RohanBeckett

it's a very nice motion to watch.. as it passes over the top! I know exactly the scene you're referring to! which reminds me.. I was thinking of turning my Lego Idea's Wall-E into a Ball Contraption.. haven't quite figured how to... was thinking of balls filling him up... and when nearly full.. doing a little wobble/shake, and then opening the front, and they all spill out!

Wow.. very nicely built! nice, interesting, unique mechanisms - the reason for attaching the gondolas at 2 points is for stability? attached via a single point on the tracks would cause them to angle the individual tread, I'm guessing? Quite a monochrome experience, compared to your last one! Well done!

VERY nice mechanisms on both designs! first one would easily make 'GBC Standard' Flight Sim would be hard to make it do 1ball/second... BUT.. if it was on a bypass circuit, it'd be a very entertaining crowd pleaser!! well done

Have you actually phoned them? Yes, it does say blocked from some providers (maybe cheap prepaid mobile?) ... but SURELY you have access to another phone? I called last year, and got a faulty M-Motor replaced without any fuss.. They just asked which set it was from (for me, it was a PF Motor set that I'd bought 9 months earlier), and that was it.. they were super friendly.. and 2 weeks later a nice big box arrived with 1 small motor in it! :D LEGO® Service 1800 823 757 We're open 24 hours from Monday to Friday. Our free number might be blocked by some telecom providers and may be charged by some mobile operators; please contact your provider for more details.

6 months late on the news! ;) It's basically a Consumer version of WeDo2.. with a larger 'brain-brick' that has 2 built-in motors I've had experience with Wedo1 and 2 in my schools... and the wedo2 is great fun for kids.. works *really* well with the Ipad App It's definitely a notch down from mindstorms.. but I think that's very intentional

I guess it'd work just as well with GBC.. I mean soccer/basketballs? :)

I still don't own a lego rechargeable battery... at $AUD100, I can't justify the cost

Not as many as I have to say! :D that's about the extend of my modding, not counting repairs to PF Motors...

No... it's used to ease the pressure on the lifting arm basically, taking a lot of the load OFF the pneumatic cylinder... the compressor and cylinders don't have to work as hard, and the whole mechanism works smoothly. It basically wouldn't work without the dampener

very cool! show us a video of it working! Could you use the EV3 as a scoreboard? that would be interesting! or have it randomly shoot each basket, and keep a score of each one going throughout the day?

@mocbuild101 are you aware they always have a 'quiet' session, for children/people with sensory issues? usually the first hour on saturday, or sunday.. as well as the AFOL day on friday, which is MUCH quieter than the busy public weekends..

hah! such a great read! Well Done! ALL that work, rebuilding... preparation.... for 3minutes on TV! :)

Thanks for the video, and posting it here! :) it was a lot of fun... although it was filmed at a time when the layout wasn't quite perfect.... it got better over the next 2 days! :) @Technic Fan The mountain was my first major 'decorated/themed' GBC.. currently undergoing repairs, as I rushed the drive mechanism at the back, and although it survived Brickvention, I wasn't fully happy with it... still can't believe I talked for 18 minutes about GBC!

nice touch with the BMW colours under the windscreen - light/darkblue/red :)

This is why I'm into GBC's.. I get a mix of both worlds.. I love the technical challenge I love building my own mechanisms I also enjoy copying others (sometimes it's nice to just follow instructions, and not problem solve all the time) and lately, I've been getting into 'theming' the GBC's.. so they aren't just a bare mechanism... so I get to go back to good 'ol' system bricks, and be creative btw.. max size is 800x600... which IMHO, COULD be revised these days.. I know it's nice to cater for those in the world, still on dial-up, and download quotas... but 1200w pixels wouldn't be too bad

output ramp was the only colours I had available with no side-edges! ;) Hope to order some clear ones in the future.. as for step 17... ahh... I thought it was TWO 2L red axles... I put one in the ratchet itself, and the other as the pivot (since it can't escape anyway).. surely a black friction pin isn't practical here, as it won't allow the ratchet to drop loosely on the gear teeth? I guess I may end up ripping the main mechanism apart, and doing further mod work on the turntables, if you think it'd be better for the long term.. Thanks again for the instructions! FYI - here was my first attempt nearly 2 years ago, from just watching Akiyuki's video.. it was nice to see that I got 90% of the main mechanism correct! I later had a lot of issues getting the buckets right.. I now know that they don't sit exactly the same on each arm!

oh yes.. I fully agree.. I have also built the zigzag lifter, and pneumatic... I've managed to have pneumatic run for a 2-day exhibition.. but zigzag is horribly bad... loves to jam a lot! I can put up with the odd dropped ball... but like so many akiyuki designs, with the black box frame at the bottom, you end up with all these balls trapped underneath! I've built other GBC's myself, and when I can't make something perfect, I make it *cope* with failure better... eg: ramps/detours, so that any dropped balls end up in a safe place, away from mechanisms! Covers over mechanisms, and tiles so that balls are easy to poke out! That said.. I'm reasonably confident that Tilted can run for a fair while without major issues...

Ok.. 2 years after starting to reverse engineer... fail... sit on a shelf gathering dust.. I figured it was time to try rebuilding/building the Tilted Rotors Couple of notes/observations: I could not get the 'lift/elevator/1-ball-feeder' to work smoothly at all, in the current build.. the double-stack of the 1x6 thin liftarms, plus the fact that plates are reversed, meant that there was a LOT of friction on the slider (it has to be loose, to drop back down again) I ended up rebuilding it with the old 80's style 4262 part: and it worked much better Step 17: could not for the life of me figure out where the black pin goes! (sometimes, on certain steps, it'd be nice if the model was rotated to see where some parts go - or at least just an arrow pointing to it) I didn't read your note about shaving the nubs off the insides of the turntables (until after I'd built it!!)... but I did select my best ones.. and gave them a light wipe with silicon spray... and ensured they were as smooth and freely moving, before assembling... Not sure if I'll pull it apart, now and trim the bumps off, as it seems to run ok - only a *slight* wobble/vibration and yes.. speed is critical.. that '1 notch below top speed' on train controller is definitely spot-on.. I fed 300+ balls through it continuously last night, and it dropped 4. At all other speeds I ran it at, it dropped a LOT more balls. Funnily, before I'd built the 2nd section of it, I had a motor connected directly to the axle coming off the knob gears.. I turned it on, at max speed.. dropped a few balls in.. and they were stuck in place, thanks to centrifugal/centripetal force! :) it NEEDS the slower speed + gravity to do a lot of the work! I'm hoping to sit and watch it for a while, and see if I can come up with any other way of preventing balls jumping out. Obviously I built my rotors with different colours on each layer.. but now I'm wondering if it might be more interesting to have each arm, underneath each other, the same colour Other than that... a good module.. not perfect, but should be usable on a regular GBC circuit!

again.. well done.. a clever way of staying 100% pure lego! I have to admit, I enjoy the challenge too! another option might be to orient the power pack vertically, so the dial aligns a lot more directly with the EV3 motor (or a gearing down from it)... maybe the whole front cabin could be modular, and detach? Not sure if it would stick out too much, or get in the way of your stylish 80's roofline! :)

very nice.. although you might want to offset the main drive axle, so it actually lifts up, on the 'up' stroke, rather than the side - as I'm guessing there's a fair amount of friction. I've been working on a large, robust scissor mechanism, for a GBC, but it's surprisingly difficult, once you add some actual weight/load to the top

ensure that all framework is as tight as possible.. particularly around the bucket wheel. all sections need to be firmly pushed together, to ensure that the wheel itself is as straight as possible... any wonky-ness will introduce friction, and slow it down even more you do need to accept that even when working perfectly, it is a SLOW machine.. it moves slow, it rotates slow.... But that's true to real life... it's not a dragster! :) It also won't pick up the 'dirt' pieces, sitting on the floor very well.. find a low, curved bowl, and you might have more luck.. in real life, these machines scoop ore from a wall of a pit, not from the ground. Once built, it is very strong, and sturdy.. I had no problems picking mine up and moving it around... I also converted mine into a Great Ball Contraption, which worked ok..

Those are a great start. I took the 'transparent mini' and made 5 of them - all powered by a single motor, and flexible axle between each one: I've also built Zwarte Vier Stangen - Black Four Bars, and found that to be very reliable - a great use of all those spare axles, and connectors! Red Piston is a good one, if you have some of the old square piston blocks - although any of the 'rainbow steppers' are similar design

to be honest, starting with the smallest module is rather boring... I'd highly recommend some of @Maico Arts's modules - http://greatballcontraption.nl/ he's done some really good, simple modules, and his PDF's are easy to follow.. I've build a few, and they are very reliable too! and from there.. work your way up to a 3000 piece Akiyuki! :)

I have 6, Two 8376 Hot Flames, and one 8475 RC Race Buggy I use them from time to time, although not a lot lately, since I mainly build GBC's these days, and these are not the type of motors I want to run for hours/days on end! (due to their value!)

very nice! not quite as technic-y but Ryan McNaught, (Lego Certified Pro), built a scale model of the Melbourne Star, which is in the gift shop, below the actual wheel Lego Ferris wheel, and 6yr old for scale :) a zoom in on the techniques he used - LOTS of ball joints! No idea if it rotates, but probably not... Ryan often creates sculptures for long term public display, and they are usually glued, as well as having hidden steel struts/supports