Technic structure

I wanted to say something about Lego, which is a toy that I've enjoyed for as long as I can remember. Growing up I was a bit embarrassed to still be playing with it when I was around 15, when I had a medium sized collection of classic Space and Technics themes, and I guess I pretty much stopped then. Around 10 years later I passed my collection onto close friends for their children. But eventually I got back into playing with it again with my own daughter, then last year I bought my first new kit just for me - the Technics 42037 off-roader (I loved it's 4 wheel suspension - something I'd struggled with for ages on the old style Technics).

I enjoyed building the set model and pushing it around, but for me proper Lego building was always about making up your own things. So since then I've been building up my collection again with the 42036 motorbike (which I liked for its chain drive and more suspension), the 42049 mine loader (great value, with nice wheels, turning and controls, which include a worm gear), and the big 42042 crawler crane (wonderful tracks, a motorised gearbox and just loads of pieces). That's given me plenty to play around with, though I've not been too proud of my own creations so far (e.g. cars, tracked vehicles, and helicopter skeletons). I experimented with things like gear boxes and suspension on tracks (with help from Pawel "Sariel" Kmiec's excellent Unofficial Builder's Guide), but I guess I found them small or inelegant compared to the set models.

Coming back to Technics has been an interesting relearning experience though. The studless style of construction simply didn't exist when I was young. It intrigued me that models have no intrinsic way up anymore. So I've also done lots of fiddling about just making structures on the 3 perpendicular axes. Picking up the trick with Pythagorean triples (especially multiples of 3,4,5) seemed useful too.

And that led to the first model that felt original - a kind of diamond teardrop with hexagonal cross section, which has no function and isn't a realistic representation of anything...

The approach to learning was new too, using photos and tips from the Web (and Sariel's book, of course). Before we were all online I remember having to learn everything on my own through the set model instructions and experimentation. At first it seemed like cheating to just lift Sariel's gearbox design, for example; I clearly wasn't a proper builder if I wasn't being original. But this just doesn't hold up. We all learn have to learn from someone else. In the olden days that someone was only the set designers who wrote the instruction books, and their lessons could only go so far. Now we are all connected in online communities, with blogs for anyone to publish on. It's daft not to engage with that shared culture.

Update 2016-08-08: I've just added the immense 42043 Arocs truck to my collection. Even with an online retailer saving, I was sceptical about spending so much on a toy. However, it is staggeringly well designed model, with 2-axle drive, 2-axle steering and suspension all round before you even get to the motor and pneumatic functions. It's a deserving centre-piece to my collection (as the 8860 car chassis was when I was a boy), even if I can't imagine incorporating design features like that steering into my own creations.