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After releasing Khagaan I hit a bit of a building block. I built something ridiculous to get out of the funk. More pictures: Flickr link Very grateful for imurvai's android game controller app. It's frickin' glorious. Currently, the wheels have 22,5 degrees negative camber. I'm pretty sure 45 degrees is possible, but at this scale it'd be tricky. I really wanted to use 3-pin wheel connectors, since I'm pretty sure the wheels would just slide off otherwise. I really don't like that this steering arm has friction, but what can you do. This stuff is bad for your tires: Hope y'all like it.

Very impressive machine, and the shaping and coloring is spot on. It must've been a major pain to fit all the mechanics in there. But in the mean time, best of luck with your cold. Hope you'll get better soon.

This is just a short "thank you" post- your program works magnificently, and it's very easy to set up. I'm impressed. One question though; is there support for skid steering? It was mentioned somewhere in may last year, but I can't find anything else in the thread or documentation.

Very sweet! I'm a sucker for compact cars, and less weight means more speed. I hope you'll film this at some point, I reckon this one is fast as hell. Very nice panel work, too.

That's some solid work. The renders look really nice, interesting to see how the drive motors are set at an angle.

All the motor info you'll ever need is here: http://www.philohome.com/motors/motorcomp.htm

Tommy Styrvoky actually ran with it. Here's what he has produced so far: Sadly, I haven't had time to do some good work on this myself yet, but I hope his work helps you along. Tommy, thanks for helping out.

I think it's a pretty decent set. Then again, I also think that gearboxes add literally zero playability*, so make of that what you will. *If they're used to power different functions, that's brilliant. If they're used to move the pistons at 6 separate barely distinguishable speeds, I'm not impressed.

I would advise against crumbled biscuits; that stuff will get everywhere, jamming up gears. Also, it'll slip through every tiny crack there is. I wouldn't be surprised that stuff left behind will get pretty funky after a while. I've seen other folks use coarse sawdust (I suppose like the stuff for hamster cages). It's light, airy, doesn't biodegrade as much. Personally, I'd look for some sort of plastic solution. Perhaps buy tons of regular technic pins? They're very cheap on bricklink if you buy them in massive quantities.

Excellent solution, great camera work.

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The model looks very nice and functional, but did you just lock that angle connector #2 inside that 7x5 frame?

Indeed.I'm sure that in time we'll have third-party solutions, but as far as I know Lego themselves have no intentions of releasing software for PC or Mac.

So, if I turned any of these things into an LDD file, which one would you prefer?

Technically, not much. I just made it look a lot better. Also, I built the environment (rocks, crashed spaceships, dunes and so on) It was very much inspired by that game. I'll try and see if I can get some done. If the nanofigs (without base) are 2 meters high, Khagaan would measure about 182 meters in length. A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is around 332 meters long. I'm not really great at naming. What would you suggest? That's so cool! I hope you'll post it here. And everyone else, thank you so much for your kind words. It's been a long haul, but it was worth it.

An estimated 25000 parts, 9kg, 109cm long. (That's 20 pounds, 43 inches). For Lego Space builders there's a tradition: SHIPtember. Each September, any Lego fan can try to build a SHIP. (Also known as a Seriously Huge Investment in Parts). It's typically for spaceships, but I think landships work just fine. Minimum length of 100 studs, preferably to be built in a single month. Khagaan took three. The two smaller vehicles took a month each. Now I've finally finished filming and editing, it's Shiptember again. So in that way, it's perfectly on time :) More pictures:

So, how I expected the poll to go: 1- Power functions 2- Mindstorms 3- Premade Lego RC base 4- Sbrick 5- BuWizz 6- Other To that poll, my answers would be: 1- Power functions if the model is slow and/or used mostly indoors 2- Sbrick if the model needs precise control, needs to work both inside and outside without interference, and if I can be bothered with their software. So yeah... put me down for "fully remotely controlled".

To those who are wondering about the capabilities of the programming environment, I tried to illustrate some bogus programs: So you get your loops, if->then statements, mathematical operations, access to sensor data and dog knows what else. To clear screen space, programs can be "wrapped up", as in: multiple screens full of instructions can be represented by a single operation square onscreen. Sure, you're not going to build the large hadron collider with this thing. However, this still seems like ample functionality to me, and that's just after playing around with this for 5 minutes. Some more pictures of programming blocks: (Not really sure what all of them do; there's no text, and my batteries gave out)

Some instructions are online here: http://robotics.benedettelli.com/lego-boost-17101-building-instructions/ (The 3D printer/factory model is there, though). As far as I know, the app only runs on tablets, no computers or cell phones. That is until the coders get their hands on it, of course. (Seeing how many people still prefer studded construction to the studless stuff, this should be right up their alley).

So, my set came in today. If you're unclear of what it is, check Sariel's preliminary vid here: So far I built the cat, and I'm very impressed by the solidity of the system. The programming interface is simple but powerful, and communicates everything clearly without words. The commands are simplified for the official builds, so instead of manually programming [rotate motor B clockwise for one second, then anticlockwise for one second, repeat 4 times] you get a command block that says [cat wags tail] Of course, once you get into working with your own models, there's an option of dealing with motor speed, direction, rotation sensors and everything directly. First impressions: The models are well thought out, and due to smart color selection parts are easy to find, yet have a coherent colorscheme. Parts selection is superb, design of the app is pleasant and clear. Only 6 penlites, and no way to power models with an external powersource? That's going to take either a whole lot of batteries, or buying some rechargeables. Powering the unit off to save on batteries means holding the power button for 10+ seconds, and even then it can be unclear wether the unit is really off. The electronics provided should bring ample functionality. (internal tilt sensor, external light/distance sensor, two internal motors and one external motor). So, if you have any questions, I might be able to answer them.

If you're limited to outdoor shooting, make sure you film on an overcast day. If you have a single lightsource (the sun, in this case) you'll get very bright, sharp highlights, and the rest of the model will fade in pure blackness. Also, you don't need any "special lights" for most photography jobs. I usually make do with one or two desk lamps. I don't aim them at the model itself, but I point them at a white wall or white piece of paper. That way, you get light that's more distributed and even. Or, if you want to go absolutely hog-wild: The way I made these: 1. Get a fully darkened room. 2. put your model on a dark background. 3. Put your camera on a tripod, and make sure it ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT MOVE. 4. Use a single light source, and light your model from an interesting angle. As said before, you can also reflect light off a piece of paper to get a more diffuse effect. 5. Take a picture, and repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have a metric arseload of pictures. Since you're photographing a static model on a tripod, you can use very long exposure times if you want. Sometimes I use a single LED with an exposure time of 15 seconds. Whatever works. 6. Use photoshop to blend all the different pictures together. You'll have to use the photoshop levels or curves commands to get rid of anything but the highlights in the pictures you take. Put each different picture on a separate layer, and set their blending modes to "screen". This means only the highlights of each picture will show through. 7. (optional) Especially with black models, you can easily color each layer with photoshop (image>adjust>hue/saturation) to get some interesting effects.

Very impressive.

Wrong. If it's not posted under a creative commons license (or something like it) it's owned by the video creator, and you legally can't do anything with it unless you have permission of the owner. Of course, this being the internet, nobody seems to give a flying fadoodle about that.

One thing that I think is often overlooked: Film from the perspective of the model. Put your camera at the eye level of how someone in real life would look at the real thing. If you want to exagerrate, put it even lower, so your model looks really imposing. To illustrate: This looks like a little toy: This looks better: And this looks imposing: Also, camera vehicles are my thing. A shot in motion can look so much better. In the video below, starting at 1:00, you can see some of the moving camera vehicles I've been using: Pictures of them can be found here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskbvDFFb https://flic.kr/s/aHsjBiapbW Now, often these can take quite a bit of time and effort to build. Also, you'll need to work around the specific camera you'll be using. (Pro tip: use rubber bands to attach your camera. Easy and solid fit guaranteed!) However, they give an amazing effect.