Details: No, we would never succumb to product placement. Never! We're like a popular 60's pop group, and just naturally suggest that Things Go Better With Coca-Cola occasionally without skipping a beat. In this case, we see Coke logos and iconography brilliantly added to a Star Wars-style pod racer. The technique for the roughly life-size cans is particularly clever - and fortunately for coke fiends like myself, well detailed in the work-in-progress photos of this model. Building a round mosaic with a size requirement is an impressive feat, even without working it into a complete model concept.
Details: Here's another set of winners for our alternate models category - which recognizes great original creations based on parts from only one kit. In this case, there are actually 8 new models shown (all of which can be built with the 314 parts in set 8048 Buggy)- a motorbike, a plane, two trike designs, a helicopter, a wasp, a rabbit, and a dinosaur. As you would expect with alternate models from a Technic kit, some of these have working features - a knob in the back make the rabbit's arms move, for example, and the motorbike features working suspension and an engine with pistons that pump as you roll it along.
Details: You may have heard that it was Easter this past weekend. For the occasion, this builder created this spectacular sculpture of a baby chick with easter eggs. Although the building-in-all-directions technique is still fairly novel (and frequently done with the aid of a computer), this builder has started making it a main part of his style and incorporated elements that can't easily be specified in a computer-generated design. Note how the little wings are attached by a clip instead of being sculpted on. The use of round eyes and a nose pushed between studs perpendicular to it are also great touches (which also serve to emphasize that this design is more than just a computer-generated pattern).
Details: You may remember the first LEGO flexpicker robot built by today's builder a little over two years ago. While an excellent project, it wasn't the most realistic use of the technology - generally speaking, multiple delta robots are used together as part of an assembly line. Although that would be a mere quibble for most of us, it was reason enough for the builder to give it another go, applying various new techniques and algorithms to improve performance and reduce size compared to the original. A full description is at the site listed above.
Found at: ? (if you know of an official website or flyer for this event, please let us know)
Details: Here we have one of the most difficult things to round up photos of - a large, apparently nameless (if it has a website or flyer, I haven't been able to find it) display built by many builders that will be on display for a fairly long period of time. You can visit this display from April 15th through May 2nd at Hong Kong's Cityplaza. We'll be trying to round up as much meaningful coverage of the event as possible.
Details: You can use this ball clock to tell time. The third row tells the hours, the second row gives 5 minutes increments and the remainder is shown by the first row of balls. Mechanical logic keeps the balls flowing into the right places. In a technique I'm surprised I haven't seen in a Great Ball Contraption module yet, a ball lift is made out of chain with a few pieces of tread in the middle. Half-width beams are then able to attach to the treads. Building instructions for this model are also included in the Brickshelf gallery.
Details: We've touched on this design before, back when instructions were made available for it. Originally, it only existed in that digital form, but now one has been made of real bricks. A few minor modifications had been made (forcing a few parts into a dark green color, making some structural improvements), but otherwise the design is still the same. What makes it so special is that this model is being auctioned off on eBay as part of Creations for Charity, which is currently raising money for relief efforts in Japan.
Details: I was having trouble determining the exact ship that the builder referenced in the title of this model, but this ship is based on a large soviet battlecruiser. The bold color scheme and microscale detailing help to make it stand out.
Details: We've seen other epic models before - but never anything quite this ambitious. This room-eating display was built in about 9 months by one person. In some of the photos, you can see a bit of a bridge and a couch. The LEGO bridge actually goes completely to the other end of the couch, where more is being added to this colossal model. One interesting technique used to quickly reach some of the heights seen here is using baseplates at various angles - in the image shown here, the large grey expanses are all 48x48 (15 inches square) baseplates. Don't miss the second centerpiece, which is a bit more Castle-y and features some great landscaping. The inside of the arena (behind the large statue) is surprisingly detailed considering how hard it must be to get in there and move the minifigs around.
I, for one, can't wait to see what's on the other side of that bridge.
Details: I've seen plenty of cakes over the years, but this one, erm, "takes the cake". The upside-down plates used in the middle make for a surprisingly believable cake-y texture. The frosting on the outside is similarly good use of texture - having studs face out in every direction captures the look better than tiles or the sides of bricks could. The 1x1 round plates (and the similar flowery element) make great sprinkles.
Details: People have been using analog film with LEGO pieces to make pinhole cameras for years, but this is the first one I've seen that is controlled by a microprocessor. The description offered falls just short of full instructions - the complete source code (which includes such features as a film winding angle calculator and shutter speed calculator) is available to view or download. Since it tracks how much film is left, you never have to worry about exposing the rest of the film before you want to.
It's come to my attention that some recent posts have been showing up out of order. Since I've been less active here lately (I'd rather be building than writing, and we do have BrickMagic right around the corner), I've been relying on posts I've written earlier. The dates seem to have slipped by, but I do believe they're back in the correct order now. There still aren't enough of them to make up for lost time, so we're going to skip a week and get back to today's model of the day. Sorry for the inconvenience - now let's try this again.
Details: You may remember that Star Wars Miniland opened recently. It's gotten a considerable amount of attention. You know what that means - it's coverage round up time.
Details: It's time to check in again on HispaBrick magazine. Last time we featured HispaBrick magazine, they had just released their 8th issue. They've since released their ninth and tenth issues. As usual, they're keeping up the great work and publishing in both English and Spanish.
Details: This sleek spaceship captures the car-of-the-future look perfectly while putting some rather obnoxious LEGO elements (specifically, those clunky windscreens with a front edge) to fantastic use.
Details: At Klodsfest 2010, this minifig-scale recreation of the inn from the movie Nights in Rodanthe won fourth place in the "building" category. It's not hard to see why, with the amount of detail packed into it. The building itself has a surprising amount of texture (particularly for such a monochromatic structure), and the subtle landscaping is also top-notch.
Details: Here's a charming experiment in color and texture - a 6x16 box in yellow and dark red. IThe top makes great use of one of the curved slope elements in quantity to create a more interesting texture. In the front, we see the common jumper-plate-sideways-looks-like-a-drawer-pull technique flanked by a pair of 1x1 plates stuck into 1x2 Technic bricks. The design is somewhat simple but very visually appealing.
Details: This may be the most useful LEGO robot we've seen yet. This machine can sort LEGO pieces by shape and weight. As you can see in the video, a handful of pieces are pushed out of a reservoir of LEGO elements, and a pair of conveyor belts move the parts from there to a digital scale. The digital scale is in view of a webcam, along with the piece on it. OpenCV is used along with some custom software and a custom database of parts to identify the pieces. From there, another mechanism puts it into one of eight cups based on what type of piece it is.
According to the blog posts describing this, this is just the first iteration. I can't wait to see where this project ends up.
Housekeeping note: in the interest of not letting things get out of hand, we will not be taking the time to make up the week we just accidentally skipped. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Details: It's time for another look at what's up at LEGOLAND. This time the photos are from LEGOLAND Billund in Denmark, which was looking pretty great in October of 2010. You'll want to make sure to look at some of the videos included here. Although the parks actually use non-LEGO hardware to make moving items happen (it'd be more exciting if they used Mindstorms components, but I guess that'd be harder to maintain outdoors), it's still thrilling to see things like the boat navigating working canal locks and the ferry transporting moving cars.
No, we would never succumb to product placement. Never! We're like a popular 60's pop group, and just naturally suggest that Things Go Better With Coca-Cola
occasionally without skipping a beat. In this case, we see Coke
logos and iconography brilliantly added to a Star Wars
-style pod racer. The technique for the roughly life-size cans is particularly clever - and fortunately for coke fiends like myself, well detailed in the work-in-progress photos of this model. Building a round mosaic with a size requirement is an impressive feat, even without working it into a complete model concept. 
, Dora the Explorer
, or Winnie the Pooh
.
won fourth place in the "building" category. It's not hard to see why, with the amount of detail packed into it. The building itself has a surprising amount of texture (particularly for such a monochromatic structure), and the subtle landscaping is also top-notch. 
