Three years ago (on November 21, 2003) I wrote a page on my old site about Track Layout Geometry showing some of the interesting things you can do with LEGO train track, for example, this method for running track on the 22.5° diagonal:
I was browsing my favorite blogs today and noticed that the page got mentioned on Mike Walsh’s blog (link removed, as his site has apparently been compromised). That prompted me to take another look at it, and I decided it really would be better to put it here on the Brickpile site. So I moved that page to this site, and changed the page on the old site to redirect to it with a 5-second delay using JavaScript. Thanks for the link Mike (and sorry for changing it out from under you)!
When my father left the Navy and joined United Air Lines in the late 1950’s, he flew this plane, the DC-3.
Like my Lunar Mobile Lounge, this has been at several BayLUG meetings, and now I am finally posting about it here.
Also like that model, it is motorized. There are two motors, located in the fuselage: one which powers the propellers and the other which makes the landing gear go up and down. There is a battery box in the fuselage that powers the propellers, and a wire coming out of the entry door leading to a battery box that controls the landing gear. In both cases, a Technic axle passes through the fuselage and the base of each wing. For the props, there are bevel gears in each engine which drive the propshafts. For the landing gear, the axle is mounted directly to the mechanism. A roof panel is removable to view the mechanism inside. Here’s a video I made to illustrate how it works (it’s also available as a QuickTime movie on Brickshelf):
There are other parts that move as well: the ailerons, elevators, and rudder are all freely hinged. Oh, and the wheels rotate :-) The wings and vertical tail can be removed easily for storage and transportation.
The fuselage is designed using half-stud offsets to achieve the desired shape. This means the walls are very fragile as they cannot be properly interconnected.
On the leading edge of each wing are “de-icing boots” which are made of rubber in the real plane. These are modeled using a curved brick that I got at LEGOLAND California in their “build it and buy it” area in 2003. I don’t know if they were ever part of an official LEGO set, but I never saw them anywhere else. It’s the same shape as the trans-light-blue spotlights in the Soccer sets. These “boots” are attached at an angle using plate hinges and plates, and have half-stud offsets to follow the desired wing angle.
Overall this was an interesting experiment in half-stud offsets and integrating a Technic mechanism into a realistic looking model. I learned a lot making this and hope you enjoy it.
At long last, here is the blog entry about my micro moonbase monorail. Last January, I got together with other members of BayLUG to install a “microscale space” display at the Valley Fair Mall LEGO store. I posted pictures and a description of that on my blog back then, but I always meant to post details about my model that was featured in the display. So here they are, eight months later – sorry!
Here we see two buildings connected by a monorail. At the right is a sort of office building which has an opening for the monorail to enter the building, inspired by the way they do at Disneyland (or is it WDW) where the monorail goes into the hotel (or at least, I think it did when I was a kid – does it still?). At the other end is a standalone station with a micro moonbase connection. In both cases, the monorail fits into the building closely enough that you can imagine it is an airtight connection (something that matters a lot on an airless moon…).
For the track I am using the straight 16-stud long track of the type originally produced for the 4.5V and 12V trains from long ago, but which has lately been available at the LEGO store Pick-A-Brick (in New Grey, natch). I designed a monorail car that fits nicely on the track. The only problem with the design is it would never be able to take any turns, so it’s a good thing I only have straight track of that type! :-)
This is a model of the Dresdner Frauenkirche (or “Church of Our Lady in Dresden” as you might say it in English), a Lutheran church in Dresden which was bombed out during World War II. It was left in ruins for decades and recently rebuilt to match the original. The parts modeled in dark grey represent the ruins that were incorporated into the new building; the tan parts are the new parts that were added to restore the church. The model is 1.45m or 4’9″ tall!
He posted about this on LUGNET two weeks ago so it isn’t exactly news but I’ve been meaning to blog about it for a while and am only now getting around to it.
Apparently, LEGO’s master builders had made a model of the church before, which was on display in a department store as part of a fundraiser to pay for the reconstruction. The one from LEGO was about twice as tall, but I think HoMa’s is at least as good. For pics of that model and more info see this sub-thread from LUGNET.
I have a personal connection here: I visited HoMa and a few of his friends during my trip to Germany in 2001. I was impressed with his talent then, but he’s really excelled in the years since! The detail work on this model is just exquisite.
So if you’ve seen this already, click the pic and take a closer look. It’s impressive enough to deserve a second glance. And if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat.
It’s official, I’m not going to Northwest BrickCon. Having just gone to BrickFest a month ago I really can’t justify another trip right now, and besides BayLUG is having a meeting that weekend.
I was really hoping to go to NWBC to meet some of the folks who weren’t able to come to BF. I met a lot of west coast LEGO folks at BricksWest 2003, but haven’t seen any of them since, except for a few who made it to BF this year. Hopefully next year, NWBC and BF won’t be so close together!
I am still hoping to make it to BrickSouth next spring in Atlanta. I met a few of the Georgia classic space guys at BF and am looking forward to that event. Hopefully I can build some kind of impressive spacecraft to show there.
The song “Dragostea din Tei” by the Moldovan band O-Zone, more widely known as “the Numa Numa song,” is probably the most widely recognized song in the Romanian language ever written. And now it has finally been done in LEGO! Do you remember Gary Brolsma’s famous “Numa Numa Dance” video? This LEGO animation is a remake of that dance using a LEGO minifig. The minifig’s mouth has been animated and the arms move in ways that LEGO just can’t do, unless you rip them off at the shoulders!! Muahahahahaha!!!! (sorry, lost control there for a moment). Anyway, here’s the video (Update 12/23/2008: The original video has been removed from YouTube, but I found another copy and have replaced the embedded video here):
The original Gary Brolsma version, to refresh your memory (or if you’ve been living under a rock somewhere and never saw it):
For more about the song, check out the Wikipedia entries for “Dragostea din Tei” and “Numa Numa.” And for more about Gary Brolsma, check out his fan site or his latest work, NewNuma.
My birthday was Thursday, and we met last night with my mother for dinner to celebrate at the Willow St. Pizza in Los Gatos. Now as you might guess from the content of this blog, the thing I have always wanted most for birthday/Christmas/whatever gifts has always been LEGO. The fact that I’m now 35 years old doesn’t change that! My mother got me several sets that are full of great parts.
After Holly and I got home she presented me with my cake. We were both looking forward very much to the lemon cake with lemon butter cream frosting that she had ordered from the Buttery in Santa Cruz. But alas, they messed up the order and used whipped-cream frosting which we had specifically asked them not to do. The cake itself seems to be just white cake, and the frosting is just basic white frosting with a tiny trace of lemon zest. We had the same problem with Holly’s birthday cake a few months ago from a different bakery. I had high hopes for the Buttery – when we lived in Santa Cruz they seemed like a quality operation. What does it take to find a decent bakery nowadays?
Maker Faire sure was a lot of fun! We (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) had a great time showing off our LEGO train layout to the public and other Makers at the event.
I uploaded my pictures of the LEGO layout as well as other things from Maker Faire up on my Flickr account.
One of the highlights was when I got interviewed by Blaed Spence about the club on the Yahoo! Answers stage.
I don’t know if it’s going to be an annual event or what, but I sure hope they do another Maker Faire event again soon![tags]lego,makerfaire,baylug,bayltc[/tags]
Wow, this has been a great show! It’s quite different from the train shows we (BayLTC) usually do. The Maker Faire crowd is a very diverse group of artists, geeks, and craftspeople. Plus, a lot of families with kids which is just like what we’re used to. One of my favorite things about the LEGO hobby is when little kids are staring through the “sneeze guards” at our layout with their eyes and mouths open, and just about the only thing they can say is “wooooaaahhh.” That’s fun.
Unlike the train shows we have a lot more non-train stuff at this show. David brought in his big crane (it’s about 12 feet tall, entirely made of unglued LEGO bricks, mostly Technic), and an assortment of other Technic creations including pneumatic walkers and an inclined cog railway. I also brought in the only sculpture I currently have assembled, my Maneki Neko (Japanese good luck cat) statue.
I haven’t had a chance to take many pictures, but we shot an hour of video, including an interview of me at the Yahoo Answers stage which was a lot of fun. Hopefully I can edit that down to a reasonable size and make a little video of the Faire. I am planning to take a lot of stills tomorrow, and will post those on Flickr in the next few days.
If you come by the BayLUG layout at Maker Faire today (Sunday, April 23) please stop by and say hi!
These two fish were built as part of a display that my LEGO club, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group, maintains at the Stoneridge Mall LEGO store in Pleasanton, CA. On February 20, 2006 we installed an “aquarium” theme there, which lasted for about a month. Read more about the installation and see more pics.
More pictures of the model can be found on Flickr.