AVCampos

... and people would be complaining that the instructions were confusing and that parts were too hard to tell apart from each other.

In the meanwhile, those of you that hate neon yellow can send the parts over to me: that'll help convince me to make a Technic M:Tron MOC.

Thread resurrection! Last week I used my GoPro and remote controller (Wi-Fi, 2.4 GHz) to film my RC boat MOC, and the camera lost connection as soon as I submerged it (about 1 metre of water between camera and controller), which illustrates how difficult it is to send wireless signals underwater. This got me thinking: if lower radio frequencies have better range and penetration in air, does the same happen in water, and, if so, would it be possible to adapt a cheap analogue 27 MHz transmitter/receiver to wirelessly control a LEGO submarine to decent swimming pool ranges? Has anyone done such a thing? I remember watching some videos some time ago about a guy building a LEGO submarine inside a plastic box and using magnets to transfer motion to outboard propellers, but I don't recall how it was controlled.

Space permitting, would the new large LEGO CV joints be a viable alternative?

Well, personally I find both models of that set repetitive (but still applaud the rare existence of a B-model) and the colour scheme bad for MOCing (another chapter in the Fifty Shades of Blue saga), and much prefer the motorcycle; but that doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, just that people have different tastes and it's impossible for TLG to please everyone.

People in this thread build sets that don't have colour coding, and sorely miss it. Anyway, if you want a challenge and don't want to feel your intelligence insulted, you can always try building without looking at the parts callout in each step...

Why not dark grey and olive green?

Perhaps because replacing white and neon yellow for regular yellow would make it too similar to the 9696?

From New Elementary, the same place those two photos were taken from: https://www.newelementary.com/2022/07/lego-technic-review-42145-airbus-h175.html

Hmm, I wonder where he got that "night shot" photo... [edit] Also the one at 1:43, which "unexplainably" has no stickers.

Hmm, that's a good idea. Albeit closing it back would become harder, even if meanwhile I managed to find a suitable screwdriver, and building with it might become a little bit harder, what with the broken and/or warped bits.

The box should also said "screwdriver not included".

Isn't the 30433 enough for you!?

I wanted to use that feature in a boat, to put it in reverse in case of loss of control and hopefully get back to me. But gave up, not because of Pybricks, but rather the short range of the controller-hub link... I ended up using a Chinese controller and receiver instead of official LEGO stuff.

I have always done it by short-pressing the button to stop the program, then long-pressing to turn the hub off. Doesn't that work for you? It's possible to detect a remote control disconnect by catching an exception (I don't remember which). Then it's a matter of existing a method that turns off the hub.

It can be the opposite: under some artificial lighting, fluorescent LEGO colours pop out more, so they may look duller under sunlight.

Indeed. And to me, the no. 2 problem is the lack of a more advanced remote controller. Something like a modern console gamepad (with analogue sticks and plenty of buttons), but usable by LEGO hubs without a mobile device as an intermediary.. I use rechargeable AA/AAAs, which last a lot less than hours, but, like a proprietary Li-Ion, can be recharged (granted, in an external charger, with all the hassle that it implies). But, when those finally die out, whether rechargeable or not, more replacements can easily be bought anywhere. That's why 4.5V LEGO trains can still be run nowadays.

It's still a proprietary battery, with no guaranteed long-term (in the order of decades) support.

Hah, the same happened with me and the RCX and NXT: I ditched TLG's official software and used fan-made stuff instead, much better. But IMO rechargeable batteries have the same problem as mobile apps: when (not if) they stop working, we get expensive paperweights. Until a standardised Li-Ion battery appears, I'll keep preferring AA/AAA. And a discussion about a set devolves again into the usual PF/PU discussion...

Well, to be honest, I don't detest Control+... it lets us do nifty things beyond simple remote control (like a truck that I'm designing, that uses the gyro to optionally stabilise an onboard camera), with Pybricks there's no need for lugging around a phone, and it's actually usable outdoors. But I agree with the detestation of one peripheral per port (edit: which could have been averted if TLG adopted something like CAN Bus), the absence of "plug and play", and the rather small number of controls available in the LEGO physical remote controller.

Maybe Boeing got angry at TLG for all the kerfuffle surrounding the Osprey, and Airbus jumped at the chance? Anyway, TLG appeasing two bitter rivals has been seen before, with Ferrari and Lamborghini; I don't think it's entirely coincidental that the very next 1:8 Technic supercar following the Lamborghini was a Ferrari.

An authentic-working tail rotor needs collective control (thankfully no cyclic), so, judging from the size of the mechanism in the collective-only 9396, and unless new specialised moulds are created, a LEGO helicopter with collective tail would have to be huge.

That's probably used only for small rotors, as anything spinning doesn't like to have its orientation changed (due to conservation of angular momentum), and the larger the rotor the harder it is to change its orientation.

An alternative to that could be an "upload" button in Pybricks, which the user could use to directly import a .py file into the hub (with an "install with firmware" option). Not sure about the security aspect of dealing with unknown code without letting the user see it, though.