Lego

[Flake2m]

I am sure 95% of the members here have some lego models or have stuffed around with it before.
I have tons of the gear and I have gained an intrest particuarly in pneumatics and in gear trains.but Alas, most of my lego is non technic so isn't as useful because I dont have alot of gears or pnuematic stuff.
At school the systems room use to have a massive tray of the stuff which the teacher had to keep me away from due to my ability to waste away hours of my time (and theirs) building something totally irrelevant (such as a tank, catapult, trebuchet etc).
Who else hear still has some good experience with Lego and some good models?

[T_Pyro]

I love the technic range because it's so simple to create "devices" with it, that would have normally been out of my budget! My only grudge is that the 9V motor that comes with the set doesn't supply enough torque, and tends to get overloaded quite easily... :(
I'd once tried making a centrifuge, but I had to use it for periods of upto 5 minutes at a stretch to get any useful separation of ppt, hence it used to trip the thermal fuse way too often. I'm currently using my own 3V motor instead, and it's still more powerful than the lego 9V one!
Once I start earning, I'd like to save up for a mindstorms kit... Anyone lucky enough to have one? <turns green with "J">

[knowledgehungry]

I made a very nice trebuchet, about 2 feet tall, it fired maybe 20 feet.

[T_Pyro]

Whoaa! What was the source of the energy for the trebuchet? Did you use the standard weighted end approach, or did you have to use some elastic bands? The technic pieces sure are stronger than they seem. Did you notice any buckling/bending of parts?

[scarletmanuka]

My little step brother has the sar wars robotics type kit, where he has made one of those big robot four legged things from the dark side. It can be told to follow a flash light and other novelty things like that, so one of those kits would be pretty useful. Sadly he doesn't live with me, so I cant raid his lego. But I do have a large meccano selection, which still proves to be absolutely invaluable.

[Flake2m]

I might buy a few kits this years that use complex gear trains and pnuematics. Since it'd be useful for university study and its fun and more constructive then computer games.
Damn if only universitys' had a "Lego Engineering" course. I'd have a phD in it.

[Blackhawk]

I too have a crapload of lego and legomindstorms (The robotic kit). I have also found a box of old mechano is also invaluable for bodging together long lasting mechanisms such as the trigger on my aircan-rifle.

[knowledgehungry]

Just standard weight powered, there was some bending but not a lot.

[Jacks Complete]

The mindstorms kit rocks! You can hack it to do all sorts. Sadly, I never really got started in it, so it sits in a box. I need to get some technics so I can build something a bit cooler to automate.

I decided to drop £120 on some PICs, as the mindstorms kit is too expensive to turn into a permanent digital lock or whatever.

I kind of find the potential is a bit OTT though. When you have a kit that can do pretty much anything at all, what do you have it do? Doesn't that seem wasteful for a £150 kit?

It's a bit like fibreglass. You could make any shape, but repairing something is far, far easier than building a monocoque hull for a battle robot.

Enough rambling...

[Flake2m]

I have been browsing in Toy stores and searching online for Lego Technic. I seem to find bugger all. The overall quality of the models is in decline.
The last model I bought was in '96-'97 the Lego catalogue had atleast 12 technic models are varying difficulty including the uber technic model the space shuttle (1300+ bits). Now I look through the catalogue and I see crap. The is like 4-5 models. One is decent but almost impossible to get in stores and the rest are to easy to make.

I dont want to have to order online, but its looks like I will and I ain't paying $30 for p&h.

[Anthony]

I have that shuttle kit :) I decided to build it up last week out of nostalgia. I'd recently been into a Lego shop and really wasn't impressed with the kits. There weren't any big ones at all, and they were pretty expensive.

Technic Lego was always my favourite toy. Having built up the shuttle again, I can still appreciate the people who design these kits. The four-way shiftable gearbox in the shuttle than runs everything from one motor is pretty neat.

[Chainhit 2]

I have some lego's. I never built anything impresive out of lego though. Unless you count a crappy crossbow I made when it was raining outside. I usually build stationary objects, like tanks or model fighter jets. I prefer knex for mobile things. I made a catapult style thing out of them, its all in the base. I tried to make a trebuchet out of legos but i was unsecsesful with the weights... is a mangol possible with legos? They dont need to be as big...

[PobodysNerfect]

While I used to play with Lego quite a lot as a child, I grew out of it at the age of twelve. However I still used the occasional Lego Technic model for something or other, and I found them to be quite useful.

However, looking at the newer range, I see that the Lego Technic quality has downgraded quite a bit; it is really quite appalling compared to what it used to be a few years ago. Furthermore, obtaining the decent models is rather difficult here in Western Australia since the toy stores sell mainly Lego models aimed at children (there is a girls Lego set now, believe it or not) and the Technic models which are sold are the low quality ones.

I personally think that Lego robotics is quite fun, however I also feel that it is too expensive to mod or use in single-use projects. Technic is much better for these purposes, and I would appreciate if somebody in the area knew where to get the better models.