Help needed for graduation project

Today I received a request on Eurobricks about participation in a survey for a graduation project. These are quite common these days and I think most of us can invest the 5 minutes needed to participate in the survey. Helping out here is kind of important, since the graduation of EB user Zanferia is depending on the projects success.

I joined this community not only because I am a LEGO fan but also for my studies. I worked at LEGO as an intern in 2012 so when I started my graduating project on online brand communities I could not see a better community to work with than a LEGO one! ( I am a French student at ESC Rennes School of Business )

For my graduating project, I need to send questionnaires to members of Eurobricks. Of course the questionnaires are anonymous, and answers will be used only for my report. At the end, it asks for an email address but you DO NOT have to give it, you can just check the “NO” box and submit the questionnaire.

I know you do not know me so feel free to ask me any question !!!Here is the link to my questionnaire: http://www.thesistools.com/web/?id=428554
If you have also friends in this community I would be really grateful if you could ask them to fill in the questionnaire as well.

This project means the world to me as I need it to graduate
Thank you for taking the time to read me

Zanferia

The survey takes about 5 minutes to complete and you don’t have to provide much personal data. Consider it your good deed of the day 😉

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Balrog class Exo Suit

On Eurobricks in the Sci-Fi forum, there is a little contest going on. The goal is to take the frame of the 21109 Exo Suit and build something new. More specific, build an Exo Suit that fits into one of the present or past themes produced by Lego. Any theme is possible.

I took the chance and made an entry for the challenge. And the obvious idea I had, was to build a *drumroll* Balrog class Exo Suit. *badumtss*

The suit is piloted by Aragorn who can now easily smash through the armies of Sauron and Saruman. It features two strong arms and legs. On the left arm, there is a ultra-strong elven shield. And it wields a flamable sword made by the best dwarfen engineers. The body armor als sports some Rohirim shielding to protect the pilot. And if that wouldn’t be enough, it has a optional jetpack that allows it to swiftly swoosh over the battlefield. Or it can simply stomp the enemies into the ground.

Please visit the entry topic to see the other very good entries as well (I think mine is the worst).

Also here is the collection of pictures I have made:

When the thumbs hurt like hell

When your thumbs hurt like hell, then you probably have done something big. At least I did. In preparation for building the awesome Phantasm TwinTurbo supercar made by Crowkillers, I first had to disassemble Sheepo’s GT500. That was a sad moment, because this was such a cool car. No, it wasn’t just a cool car. It had a great design, it was really big, lots of parts, had very cool functions and very interesting techniques. But, I need the parts. So I disassembled it.

This is the result of approximately 4 hours of disassembly spread over 2 evenings. ~3600 parts. Ok, something around 1100 pieces are pins, but I guess you understand now, why my thumbs hurt so much. Disassembly was really painful at times, because this car was so well-built and sturdy. And today (probably not 😉 ) I will start sorting all that. Usually I do some pre-sorting while disassembling a set or MOC, but all my boxes are filled, so I’ll do it the oldfashioned way.

The good news is, I finally have received my last Bricklink order last Saturday. That means, after sorting, I can start pre-sorting the parts for the Phantasm. And what you see here, are the complimentary parts for both versions.

I’ll probably build it in a week, as there is something else I want to complete first. There is a very special contest currently running and I want to participate. And the deadline is already approaching. But you’ll get some information soon enough 😉

1H2015 set images leaked

Update: The link to the images became invalid already. Well, at least we had a glance at the new sets. Whoever missed this will have to wait.

Monday morning … a new week has started and motivation still needs to kick in. When checking the Eurobricks Technic forum for new replies I realized there has been some action in the “Technic 2015 Discussion and Speculation” thread. And finally, a link to the leaked pictures for the Technic sets for the first half of 2015 has been posted. In fact, all currently available leaked pictures for all available product lines have been publicized. Some lines are still missing and these are just preliminary pictures, so changes will most likely happen to the sets. I won’t post the pictures directly here, but here is the link:

Leaked pictures for 1H2015

When looking at all these box images, the first half of 2015 seems to become a great time for everyone. There are some really nicely designed sets with a lot of cool new pieces along all ranges. Also TLG tries to convince more girls of Lego with a lot of new Friends sets and a new line called “Elves”. Perhaps I’ll get my nieces to ditch their Playmobil with that. And there is good news for fans of “classic” product lines. Pirates AND Bionicle are both back again.

Here are some thoughts on the new Technic sets:

42031 – Platform Truck

This is the smallest set of the wave. To me it has no real appeal. It could work as a gift or I’ll get it for myself because of boredom. Something for a spontaneous takeaway. It seems that this set has no new parts.

42032 – Compact Tracked Loader

This set seems quite interesting. It is rather small, but seems like a good parts pack. It has a lot of the smaller wide track links and the small wide bucket (which I don’t yet have). I don’t see any particular new pieces, but I like the design of this set a lot.

42033 – Action Rocket Car

This is a pullback racer. I don’t like these in general. But this one seems to have some of the dark blue panels that appeared in 41999 Crawler.  At least it looks like these panels. Also it could have 2 2×4 panels in dark blue. But that is just a guess from the picture. This is one of the sets I would just get for parts, not for looks.

42034 – Action Quad

Again a pullback racer. We always seem to get two of those. Nothing very special here, though it looks quite ok.

42035 – Dump Truck

This is one of those high load yellow dump trucks that you can find in the mining industry. Though, the scale is rather small. It is even smaller than the dump truck that has been released in City scale. It has those newer wheels from last year and also seems to feature new panels for the dump bed. The panels seem to be 5×11 in size, but one side is 5 studs long and on the other side it is 3 studs long, thus having a slope. This is the only set where this panel seems to occur, at least in the Technic line.

42036 – Street Bike

I have no motorcycles yet. So, this might find its way into my possesion. The color scheme is somewhat strange with blue and red. Also, the construction itself is not so nifty as other motorcycles have shown in the past. This seems to be one of two sets this wave that comes with flex axles, but it is “only” 2x 11L or 12L red flex axles. I also would have wished that this bike has a wider rear tire. From the picture, both tires look the same.

42037 – Formula Offroader

This set has some color problems. Obviously, racecars don’t care about color vomit. Sometimes, that is good. Other times it is bad. Here, I don’t like it that much. It has some light blue and lime green panels. The most of the rest seems to be black and dark bluish grey. I think the 3×11 long panels are new in light blue. The set seems to bring back the newer double wishbone suspension pieces (which seem to have gotten quite rare) and uses the newer wheel hubs introduced with 42000. Else, it has nothing else that is obviously new.

42038 – Tracked Arctic Vehicle

This seems to be the clear winner of the wave. It has a lot of orange parts and panels (even a 3×11 panel in orange), which is quite nice. Also it looks really good in my opinion and goes well with the arctic sets from the City line. It has four tracks which seem to be connected through the balljoints from the Unimog, which is a nice application and provides a nice suspension. Also, just the lot of track pieces is really nice. The model itself also features a crane, which gets its movement through 2 Mini-LAs. Unfortunately, the tracks don’t seem to power anything. There are no diffs and the likes. But, this set goes on my wanted list anyway. I am curious already, if someone will try to motorize it.

42039 – Long Distance Racecar

This is the biggest set from the first wave. From the picture it looks quite nice and has a nice color scheme with green, grey and white. I cannot really decide if this is dark bluish grey or light bluish grey. Could als be some kind of medium grey. We’ll definately need better pictures to know that. This set has some new fender panels, which seem to be different in the front and back. Also you’ll get some other pieces in new colors, like the slopes used in trans-clear for the headlights. We’ll get steering and there is a gear on the side which does trigger some unknow function. I assume it is for lifting the hood to inspect the motor. What you can clearly see is, that the car is pretty low on the ground. This could be a indication, that it doesn’t have suspension, but we’ll see that later. It could also be that the suspension is built horizontally like in 42000. I am not yet sold for this one. It is at least a good parts pack and provides a plethora of panels.

So, these were my thoughts on the new Technic Sets. What do you guys think? Please leave a comment below if you want to share your opinion.

On ordering supplemental parts

There are a lot of valuable ressources around Lego on the internet and today I want to talk about getting supplemental parts for specific creations. For quite some time now, I am building other peoples creations. Mostly because the models are great and also to learn how it is done and to get some inspiration for my own soon-to-come MOCs. Last weekend, Crowkillers released the instructions for his Phantasm Twin Turbo Supercar and this has initiated the MOC building cycle for me again. This consists of several steps for me.

1. Evaluating the parts lists and check what is missing
2. Compile a list of missing parts
3. Brief check of prices for missing pieces
4. Thinking about substitutions for parts with high price or very low to no availability
5. Update list of missing parts
6. Order missing parts

This is quite a list of steps to do. I do not know how others do it, but this basically sums up how I get the parts I need for certain MOCs.