Febrovery, the annual building bandwagon in which ground-based science-fiction vehicles take over Flickr, is complete for another year. Which means it’s complete here too, which is good news for TLCB Team – who are uniformly crap at sci-fi – but not before we have one final rover to showcase. And what a rover it is.
Measuring 117 studs in length and riding on eight enormous tyres from the 42054 Claas Xerion 5000 amongst other Technic sets, Scott Wilhelm’s ‘Ridiculously Oversized Vehicular Element Repository’ features remote control drive and steering (via XL and L Power Functions motors), a working cargo crane, five airlock doors, a retractable solar array, a fully fitted interior, and spectacular internal and external LED lighting.
More pictures are due to follow, but until they do you can check out this one at Scott’s photostream via the link above. Until next year, happy roving!
Cosmic Crystal. Space Speed. Galactic Gak. Lunar Cookie. It’s absolutely definitely not what is going on inside Thomas of Tortuga‘s exquisitely-rendered ‘Humbert Radar Vehicle’.
Board your Rocket Ship* to join the cook via the link above!
*Yes, we have just Googled slang words for methamphetamine and turned them spacey.
TLCB Staff, being curmudgeonly bores, think that Rovers are old British cars of increasing mediocrity. The Online Lego Community however, thinks the word means something far more whimsical.
2024’s ‘Febrovery‘ – wherein dozens of extraordinary planetary exploration vehicles are constructed – is well underway, and we have another two wonderfully diverse rovers-of-the-spacey-type here today.
The first (above) is the delightfully hued ‘Greeble Transport Rover’, built to carry the tiny grey pieces that make up the most science-fictiony parts of spaceships. Ironically needing none itself, the ‘Greeble Transport Rover’ is instead a riot of colour, and there’s more to see courtesy of Febrovery veteran Frost.
Our second rover (below) forgoes the colour of Frost’s machine replacing it with earthy greys. Four sets of tracks and a great many triangles complete the utilitarian look, and there’s more to see of Horcik Designs‘ ‘Rover Expedition Ready’ at his photostream on Flickr.
Click the final two links above to see more of each rover, and the first if you fancy checking out the Febrovery building bonanza in full, where there’s not an old British car to be found anywhere. We promise.
The early design philosophy of LEGO’s Classic Space theme was to take an item of mundane earthly equipment, paint it grey, and add a satellite dish. Cue Dump trucks, mini-diggers, floor-buffers, and – in this case – a horse-box and trailer.
Taking LEGO’s 452 ‘Mobile Ground Tracking Station’ (aka Space Horsebox), Flickr’s Frost (aka TFDesigns!) has rebooted the vintage set with parts four decades newer, to marvellous effect.
Opening the rear reveals no horse, but handily there’s an array of delightfully spacey equipment available to track one down.
There’s more of Frost’s fantastic 452 Redux to see at his photostream, and you can join the Classic Space shenanigans via the link above.
The annual space-based buildathon that is Febrovery is here for another year, in which a myriad of mini-figure scale lunar rover of all shapes, themes, colours and sizes will join the thousands already present in the long-running Flickr group.
Previous bloggee Nikolaus Lowe is roving rather differently however, having built his Febrovery entry in Technic-figure scale. It’s also rather contemporary looking, owing more than a little of its aesthetic to the 1971 ‘LRV’ (or ‘moon buggy’), the only actual manned lunar rover to exist.
Working steering and a constantly rotating radar dish are included, and you join Nikolaus technically roving at his photostream. Click the link above to get your rove on.
Yes the annual festival of all things other-worldly is over for another year, with a smorgasbord of wonderful roving contraptions entered, about which we know exactly nothing. We’re not sure what our strong suit is, or even if we have one at all, but we certainly know it isn’t sci-fi.
But before TLCB staff can breathe a collective sigh of relief and return to writing about the engine capacities of 1960s British sedans, here are two final Febrovery rovers, as entered by Julius Kanand and Nathan Hake of Flickr, and about which – as is customary – we know exactly nothing.
Both look great though, with Julius’ final Febrovery ’23 rover (above) available to view at his photostream (where an array of other rovers can also be found), and Nathan’s fully remote controlled entry (below), complete with articulated steering, 8×8 drive, and an ingenious LEGO Spikes Colour Sensor front light, available to view at his.
Take a look via the links above, and you can check out all the Febrovery madness from this year by clicking here.
…but what you do with it. And least that’s what this TLCB Writer tells himself. It’s a self-support mechanism that’s never been truer than with today’s post too, as we have two enormous-looking FebRovery rovers that are actually really rather small indeed.
The first deceptively-scaled creation comes from Oscar Cedarwall of Flickr, whose ‘Multi-Purpose Terrain Rover’ has gained an apparent massiveness thanks to a cleverly constructed landscape and the use of LEGO’s tiny one-stud figures. Top notch presentation and appropriately wide-angle photography maximise the illusion, and there’s more to see of Oscar’s optical trickery at his photostream.
Our second not-very-big-at-all creation is really very small indeed, utilising a body just one stud square and LEGO’s chain components, more commonly found on Technic motorcycles, for the tracks beneath it. Created by TLCB favourite David Roberts, the ‘Planetary Explorer’ is one of the tiniest FebRovery entries yet, and there’s more to see (although not that much more) at David’s photostream.
Click the links above to see how it really is ‘what you do with it’ that counts.
It’s FebRovery, and this is an ‘NTERRA B400 MEGA HAULER’, the latest in industrial grade multi-directional rovers from the [ S E /\ Z Y ] corporation.
Able to service an entire moderately-sized colony*, the NTERRA B400 can take a gigantic load*, thanks to an enormous tilting deck with a 300 ton payload capacity and its ‘revolving mecanum wheels’.
Rendered in Bricklink Studio 2.0 with considerable post-production enhancement, [ S E /\ Z Y ]’s gargantuan design shows what’s possible when taking digital building to the extreme, and there’s more to see of his moon-based monster-mover on Flickr via the link above.
Alternatively, if enormous digital creations aren’t your thing, here’s a brick-built FebRovery entry of a similar aesthetic that’s altogether smaller…
It’s February, and that means the month-long annual rover-based building bandwagon of FebRovery has begun!
Not aimed at creating brick-built versions of the products produced by the defunct British car brand (although some members of TLCB Team wish it was), FebRovery entrants are instead tasked to create machines of a sci-fi complexion, capable of roving other worldly environments. Which means of course, that this site will comprehensively struggle to write anything about them whatsoever.
Anyway, this one comes from Flickr’s Frost, who is a fan-favourite during the contest each year, and there’s more to see of his FebRovery, er… rover at his photostream. Click the link above to start roving.
As such we hope blue and yellow vehicles might feature here a bit more prominently for a while following our recent call, which Flickr’s Frost has answered, rounding off Febrovery with his final lunar rover looking wonderful in Ukrainian colours.
So that’s it for Febrovery 2022, but sadly not Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’, which – thanks to the heroism of those defending Ukraine – looks far from being over. If you’re one of the 5,000 TLCB readers from Ukraine, or indeed one of the 17,000 from Russia and are as dismayed as the rest of us, a special welcome to these pages to you.
Most LEGO pieces can be used in almost infinite ways. It’s the very purpose of LEGO. However there are a few parts that seem to be defiantly single-use. The Primo ride-on elephant. Anything from the awful Galidor range. And the wearable Bionicle mask.
Designed so that kids could pretend to be defending Mata-Nui or something, the mid-00’s were clearly a difficult time for LEGO. And yet out of adversity comes triumph, in the form of Scott Wilhelm‘s magnificent ‘Mobile Reactor Transport’.
Wearing the life-size Toa face like a tortoise wears its shell, the until-now-pointless-part looks purpose-made for Scott’s half-track rover. Delightful greebling is visible through the mask’s orifices and there’s more to see of the build, including the epically inventive parts usage, at Scott’s photostream.
Click the link above to see what’s under the mask.
2022’s Febrovery is drawing to a close, in which Lego builders from around the world have united in their creation of other-worldly transports. Today we round out the roverest of months with four intriguing space-based builds, each of which has deployed a few of LEGO’s more unusual pieces in the pursuit of roving brilliance.
First up is Robert Heim‘s ‘Spaceport Fire Rover’, which features so many LEGO pieces of which we know nothing it’s making us doubt we can do this job. The wheels look like cupcake cases and the rotating cockpit appears as if it’s made from a kid’s sand bucket. We have absolutely no idea what sets they’re all from, but you can find out more at Robert’s photostream via the link.
Next we have martin.with.bricks‘ impressive eight-wheeled rover, which actually looks rather like something we could well see in our lifetime. A determined-looking mini-figure sits at the controls inside the same clear buckety-brick cockpit, whilst a minimalist brick-built lunar surface passes beneath the tyres. Centre articulation and an opening rear hatch add to the fun and you can see more of Martin’s rover on Flickr at the link above.
No longer used as the cockpit, but still featuring prominently in the design, Frost‘s colourful ‘Biotron Corp Spaceplant Relocation Rover’ utilises the same transparent buckets, this time for some sort of lunar re-wilding project. A trans-lime half-dome continues the funky cockpitting however, and there’s more to see of Frost’s space-based conservation via the link above.
Today’s final Febrovery creation takes a rather more utilitarian approach, and is very possibly the reason that Frost’s ‘Spaceplant Relocation Rover’ above is required. Andreas Lenander‘s ‘Dome-rover’ is smoothing its way across a lovely brick-built moon-scape, thanks to some genius tracks and a wonderfully pink classic spaceman sealed within a transparent orb. Andreas has used said orb in other cunning ways during Febrovery ’22 too, and there’s more to see of this and his other Febrovery builds at his photostream via the link above.
Flickr’s Febrovery build-a-thon is drawing to a close. There have been some wonderful entries so far which we have… er, missed completely, seeing as a) we don’t understand sci-fi and b) we’re interested in things far more mundane at the moment…
Had we not blogged this one though, TLCB Elves would’ve started a riot, as it’s really not mundane at all. Frost (aka TFDesigns) owns the mind behind this glorious rover-based muscle car homage, which is fitted with some of the most splendid wheels we’ve ever seen.
Racing stripes and a giant wing complete the Elven excitement, and there’s more to see of his marvellous moon-based muscle car at his photostream. Take a look via the link above, and we’ll be back with some things far more mundane tomorrow…
It’s race day at the lunar track, and an eclectic mix of characters are watching the kart-based antics of the Classic Space-kids. Flickr’s Frost (aka TFDesigns!) is the builder and – if you’re weird enough – you can join the spectators trackside via the link above.
It’s the last day of Febrovery, meaning our Elves will cease bringing back sci-fi nonsense and we can re-start blogging cars! Before then though, we have three (excellent) Febrovery creations to share, about each of which we know absolutely nothing. We’re counting the hours until it’s cars again…
First up is a Febrovery entrant that is at least relatable to our humdrum transport here on Earth, being a space school bus by Flickr’s Tyler (aka Legohaulic). A diverse list of alien children are present for the trip to space school and there’s more to see at Tyler’s photostream via the link.
The second creation in our Febrovery Finale come from regular bloggee Horcik Designs, whose space tanker merges Neo-Classic Space and Octan to brilliant effect. Twenty four wheels make it exactly six times better than anything in TLCB office car park and there’s more to see on Flickr. Click the link above to make the jump to Neo-Classic Space.
Ah ‘Ice Planet 2002′, when years starting with a ’20’ seemed super futuristic. This funky looking rover by Carter pays tribute to the oft-forgotten vintage theme, and includes the coolest wheels seen since your Mum fitted spinners to her mobility scooter. There’s more of Carter’s ‘Ice Scout’ to see on Flickr – click the link above to check it out.