As the contest was announced I felt I had tons of ideas but no time to build anything. Still, I had an inspiration about snowmobiles, which are severely under-represented in Technic, and as I had no idea how such a vehicle would actually be built I had to do some research on their inner workings. I found out that the suspension and transmission designs for snowmobiles can be fascinatingly complex and right there in the core of what it means to build Technic. So despite my severe lack of time, I will attempt to build such a vehicle, not based on any particular brand but as a generic representation of what a snowmobile should be and do.

One thing apparently most modern snowmobiles have is a continuously variable transmission, which is really hard to replicate in Technic (at least in a manner that can actually transmit some power instead of being just a conceptual demonstration), so I'm not yet sure what to do about that, but meanwhile I started out with the rear sled and its suspension. A few hours of trial and error I ended up with something that seems to do what I wanted it to, as shown here in the photos:

Excited to see how the track will fit and look at this scale.

Those new shock absorbers look so much more realistic in larger scale models.

Curiously following this, because this would have been my idea as well (maybe that's what's closest to an off-roader :) ) but I am not pursuing it due to lack of time.. Interested in the mechanics of the suspension as well.

1 hour ago, Heppu said:

Excited to see how the track will fit and look at this scale.

Those new shock absorbers look so much more realistic in larger scale models.

I'm a bit worried about the scale, as this thing is going to be very large. Hopefully I have enough parts and it won't become too unwieldy to handle as the build progresses. I already did some modifications to the sled in order to make it a bit smaller. Next up is fitting the tracks.

I am excited to see how this turns out! I built a similarly large-scale snowmobile a couple years ago, though mine was a high-performance RC one with no bodywork, and there's definitely some interesting stuff you can do with them!