Tag Archives: robot

Agent Orange

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It’s been a while since we let TLCB Elves watch Transformers cartoons, but today a number are happily crowded round an ancient TV thanks to one of their number and this; Angus MacLane‘s OR-ANJ G1 Transformer.

A normal-looking orange coupe (apart from the roof-mounted rocket launcher, which – let’s face it – we’ve all wanted as an optional extra at times), Angus’ creation can niftily transform from car to rocket-wielding robot via a few swivels, and there’s more to see at his photostream, where a range of other brick-built robotic contraptions can also be found.

Sub-Optimus Prime

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If the Michael Bay ‘Transformers’ movies were directed by the people that make ‘Bob the Builder’, the result might look a little something like this.

Replacing angry alien robots with, er… cute alien robots, Angus MacLane has optimised the adorability of the leader of the Autobots, and there’s more to see of his charming ‘Sub-Optimus Prime’ transforming truck on Flickr.

Click the link above for the cutest robot in disguise you’ll see today.

Prime Mover

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LEGO’s 1,500 piece, £150, fully transforming 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime set got TLCB Elves very excited when we revealed it here last year. In fact we thought they could only be more hyped if Megan Fox herself arrived at TLCB Towers, at which point a few of the staff would likely have matched their fanaticism. However previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg has proved there is even more excitement to be had, with his fantastic Optimus Prime ‘Combat Deck’.

Based on the Transformers G1 toy, Ralph’s creation attaches to the official 10302 set brilliantly, before unfolding to reveal an array of equipment essential in the protection of Earth. The toy’s boom-mounted rotating missile thingumy, combat stations, and a spring-fired ‘Roller’ armoured 6×6 car are all accurately recreated in brick form, as are the stickers and livery, which Ralph has replicated superbly via some cunning brickwork.

There’s a whole lot more to see at Ralph’s ‘Lego Optimus Prime with Custom Combat Deck’ album on Flickr, and you can join a gaggle of ridiculously excited Elves there by clicking the link above.

The Robot Apocalypse…

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…is coming, and it won’t be sentient Matrix or Terminator-style death machines that bring it. No, it’ll be the humble mechanised workers that will rise up against their human overlords, bored of fetching, carrying, and operating under Amazon’s working practices.

Cue Tyler (aka Legohaulic)‘s pair of DHL robots; the self-explanatory ‘Autonomous Forklift’ and the mysterious ‘Locus Bot’. Each is a brick-built replica of a soon-to-be-terrifying DHL warehouse robot, constructed for DHL conference attendees that are unaware of the pandora’s box they’re opening.

There’s more to see of both builds at Tyler’s photostream, and you can take a look via the link above whilst this TLCB Writer hoards canned foods in the basement of TLCB Towers.

And Now For Something Completely Different*

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That lump of rock orbiting 550,000 miles above us all has only been landed on by one nation, the USA. But what if the Soviet Union had made it there too? Well the two countries would have fought over it, obviously.

Cue Shannon Sproule’s ‘Battle for the Moon‘, a retro-futuristic lunar conflict in which wind-up mechanoids, barely one step above pots-and-pans-robots, ‘battle for the ultimate high ground’. There’s more to see on Flickr, and you can blast off to pick a side via the link above!

*Link. Naturally.

Creator 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime | Set Preview

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This is the brand new LEGO Creator 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime set, and The Lego Car Blog Elves are wildly excited.

Constructed from just over 1,500 pieces and measuring 35cm tall in robot mode, 10302 will arrive in stores in June of this year aimed at ages 18+ (which is just a LEGO marketing ploy to make it more acceptable for adults (or rather, more acceptable to their partners) to spend £150 on a toy…)

And yes, we did say ‘robot mode’, because as with every good Transformers toy, 10302 can transform between a vehicle and a robot, in which guise it has nineteen points of articulation.

10302 also features a few of Optimus Prime’s accessories, including his Ion Blaster, Autobot Matrix of Leadership, Energon axe, and Energon cube. Although we have absolutely no idea what any of those things are or do.

The Creator 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime set becomes the latest product within LEGO’s expanding licensed movie vehicle line-up, following the Aston Martin DB5 ‘007 Goldfinger‘, 42111 Fast & Furious Dom’s Dodge Charger, 21108 Ghostbusters Ecto-1, and the fantastic 10300 Back to the Future Time Machine amongst others.

It also probably fights it out with the aforementioned Dodge Charger for being the coolest vehicle from the worst movie, but we won’t hold that against it.

The new LEGO Creator 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime set is expected to cost around $170/£150, and if you’re as big a fan of explosions, giant space robots, explosions, Megan Fox, and explosions as TLCB Elves are, you can get your hands on it from June this year.

Tranforma Porka

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Brilliant though the Porsche 911 is, it can be criticised for looking, well… almost exactly the same for the last six decades.

What lies underneath the repetitive exterior however, has evolved hugely over the years, with turbo-charging, all-wheel-drive, and soon even electrification packaged inside the iconic body shape.

And that’s sort of the point of the 911 we suppose; a myriad of different engines, drivetrains, and technologies united by a common exterior.

And that’s never been truer than with today’s creation; this epic G1 Transformers ‘Jazz’, a ginormous funky robot hidden completely within the official Creator Expert 10295 Porsche 911 set by the sheer force of Adrian Drake’s considerable building talent.

Using the 10295 set as a base, Adrian’s ‘Jazz’ Transformer unfurls out of it via a brain-busting manoeuvre of folds and hinges, all of which is unfathomable to the minds here at TLCB.

You can see if you can figure it out at Adrian’s photostream, where there’s more of his amazing creation to view; click these words to watch a Porsche 911 become a robot.

Digital Doodoo

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Our workers may be mythical creatures, but their turds sure aren’t. And that doesn’t even make any sense. Fortunately a reader has suggested this robotic street sweeper, which looks just the thing for removing Elf droppings for TLCB Towers. Finn Roberts (aka ORION_brick) is the builder, or rather ‘designer’ as this is a digital creation, although so good is the render it’s very hard to tell. There’s more to see of Finn’s cyberpunky cleaning robot on Flickr – click the link above sweep the streets on 2077.

High Tech LEGO Projects | Book Review

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We like rule breakers here at The Lego Car Blog. Thus when No Starch Press offered us a sneaky peak into a book with ‘rule-breaking inventions’ written on the cover, we had a take a look! Well, one of our readers did, seeing as we don’t have a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 set in the office, and re-coding this site nearly killed us. However reader Wilson Luk is far smarter than we are, and a better writer too; check out his assessment of No Starch’s dangerous new book below!
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Ahhhh Robotics…

For every new breathtaking advancement in robotics, 10 memes come out declaring the end of humanity (Boston Dynamics, I’m looking at you). LEGO appears intent on speeding up robotic dominance with the new LEGO Mindstorms 51515 Robot Inventor set, the much anticipated successor to the EV3 Mindstorms set. While the new set offers a bunch of quality of life improvements with its new app and native scratch and python support, no one can discount how the new Gelo build looks eerily similar to Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot…

Luckily, our topic today is a little more human-friendly. Grady Koch’s new book High Tech LEGO Projects demonstrates that there is still a ton of life in the older EV3 kit, pushing the boundaries of what the 7-year-old kit can do, without the whole world-dominance vibe.

No Starch Press has kindly provided me with a print copy for this review. My particular copy may be a pre-production copy as it has a bit of a raised splatter texture on the back cover. Nonetheless, the actual contents of the book is clearly printed on nice semi-gloss paper. Colours and text come out well, ensuring no issues following build and programming instructions.

High Tech LEGO Projects is the most recent book tailored towards EV3 users from No Starch Press. This time around, High Tech LEGO Projects introduces some basic circuitry and hobby-grade sensors to the mix, extending the capabilities of the ageing EV3.

A wide range of projects are covered in the 12 chapters of this book, with 2 extra projects available for download from the No Starch Press website. Each project showcases a different electrical component either to use with the EV3, or simply to add to one of your existing or upcoming lego creations.

Many of the projects will require extra pieces beyond what is provided in the EV3 Mindstorms set. Most of these can be found on BrickLink/BrickOwl, while many of the electrical components and tools can be found at local or online electronic stores.

Get comfortable acquiring the extra LEGO pieces, but don’t get too attached to them. Some of these projects are not for the faint of heart. The second project already has you drilling holes through TWO technic gearbox pieces! I can already hear the collective screams of agony right now. The first time I saw the picture demonstrating where to drill, my first reaction was to cover the eyes of all my Lego mini-figs.

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Mighty Minion

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Minions is another new LEGO theme we don’t really understand, but one we’re sure will sell rather well. Ah, we think we understand…

Looking like some sort of cute War of the Worlds alternative reality, previous bloggee ianying616 has built the Minions their very own mech, complete with googly eyes and a mini-figure Minion sitting inside the domed head. And if you’re thinking “They’re really stretching TLCB’s brief with this one…”, you’re right – so here’s a Minion racing team too!

Head to ianying’s photostream via the link above for more Minions-based madness.

More Robots in Disguise

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Alex Jones (aka Orion Pax)’s Transformers just keep coming! This has made the Elves very happy of course, as they now get to watch Transformers cartoons.

Following his previous appearances here at The Lego Car Blog in December and October of last year, Alex has constructed another swathe of transforming Autobot and Deception vehicles, from cranes and dump trucks to fighter jets and pick-ups. Each looks brilliant in both robot and vehicle modes, and can switch between the two by engineering so clever it makes our heads hurt.

We’re also re-featuring Alex’s amazing Optimus Prime build, as he’s now uploaded an image of the model in ‘roller base’ form, with more vehicles hidden inside!

You can see more of the awesome Optimus Prime build at Alex’s photostream, where you can also find the rest of his incredible Transformers back-catalogue. Click the link above to see more than meets the eye.

More More than Meets the Eye

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The Elves are in a very buoyant mood today! Flickr’s Alex Jones (aka Orion Pax) has been uploading Transformers builds and such a prodigious rate that we’ve been handing out meal tokens like Smarties. And we’ve also been handing out Smarties.

These are a sample of some of his latest Autobot and Decepticon creations, following the first tranche we published here a month or so ago. Each is beautifully built and presented, transforms through some sort of magic, and can be seen – alongside a raft of other equally awesome Transformers builds not shown here – at Alex’s photostream.

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Today’s creation reminds us of that bizarre scene in ‘Terminator Salvation’ where Christian Bale climbs on a robot motorcycle and rides it away. Why would it have controls for a human? Or a USB port? For plot convenience apparently. This ‘Motor-Droid’ by Flickr’s ianying616 asks similar unanswerable questions. Why would a tool designed solely to move a human about be built so that it can’t? And then what would its function be? We’ll try not to look into the logic too much because a) there isn’t any, and b) it looks so damn cool! A huge gallery of stunning imagery is available to view at ianying’s photostream – head there on your riderless motorcycle, wait no… Er, just head there however you like via the link above.

More Than Meets the Eye

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It’s a happy day for the Elves here at TLCB Towers as a number of them found these brilliant Transformers Autobots by Flickr’s Alex Jones (aka Orion Pax). Normally this would have led to an Elf fight, but in a rare moment of Elven cooperation they approached us with their finds collectively, in the hope that Transformers cartoons would be played. Their peaceful approach has been rewarded, with the discovering Elves duly awarded a meal token each and all Elves here at the Towers now contentedly watching Transformers cartoons. You can thank Alex for the harmony via the link above, where you can find his excellent transforming Ironhide, Cosmos, Powerglide, Mirage, Hoist, Jazz, Blaster, and Bumblebee Autobots.

Walking Through Flowers

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Pictured walking through flowers like some sort of mechanised hippy, Andreas Lenander‘s ‘Rankan – Tripod’ is well outside of the collective knowledge of TLCB staff. Whatever this is for though, it’s a thoroughly brilliant build. Click the link above to make the jump.