Front

It looks really cool, especially the upper torso part. Front

Just to make it clear, we are talking about the connection between these two elements: Galidor male Galidor female I'm not sure if the topic fits in the Technic forum though, as the elements have never been used in Technic sets. On bricklink they are described as Technic elements, but in my view they are primarily System elements with some Technic connectors added. Front

Thank you for the review, the pictures look just fine on my screen, and they are sharp, not shaken as we see from time to time on EB. I voted above average, in the context of comparing this set with similar ultra-small Technic sets. It's a cute set, and I will hopefully pick up two, as suggested Front

I have assemblied and disassemblies hundreds of these joints and never had a failure on the parts. Don't use any tools. Just rotate the joint 90 degrees, so that the technic bushing sticks out to the side, and then pull down on the bushing with a finger. When the joint is pointing straight, the disassembly is not possible, and I guess this is what you have tried. Front

This set is so outstanding that I had to get two more, after I bought and built the first one. I had a hard time convincing myself that I should give my little brother one of the sets as a present. He liked building it too, and his son (three years old) once called him at work, asking if he could play with the lion I like the colours, especially the click joints the come in tan and brown. I noticed the gap between the head and the body too, back when I built the set. The back of the head and the front of the body should have been made "sloped", so that the gap would appear smaller, but still retain the amount of movements that the head can do. Now how that could be achieved is another question. Great review, thank you. Front

No I don't. I actually tried creating an account maybe 18 months ago, but I never recieved a confirmation e-mail. I think the only guy I know from BZPower is Binkmeister, the site admin, and only because we have shared office for a year or more at work. Front

Well, I see all Bionicle elements during the developement process I googled pictures and think I found some from the NY toy fair. The Kiina mask shown there is not a plastic mould, but a rapid-prototyped element, and I understand why you think it looks bad. I think the overall shape shown is more or less like the final version, but the surface is very rough on the mask shown in the toy fair, and the painting added does not really look like the final plastic piece which is a two coloured mould.

Hmm, Mata Nui seems elegant where Stronius is all about brutal spikes. Not sure which one I would recommend. But I like black bricks in general. If the club was in one piece, I think it would be hard to mould without having very large wall thickness in the material. The fact that his weapon is so different from the usual silver weapon we've seen for ages, makes him attractive in my opinion. And if not attractive, at least different. Aren't most weapons kind of 2D ? Well his club is a 3D weapon. Front

Thank's for clearing up my uncertainty about the weapon. I'm not able to tell you anything about the actual scenes of the movie I saw. It is still confidential material, and I do believe strongly in keeping confidential material confidential. I had the chance of building Stronius too. The black characters of 2009 are some of those I like the most, because they have that mean look. Stronius beat Skraal by an inch, and rivals Tuma. But that's just my personal view. Front You will never see me leak any confidential material. As an employee it is actually very disapointing everytime confidential pictures or other material are to be found on the internet. But telling Bionicle fans, and I am a Bionicle fan too, that I've built new sets that have been shown at toy fairs, watched scenes from a movie, and had an ice-cream with my colleages, is not violating any company policies. And no hard feelings, I do understand your doubts Front

In the Bionicle team we just had the chance of opening the new summer cans, and building the sets. It is really great to see all the hard work resulting in finalized products, ready to hit the store shelves. I picked a Mata Nui box, as I've been doing the modelling of the mask and the new swords. The mask was kind of a less artistic job, as it is linked to the well known visual appearence of Mata Nui. The swords was a new design, and I think the designer of it did a great job, which only needed few adjustments from me to be ready for moulding. I think it's so cool that the set comes with four of these swords. Please correct me if the swords are actually an old revamped design (I'm not that much into the Bionicle story and the older sets). Apart from building sets we saw the starting scenes of the movie, and had an ice cream. The technical quality of the renderings in the movie is to my likings :-) The ice cream was awesome too, and was consumed in Legoland :-) Bionicle forever :-) Front

I just built the three vehicles an hour ago. I really like the two trucks. The building remains to be built, but complaining about the lack of a roof, is in my opinion not fair. How should a 6 year old play with the features in the middle section, if it was all covered by a roof ? I think we need to understand this as adults, and MOD sets to our likings, or stick to sets that is marked +14 or +16. I am really surprised that this set is out in stores already. Front

I get the message, build an alternative model for the set. Let the imagination flow freely. Unfortunately I disassemblied mine a month or so ago, and put the parts in my drawers, so it would take some time to gather all the bricks. Had I not done that, I would already be on the move, taking the Crawler apart, and thinking on the challenge presented here. I own all Exo-Force sets except a couple of the smallest ones, and the Crawler is the one I like the least. But there are some good bricks in it.

TLC is a cool place to work, and all kind of different skills are needed, depending on what position your in. Even narrowing it down to the traditional Lego designer, the job is quite different weather it's a Technic, Bionicle or City designer. Designing sets is not just about making something that's cool, it's more about producing a set that is a specific toy for a specific target group. A lot of work is put into using building technics that is appropiate for the target group, and this means putting a set together, that in most cases can be handled by 5-9 year old kids. Designing a set can be quite tedious, building something again and again with slight variations, until it's as perfect as it gets. I think it's very unwise to select a career based on a specific job you would like in a specific company. Rather choose an education the seems interesting and where you feel you already got talent, or at least like to explore a talent. Everybody got talent. I think most new Lego designers are young people that just completed an education at some design school, without any particular experience with building Lego. They are probably interested in working in Billund because they think TLC has good values, is a good workplace, and produce products that does bring pleasure to kids. I hardly think anyone has a chance saying: ok, I built this and that with bricks, used a lot of tiles, kind of cool ehh ? and then have even a remote chance of getting a job. Getting a job is about specific skills, but it's just as much or probably more about having social skills, being able to work in a group, performing a task over a longer time period, aiming and meeting a set goal. Do you like sketching, do you like to spend time thinking how products can be made and designed ? And then doing it. Then maybe a design school could be for you. But don't expect to get a job at Lego. I'm an engineer, more specifically got a Master of Science degree in Mechanical engineering, specialised in multibody dynamics, stuff that could be used in vehicle and robotic design, and I liked the idea about getting a job at Ducati or Ferrari. Kind of still do. But I did not choose to study this with the sole aim to get such a job. It's just not realistic. I don't use much of what I've learnt in school in my job, but I enjoy modelling with CAD tools, and is quite good at it. I've used and honed that skill, and now am in my third job, which happens to be at Lego. I say all this without much knowledge about designers career and their educations, and there are probably a lot of designers at Lego that haven't much specific education targeted at design. But if you like designing, get an education in that field. Front

[They look great. I haven't built the sidecar bike from "indy", and don't know how much you modded it, but I think I should have a go at adding a sidecar to some of my bikes. I see some Brickarms stuff here, right ? Helmet and guns.

Here is a picture from a Byggepladen member taken in Copenhagen. picture from moc-pages The building is just huge, and it's hard to believe it's not more than 6:1, but remember that 6:1 means that the area of the baseplate is 36 times bigger than the original, and the volume of the house is 216 times bigger. For more pictures from Copenhagen, check out the links on the front page of: Byggepladen (under "Billeder fra Lego World")

I really think this is one of the best Lego sets out there in 2007. Lift the box´, and you will feel the weight of all the bricks. I have only built the front cover model (your model 2) but I got an extra two boxes of the set, with the aim of building some very large building at some time in the future, using all three sets. btw. this set was built by members of the Danish Lego user group Byggepladen, and displayed at LEGO WORLD in Copenhagen 2009. It was built at the scale 6:1, and each "big element" was built seperately by using normal bricks. That huge 6:1 creation is placed in Billund now, in the PMD building, but I think a more permanent display is planned somewhere in Billund.

Looking at the shadows at the start, the sun is slightly behind the boulder. At an intersection, where the road is horisontal, the boulder is filmed from the side, and here the sun comes from in front of the boulder. Those two "rolls" are not the same. Something cheeky about it. Look at the shadow at 0:50 and 1:05, opposite directions.

Really a nice looking vehicle. I guess this is in essence what could be described as model team, beefed up with power functions. I wonder what the cost of a set like this would be. Probably not that feasible Front

To me this is the 2009 set with the best looks. I haven't built it yet, but I have seen and handled both the main and alternate model displayed side by side. To me the functions of the alternate is not as great as those of the main. Hopefully I will pick up two boxes of this set, and know better.

I have done the 3D-modelling of many of the more complex Bionicle elements in the last couple of years, based on designers sketches or in most cases "simple" 3D models. The first thing to draw is often the parting planes, between ejector side, inlet side and in some cases the sliders too. That way the design of the element inherits what is possible to do regarding the mould. This mean that there has to be found a compromise that satisfies the designer as well as the tooling department. First of the mould need to be made as simple as possible, especially with Bionicle elements which have a shorter life span, compared to more standard elements. Bricks that probably are to be produced for the next 10+ years, allow for a heavier investment in the tools. At the same time a 2x4 brick or similar need to look like other bricks, so all the compromises tend to favour the final look of the element, in some cases increasing the complexity of the mould. Here are a couple of the elements I've "technically designed": Vamprah mask Krika mask A look up close on these masks with a magnifying glass, will reveal that these two elements are made without sliders, that is, only with two mould parts. Simple moulds compared to the Technic element shown in original post, but complex geometry and parting planes.

You are quite right. It would be nearly impossible to produce the counterbore diameter on the backside of the beam (the one furthest away in your picture), without some very complex mould. Can you see the two depressions on the beam left and right ? These are inlet points, telling that the fixed mould part is underneath the element as shown in this picture. The moving mould part, including the inlet points) is then making the top part of the element. With holes in four direction, you could predict that the mould additionally need four sliders to mould this element.

Exactly my thought after building the 2008 Excavator a couple of days ago. We have a M and XL motor, but if we had a very small motor that could attach directly to the Linear Actuator (or be used on its own with gears etc.), we would have the flexibility of the pheumatics, and the strenght and precision of electrics/mechanics. Motors could be placed at the end of multi-linked mechanisms, and only required a wire to be operational, opposed to now where you have to have a rotatiing axle transferring the power. Something like that is seen in the real world too, where electric motors replaces (or will replace) hydraulic systems. Instead of having a central placed hydraulic pump and motors at each wheel of a vehicle, electric motors at each wheel could be powered more simply by wires.

I thought about mentioning this too. I got the set, but haven't opened the box yet. It is maybe only half Technic, other half System elements, but the PF features in it, added a smaller Technic set on sale, would be a cool oppertunity too.

Sorry, was not aware of that. I even see the excavator 8294 is sold out in North America.

I think the main problem is to transmit the light from your source and directly into the cable. It's my guess that PF light does not make a concentrated beam, but more or less create some kind of spherical light. To transmit light through the cables (exo-force-cables) light has to reach the cable concentrated and at not a too big angle.