based construction toys... however, with my very limited experiences with MB, their bricks are inferior and have this 'feel' to them where you can tell they're definitely not as good as Lego. The lesson: If you're going to follow another company's footsteps and try to gain success that way, you need to actually do it better! Correct; loyalty implies that you back a person/company/idea and you do it well - without baseless accusations and whatnot. Since this is the World Wide Web however, you're not going to get a perfect response every time [EB is better than other forums I've visited anyway!]. This applies to real life as well with other topics - the first that springs to mind is politics. Unless said "hate" contributes to the discussion over the original thread topic. "lol friggin megablocks amirite" doesn't help whereas "I haven't used Megablocks ever since [X, Y, Z], because [explanation]" actually contributes to the conversation. Nope, I can't think of one off the top of my head. Why not go ahead and write an article yourself? Be warned that EB will find it and nitpick it to pieces whenever someone comes across it and posts it here! He did make some pretty good arguments if it made you stop and write about them! As for quality, I think that can be much more variable with clone brands. IMHO, you're more likely to get a crap set with broken parts in it from MB then you are from Lego - I think just about any Lego fan/loyalist will agree that they buy Lego for its long-unparalleled quality. I find that a often-used argument against clone brands is that many pieces they use are over-specialized - that is, an engine cowling can't be used for anything other than an engine cowling because it is so obviously an engine cowling. In the Lego set design process, they try to avoid making new parts UNLESS they know that the new part can and will be used in diverse ways! A good example is the crowbar; not only is it a minifigure accessory, but it can also be used to pop tiles off a plate. That's making some large assumptions, and let's not even get started on the Great OS Debate Well... EB is a Lego fan/loyalist site. I'd be enormously surprised if they created a clone brand MOC sub-forum. We're here to primarily discuss Lego, Lego MOCs, and Lego-related events and/or news. The Community sub-forum is already the "Put stuff here if there isn't an other place to put it" sub-forum. That being said, with a community as large as Eurobricks and as diverse, there's always someone with an opinion different from yours. That's what makes our debates so lively! [Off-Topic: EB seems to have a filter for the word j u n i o r i z e d. It replaces that word with "<insert that tiresome argument>"...]

IIRC, they make some other NXT stuff as well. They're probably very strong and may even have a sensor port for measuring extension length.

Well, your car is like a giant solar oven if left out in the sun. A somewhat poorly-made solar oven made by me managed to top out at 130 degrees Faranheit (54.44 degrees Celsius). Your car may reach close to that on a hot sunny day - that's why you always leave the windows down if you have a pet in the car! I wouldn't find it surprising if Lego elements were deformed permanently by that much heat.

Since I've started keeping the boxes to my sets, I just put them in there.

Ashens reviewed some Click-Brick polybags - evidently, they were designed in the UK! I was surprised by how well they fit together, but the engine block on that dragster looks exactly like the one Lego makes

I've run into an issue that I can't tell if it's related to POV-Ray or the converter... When the rendering process starts, the status bars says that it's running ~1500 pixels per second [PPS]. After about an hour, that number has dropped to 30ish PPS and continues to drop. It really will take a while, and I was wondering if there was a way to make it go any faster?

There are a few custom-built computers where the components are completely submerged in mineral oil for cooling. It doesn't conduct electricity at all. You're probably better off sealing the sensitive components, since it would be much cheaper!

How do you ensure that the trains won't derail over the gap between the track and the transfer table?

That'd be another line added to the .INI file, underneath the one that's had to be added to get LDD to work with POV-Ray, yes? "N" would also equal the amount of threads that POV-Ray is actually using as well? In that case, I'm probably going to limit it to one thread - one core, no hyperthreading - and have it work in the background. Thanks!

I believe the designers of the product were focusing on those who build Technic-themed MOCs; thus, the many proportional and non-proportional connectors. While I find the unit itself to be intriguing, I won't be buying one because they are enormously expensive!

Wow, not that many sets had them... Thanks for the information

About five years ago a principal friend of the family gave me a set of drawers containing some old educational Lego sets from the 80s. It was a predecessor of the RCX Mindstorms system, utilizing the Logo programming language to control a simple robot: Among the various studfull beams, old friction pins, and weird cables, there were these disc parts: Having read the manual shown in the first image, I know that they were paired with a light sensor to act as a rotation sensor. One side has eight small black stripes and the other has four larger stripes. I have seen the disc part itself being used in sets more recently, but I have not seen this printing on any of them since. There is no part ID or number on them; they're most likely too old.

Nope, it's a real thing. http://camillc.com/terrawind.htm

I think that part of the problem is that there's just no good way to make sure that all entrants are above the age of eighteen. I mean, Eurobricks itself has that policy, and the mods are pretty lenient about it - as long as what you contribute is thought-out and mature enough that you can mesh with the existing community without causing issues. I do recall seeing some posts back the argument that a parent could have submitted the project on behalf of their child. Who would, as a parent who probably loves Lego along with their kid, deny them the chance to have their MOC [be it a rainbow warrior or otherwise] become an official Lego set? The whole "lowbrow submission" issue isn't limited to Cuusoo; NXTLog, the official Lego Message Boards, and MOCpages are plagued with the same issue. Unfortunately, it's a unwritten rule of the internet: With or without age limits, the larger the group of people using the service, the larger amount of people who can't really handle the responsibility of not being immature about anything. It's what drove me away from the Minecraft forums entirely, actually.

Looks like you'd be able to fit one of the rechargeable battery boxes quite snugly in that back trunk area

I like the first; it looks more true to the subject vehicle. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it looks like it doesn't have individual suspension for the back tires. Maybe you could try building "lumps" into the bed to allow the tires room to travel? I agree

I'm kind of torn. It looks nice from the front, but it looks pretty bad from the back, and IMO it raises the CoG too high for effective performance.

Well, I think I've got a program for you that'll work: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84375076/nebraskaTouch.rbt The robot will wait for the touch sensor to be pressed, at which point the motor will rotate forward until you release the sensor. The motor will then stop, and wait for the sensor to be pressed again. The motor will now rotate backwards until the sensor is released, where it will stop again. That's all in a loop, so you should be able to swap motor directions with ease. I found that adding a wait block with a small .05 second delay at strategic points solved an issue I encountered where the motor would rotate the same direction after I had cycled the sensor. I'm guessing that it was partially operator error where I wasn't removing my finger from the sensor fast enough, and the program would advance through the next section so fast the motor wouldn't respond. By the time the sensor had been cycled, it would have already been back to where it started. Five-hundredths of a second really makes a difference! What sort of project are you working on? I'm thinking of one of those arcade cranes that you move a claw around in and grab prizes...

Are you using the software that came with the Mindstorms kit? If so, I can help; I need to wait for this render to finish first, and then I'll see about making an example.

Wow! I actually got this working with a little trouble. It helps if you have the latest PovRay beta... I'm experiencing a case of "The little 2.4 gHz quad-core that could", so this will take a little while. EDIT: Darn. I'm not going to be able to run it, not with my motherboard temperatures hitting 75.5 C (168 deg. F)!

Another vote for pictures without the exterior! Wonderful MOC, and it looks so swell as well!

I've only ever bought new sets from either S@H and brick-and-mortar stores. I think you're safe from this scam if you only buy complete, new-in-box sets from those sources, or only use Ebay to pick up those large mixed boxes that people tend to get rid of after they "grow out" of Lego [how sad!].

Are you planning to make an amphibious version?

Er, come again? All I saw were studs! Interesting MOC. It's got loads of functions.

I'm actually going to pick up the Unimog first before they stop selling it online. Then by the time I can get the Crawler, it'll be in-stock since the initial rush will be over!