Every once in a while you stumble across something that is just really cool. This morning I was reading the Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter and in the Off Topic section it had a link to a a Lego MindStorms robot that solves Rubik?s cube. Well I just had to check that out.
Check out the Tilted Twister web site and make sure to watch the video. If you have ever puzzled over Rubik’s cube, this will really fascinate you. There are instruction available if you want to build your own.
For the past day or so I have been playing with LPub4 here and there. I am happy to post the first results of my efforts. I can only say “wow” – Kevin Clague is the man! I never thought I would see the day where we would have WYSIWYG creation LEGO instructions but that is what you get with LPub4.
I have very few complaints – what Kevin has done is simply amazing. If you have ever been interested in creating your own instructions but have shied away because of the complexity of the process, you should give LPub a look!
CTB-6500 is a Monster Truck I built years ago which I have used for NCLTC layouts. It is one of my favorite trucks and at one time I had visions of offering it as a kit. Somewhere in the bowels of my basement I have a stash of the large tires which came from the Model Team 5561 Big Foot 4×4.
This entire set of instructions was created with LPub4 except the cover which was done with L3PAO, L3P, and POV-Ray.
A PDF version of the instructions will be available soon.
It has been a while since I have done much LEGO CAD work. After doing it almost every day during the LEGO Hobby Train project, I got a bit burned out on it too. Taking a model and turning it into good quality instructions was an incredibly time consuming process and one of the primary reasons I stopped doing kits.
When Kevin Clague first released LPub I was hopeful that it would make the instruction process easier and it did but at the same time, it posed a different set of challenges. I could never quite get it working to the point I was happy with it and instead remained with my manual process of batch scripting LDLite.
Recently one of my co-workers has gotten involved with a FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team and wanted to do some CAD work. I was able to get him up and running and in the process, decided I ought to get myself tooled up again.
I have a pretty elaborate VMware configuration I use for some things at work which works really well to create an isolated environment. I created a LEGO CAD VM from my solid XP base and installed all of the relevant LEGO CAD tools including the latest version of LPub. All I can say is wow. The default instructions are usable although if you have a lot of callouts, which I tend to have, it will generate a lot of pages. So now I have some learning to do but the initial results are so favorable, that I don’t mind spending some cycles on it.
My first project will be this Monster Truck which I built a while ago and had started capturing in ML-CAD but never finished. I finished capturing it this morning and was able to render this image.
With the new 2009 Pirates out, there will be a Pirates display of some sort at LEGOPalooza. I have dug out the island I built for the NCLUG Pirates of the Caribbean display we did at the Raleigh Grande Theater a few years ago, dusted it off, and put it back together. I will likely bring this and a bunch of baseplates for water. I don’t have any Pirate ships assembled right now and don’t expect I will for LEGOPalooza either.
This island is an adaptation of the 3739 Blacksmith Shop. The shop itself is largely unchanged, I just made it look more like a tavern and added some surrounding material to it. It’s Happy Hour!
There is a suggestion to build some modules following the new Forbidden Cove modular standard. I am a big fan of standards but this one is a little odd in that using 6×10 plates doesn’t integrate well with standard 16×16, 16×32, or 32×32 basplates. If the group go ahead and decides to do something using the standard then I’ll see if I can build something small to bring along.
I decided to do a little early Christmas shopping with the 15% off TRU coupon so I went to TRU on Thursday. Looks like they have most of the 2009 sets out. I have wanted a collection of Imperial Soldiers to make a marching band since I saw Joe Meno?s on one of our Christmas layout?s years ago so I was checking out the new Pirates sets and noticed this:
When I first saw the small set with one Imperial Soldier I thought ? perfect, I?ll pick some of these up and assemble my marching band but at a $5.00 price point, that will be expensive. Then I realized the Canon Battle set had the same Minifg plus a Pirate and some parts for only $1 more. So I bought it instead to check it out.
If those small sets were $3 they would be impulse buys and I would buy a bunch of them. At $5 they are too expensive for an impulse buy. These two small sets look like victims of a TRU markup.
Carolina Train Builders on Bricklink
