Streetsweeper

I am in a dry point of Lego inspiration. Nothing I attempt seems to grab me these days.

Recently, I was in a toy store and saw a European model of a street sweeper.  I figured that would be something easy to get me back into Lego building. This piece turned out to be tougher than I imagined it would be. I like how upside down wooden tubs make pretty good sweeper brushes. I think these turned out OK. The problem was figuring out how to attach them. Lego is just not designed for SNOT (Studs Not On Top) building. There are no plug-to-plug or jack-to-jack pieces. Those tubs as brushes took a lot of experimentation. I did it, though, using axles and round bricks. It works, but it’s very fragile.

Overall, I am satisfied with this piece.

S is for Sentinel

White Speeder

Here I am, building in white again. My goal was to build a wheeled vehicle that used discs instead of traditional Lego wheels. I’d seen a picture of a streamline motorcycle somewhere that had covers over the wheels, and I thought it looked pretty nice. It took a lot of experimentation to get this piece built. Somewhere in the experimentation, I decided I wanted a three-wheeled vehicle – maybe influenced by that streamlined motorcycle. Originally, the third, single, wheel was going to be in the back.

That single wheel proved to be the trickiest part of the build. One disc by itself  didn’t look right. Two discs together looked right, but weren’t a standard studs’ width. After trying various axles, and off-stud configurations, I stumbled upon the idea of three discs together – which turned out to be exactly two studs wide. I put a gray stud between two white ones, and came up with an interesting tread pattern. Once I got that problem figured out, the rest of the build came together fairly easily. The two wheels somehow moved to the back of the design, and the driver’s compartment became enclosed, and it ended up slightly less than minifig scale.

I like the way this turned out. Phillip says it looks like something from THX 1138, and I agree. Once again, I’m not sure how the driver gets in and out of this vehicle.

Another Personal Hovercraft

I started off building a small hovercraft with a checklist of things it had to have. It had to have a snub nose. It had to have attention paid to the sides of the cockpit. (In other words, no flat sides.) It had to have curves as well as many unexpected angles. It had to have either three or four arms for the vertical lift jets. (Obviously, I decided on three.) It has all of these things and more. I am very happy with this creation. In fact, I love this little hovercraft. I have nothing negative to say about it.

Independent rudders deflect the thrust for maneuverability

Flying Rocket Scooter

I’ve noticed that, very often, when I build a spaceship, I tend to wonder, afterwards, how the pilot is supposed to climb in and out of the ship. So, I set out to build a scooter-type ship with a skinny middle section that the pilot could easily hop onto and off of. The nose of this scooter ended up being bulkier than I had envisioned, but, overall, I think this turned out very well. It went together quickly, except for the handlebars. A minifig’s arms don’t have much flexibility, and it took a lot of experimentation to come up with something the pilot could hold with both hands at the same time. (At one point, I considered cheating and having the pilot waving with one hand in the air.)