Ventress' Shuttle

When the Outer Rim police pulls up to Ventress’ shuttle (“Cut your engines, drop the coffin and exit the vehicle on the starboard side”) she’s not impressed: “Two milkshakes, one strawberry, the other chocolate, three flapjacks and a Sports Illustrated!”

The police officer is taken aback. ”Excuse me?!”

But Ventress is determined: “You heard me the first time bro!”

The cop has never heard of the dark side. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

Ventress is hungry. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!!”

By the time this encounter is ended Ventress sadly still hasn't had breakfast.

“I want my flappies!” She has to stop at Urban Fare’s to finally eat.

- to be continued -

Lego candleholder

What happens when you attach a lit candle to a rotating Lego candleholder? Will the flame fade or will its shape change? Our motorized candleholder turns approx. 300 times per min. We photographed the flame while the candle was turning and obtained these fascinating photos. It appears that the shape of the flame deforms due to the lateral movement of the candle.  We used GraphicConverter to play around with the colours.       

 

Happy New Year!

Snow Lurman

Fall colors!

Cody’s Exfoliator

When Commander Cody wants to decommission rogue robots he climbs into his fearsome exfoliator tank, pulls the trigger and then it’s all pew-pew-pew.   The EPD (exfoliator projection device, also known as “zero-chance-EPD”, or “then-that’s-it-pew-pew-pew) emits magneto-electric rays that cause the droids’ CPUs to turn into a sweet, clear, semisolid, somewhat elastic spread. Each time Cody does this to a droid he yells “and then that’s it!”

      The exfoliator vehicle has a specialized, state of the art shop in the back where Cody will have the robots fitted with a new user-friendly CPU.

                                                     

                             

Minifigure shoot-out

It is always a turkey shoot! We built 2 Lego cannons for a game wherein each player tries to take out the other player's minifigures. The range betwenn the 2 bases is about 3 meters (10 feet). It's my Wookies vs. Daddy's Clone Turkey Squad, which always gets eliminated by the technologically superior Wookies.

                    

balloon chaser

Mech the Draftsman

These flower shapes were made by my Lego Ev3 mecha, equipped with a marker and following a special program written on the Mindstorms software.   Each of the 7 petals of the flowers corresponds to a group of commands in the program: A curved line, a small turn, a similar line back and another small turn. (For a curved line you have to change the speed parameters inside one command: decrease the speed of one caterpillar and increase the speed of the other.) These operations are repeated 7 times, wherefore the flower shape is created. We scanned the drawing and used GraphicConverter to color it in.

Wookie Starfighter

Most parts of this craft originate from a Lego Star Wars Wookie Gunship set that we never built. The ship features 4 inclined wings, configured so that the bottom wing and the upper winglet form a right angle. My design is therefore reminiscent of an x-wing plan.

Mech The Artist

Mech The Artist is a lego Mindstorms Ev3 mecha that used to be a battle robot (it always won against his totally weak and scared twin). We equipped it with custom-made, lego-compatible brushes, an indestructible apron and, most importantly, a specialized program. The program is a series of commands that can be written on the Ev3 software. For example, there are movement, sensory and voice commands. The program is transferred to the mecha through bluetooth connection.  Enjoy the video!

https://vimeo.com/124392044

Paper Mobile

My mobile features 4 paper triangles, the areas of which were determined through geometric calculations. We set the ratio of the triangles' areas to be 4 : 2 : 1 : 1.  The area (therefore weight) of the biggest triangle equals the area of the other triangles combined. We added weights in the form of magnets to each of the triangles, proportional to their respective area.

trandoshan bounty hunter cargo ship

This craft is a Trandoshan cargo vessel that is used to collect tax from around the galaxy. As bounty hunters the Trandoshans prefer payments to be made in gold or silver or even platinum. The ship features a modular design, inasmuch as the command module, the cargo module and the propulsion module can be separated.  The cargo module is built around a large container that holds the collections of precious metals.

Lego kaleidoscope

The centerpiece of my kaleidoscope is a triangular paper tube with holes and a reflecting inside surface. The tube is made to rotate by a motor and there is a camera that looks down the middle.  Although it rotates with the tube, the camera registers shifts in light patterns. That is because the light entering the tube changes its angle and the reflections inside shift accordingly.

Kaleidoscope photos

These photos were made with a Lego kaleidoscope that we built today.

I will be describing the mechanism in a later post.

Imperial Reconnaissance Ship

In order to listen to rebel broadcasts, this ship is equipped with 6 fin-like antennas, mounted on the inclined wings. The principle parts of the cockpit come from “Emperor Palpatine's shuttle”, one of my first Lego sets. The antennas are taken from a Lego Technic helicopter set.

Energy Saving House

Several weeks ago I built a Lego house for a school project that was called "Sharing the Planet". It is supposed to be a model, not to the scale of minifigures, but demonstrating the concept of an Energy Saving House. The solar panels on the roof of my model collect energy from the sun, which compared to fossil fuels, isn't harming the environment. The panels can actually swivel, to maximize their energy yield by following the sun around the sky.

Millennium mini flyer

A while ago I blogged about a Lego vessel we called the Millennium Ship. This mini flyer, designed just by me, can attach to the bottom of the mother ship. This little ship is pretty complex for its size, a number of hinges accommodate the inclined wings. The pink thingy on the top was an extra piece from General Grievous' wheel bike....