Woodpecker

Excellent series! I am getting better at physics and math from your videos.

Fair enough. I should have done more research.

The term "purist" is often treated subjectively, being based upon the builder's interpretation of what is pure. For example, I consider any part that is manufactured by TLG pure, even obscure parts like part 32068, as well as all rubber bands, even those not manufactured by TLG. That's where I draw the line. @howitzer draws the line before I do. Even so, I think that if we both build MOCs that abide by our own standards we will probably both consider them "pure". I think there is a degree of accomplishment and distinction that comes with abiding by your own subjective definition of purity. That's certainly the case for me. Creating a MOC that abides by the rules you established at the very least gives the illusion of a challenge—it may not have been an actual challenge if your MOC would have abided by the rules even when you didn't care about the rules—or it is an actual challenge; in either case, this makes subjective purism special due to the sense of accomplishment. @Erik Leppen's examples also show that subjective purism seems to be becoming less popular, replaced by a more unrestricted approach. This means that those who do "practice" subjective purism are doing something that is becoming more and more unique, and many find this rewarding. Despite this, builders like @Toastie may not consider subjective purism a challenge; instead, they may consider it a hindrance which prevents them from realising their full potential. Or they just might find it unnecessary. The same goes for the uniqueness that comes with subjective purism. I can see why others would remain totally indifferent to being in an echelon that has standards which eventually may even limit their true capabilities. There might even be a middle ground where people who follow an unrestricted approach envy subjective purists or the concept of subjective purism because they couldn't build their MOCs abiding by the standards they established at the start of the building process. Or people might abide by one case of subjective purism wishing they could have drawn the line earlier and followed a different case of subjective purism. That is why I believe that some builders care about subjective purism, some builders somewhat care about subjective purism, and others don't. There are valid arguments on all sides. I also believe that there is such a thing as objective purism; objective purism is when you only build out of LEGO parts. This includes stickers, old parts, new parts, LEGO strings, LEGO rubber bands, etc. But nothing that is not LEGO. I am not an objective purist because I use non-LEGO rubber bands. Everything that applies to subjective purism also applies to objective purism because objective purism constitutes a certain case of subjective purism, which is why this post has been centred around subjective purism.

Interesting idea. I like how you exploited a property of the differential that was disadvantageous to me because I wanted the input and output of my gearbox with differential to be reversible. Regarding the new differential, how many teeth does the double bevel gear connected to the housing have? Also, does the torque detector using the worm gear work regardless of the direction of the rotation of the input?

Thanks TechnicBrickPower; your explanation made sense. Very helpful. I will use those equations to calculate the gear ratios in my six speed gearbox that uses a differential.

Why do you have to multiply everything by a factor of two to calculate the gear ratio when dealing with a differential?

I think this would put people posting in both "criticism allowed" and "criticism not allowed" sections in unhealthy positions. Those who post in "criticism allowed" may place undo weight on the fact that they, and they alone, have the power to let other people criticise their work. This is, of course, a bit of an exaggeration, but even so, this power should not be normalised as everywhere else in the world, people will be criticised whether they like it or not. Also, those who post in "criticism allowed" will occasionally receive insults, and understandably get defensive. This could lead to a situation where there is barely any constructive criticism at all; just one forum for insults or very harsh criticisms telling those who point out the fruitlessness of these so-called "criticisms" to switch to the "criticism not allowed" forum and one forum—the people in the "criticism not allowed" forum—where people miss out on the opportunity to improve their MOCs or WIPs with the help of experienced builders, not to mention the unrealistic nature of a situation where, after posting publicly, one does not receive criticism.

I'm not sure what you mean here. For example, for someone who's gearbox isn't running smoothly would an example of a quick, instant solution be repeatedly loosening the gears and moving them farther away from sources of friction? By contrast, in this situation would the more comprehensive fix be to build a better support structure around the gearbox, (i.e. fixing the underlying issue)?

As a new member, I'm definitely excited about posting on EB; however, as someone who is also relatively new to Lego in general, I feel unsure about criticising too heavily because I don't really know what I am talking about. I know the best way to act in this situation is to stay quiet and wait until I'm fairly confident before posting something, but at the same time I want to be involved, level up, get new ideas, etc. And I'm worried that for me, this will come at the cost of poor responses. I can definitely see the challenge members (especially ones newer to Lego) face in this situation.

Would it not be more efficient to use the old gear shifter instead of the Chiron selector for the two speed gearbox? That way you wouldn't have to use two driving rings and you could save space. I guess the shifting mechanism would be more complicated, but you still might be able to make it more compact.

Exactly. The first of Sheepo's cars I ever saw was the Mercedes-Benz 300SL '54 Gullwing. By the time my brother and I saw the disk brakes, we realised that we were dealing with a whole new level of Lego expertise. Not to mention that Sheepo even managed to include a speed indicator, for goodness sakes! Since then I have watched many more of Sheepo's videos and continue to be amazed by the level of complexity and functionality of his models.

Personally, I think that some of Sheepo's MOCs are better than anything TLG could ever build, even if TLG had no constraints. I would assume that the people who are truly the most talented when it comes to LEGO are unlikely to work at TLG because they would get bored of all the limitations; i.e., the best builders in the world will inevitably not be found within TLG, meaning that if it were a race between what TLG can do (without constraints) versus what the best AFOLs could do (without constraints), I think MOCs would prevail.

Cool design! What car are you going to use it in?