In this video we have a closer look at the gears and configurations needed to drive the LEGO Scenario boxes. We also look at various tyres, wheels and the process to build them. The “Scenario” name isn’t as random as it may seem and talk about why. Our discussion is rounded out with a look to what the future direction of the LEGO Scenario boxes might be.

Think of it as a cross between LEGO building with micropolis, mosaics, technic, architecture and Dots techniques all thrown into the mix. Add a little motion and wrap it up in a narrative.

Visit https://www.mattelder.com/scenario for all LEGO Scenario resources

This is the 3rd video in the series. The others can be found here: Part 1 – Introduction: https://youtu.be/qhQ-CA1BanY Part 2 – Standard: https://youtu.be/uQu14XxU-zI Part 3 – Gears, Name and the future: https://youtu.be/ET0f-ma5c-c

NOTE: In the future, plan to release video instructions and plans so you too can build these … or your own versions.

#legoscenario #scenario #legodots #mosiac #legomosaic #LEGO #legomoc #legoart #moc #legomocs #legobricks #afol #mocs #legobuilder #legoideas #legocreations #legoinstragram #legofan #afolclub #legomania #dotyourworld #legostarwars #legostarwarsmoc #starwarslego #greatwaveoffkanagawa #greatwave #london #london4all #legolondon #legoarchitecture

Transcript from the show:

G’day Everyone, Matt Elder of mattelder.com and in this video we are going to look at the LEGO Scenario Gears, Wheels and Tires, the name and the future direction. This is the 3^rd video in the series and be sure to check out mattelder dot com forward slash scenario for the LEGO Scenario resource page. Lets get started.

This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or be super awesome and subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.

Gears.

Quickly wanted to touch upon gears. In the London module, it is effectively a single axle that runs through all the wheels (it is made up of 2 technic axles with a connector as you need at least a 17 length axle. If you didn’t mind overhang and had one, you could use a single 32 length axle).

This can be turned manually by hand if you didn’t have any motors. If the speed seems a little fast, you can place on this configuration of gears and a hand crank to really slow it down. Or if you did have a motor, here is a basic technic tower that can plug straight in.

Next up is the Wave setup. At the bottom you have the same Technic Wedge Belt Wheel. The different speeds are caused by having different sized pulleys at the top. Here you have a Technic Steering Pulley Large, Technic Wedge Belt wheel, and a Motor 9V Micromotor pulley. You can put them in any order to get differing speeds.

Here we’ve used extra large rubber bands with square cross sections. It is the one thing I don’t like about the pulleys as the rubber bands will gradually stretch over time if left taught.

To get the different directions, it will depend upon which side you have you Technic Wedge belt wheel. One side will go one direction, the other side the other – depends upon which way you turn your motor.

In the top to get the wheels turning in independent directions, there are 3 separate axles here, not a singular one running the whole length. You’ll notice between the wheels however is only 1 brick wide. What this means is that each brick has ½ an axle sitting on it. Not ideal and not pretty but given the 16 x16 limitation, only way to do it.

These support beams are very important. Without them, because there is only half a length of axle sitting in the brick, the pulleys will pull the axles and wheels straight out.

Now the Star Wars wheel box has a single axle that runs through it but the center wheel turns in the opposite direction. How is it possible as all wheels should turn the same way? The 2 outer wheels are standard wheels with rims like this. The middle wheel however doesn’t have a rim, it has a custom setup of gears and lift arms. The rubber wheel itself is literally resting on the gears which turn it.

To do that it does however need an anchor point which is why this section here exists – it needs some friction so it can turn in the opposite direction. This means you have to be really careful with the spacing so anything rotating downwards doesn’t hit the lift arm and break. You’ll notice this is why this band with Star Destroyers is so far over to stop it crashing into the support.

Tires and Wheels

The dots bands grip really wheel on a 56 tire diameter, but you need a lot of internal space to make the gears work. Thus these 56×28 ZR Street tires are ideal – the only downside is they haven’t been in many sets and a little hard to come by. If you are using one of the other drive mechanisms, then you can use the 56×26 wheel and the band fits snuggly on that, like in The Wave wheel box.

Process

I find the process to this Scenario building a lot like art. You are trying stuff then assessing, removing or adding, and continuing. Judgments of things are relative to one another. It can be a reductive process as initially included sand green trees for variety but it was throwing the whole saturated colour palette off. Once it was removed, it all came back together. 

As a process feel it is the whole “less is more” approach. How do I represent complex detail with not very much? 

Name

As for the name Scenario, there is a reason for it. There was an artist called Syd Mead who did the concept art for Blade Runner and designed the light cycles in Tron, amongst a wide variety of accomplishments.  He painted traditionally in gouache and each picture he though about as a “scenario”.

Syd would consider everything which, apart from Technical skill, I think made his pictures so compelling. He would think what was happening in the scene, what was the back story, what was the mechanisms for making cars fly. Everything in his picture had a reason for being there and not just their for the sake of looking cool.

In the mid naughties he did 4 instructional DVDs released by the Gnomonworkshop / Design Studio Press. What was fascinating was his commentary and thought process. He talked about this scenario idea extensively.

With this you are creating little scenes using a variety of methodologies and technics and made the most sense to me. You are creating you own little narrative, the LEGO snowglobe / diorama and thinking of all the elements in the scenario.

So it is a nice Segway from the visual futurist to talk about the future direction of the LEGO Scenario

Future Direction

In the future plan I to release videos that give breakdowns, time-lapse and tutorials, and possibly instructions. We be great to see others pick up the ideas and what people come up with. Hoping others can see and know of ways to improve and make better – not a technic guru, know enough to get things working. Sure experts looking on in horror as do something clunky when there are much more elegant ways of doing things.

Visit mattelder.com/scenario for all your LEGO Scenario resources. It is bare bones at time of recording but will be populating it with more content moving forwards.

As for where this could head, have many different ideas.

Collaborative

I can see this as being really collaborative – someone working on the bracelets, someone else the mosaics etc. Alternatively, pick a movie and each do a scene, or a trilogy and each a film. Something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

LEGO Ideas

We plan to submit this to the LEGO Ideas site for consideration to become a future set. So if there is a link around this video, it would be fantastic if you can give a vote over there. We can just really see it as a canvas/ platform for a line of sets, which has scenes and story telling in built into it.

LEGO could have the base modular models and structure. Then they could sell different scene packs to theme them out and finalise the scenario. So the base might be Star Wars with Obi-Wan vs Darth Vader. The 2nd pack might be Empire Strikes Back with Luke fighting Vader and the Hoth battle scene. The 3rd pack might be Return of the Jedi and Sarlacc Pit, with Luke fighting Boba Fett. 

Next obvious step is to add lights and sounds. Maybe create a programmable bluetooth speaker that can sit within the model. Through an associated app, you could record dialogue and have triggers.

Wheel with Studs

While I’ve been using a DOTS bracelet wrapped around a wheel, don’t think it would take much for LEGO to make a wheel with studs similar to this one. Can really see it being useful and having a full 360 degree ability to stud. Pretty sure GBC community will pick up the bracelets in some way shape or form and really curious to see what they come up with.

For mine, I’d also really like to see the DOTs bracelet made in white, it would give the greatest contrast and really make the tiles and DOTS designs ‘sing’. Would also be good to have DOTs bracelets in a red or orange or a traditionally saturated warm LEGO colour

Social Media

The LEGO Scenario also lend themselves to social media pictures and clips. So if you do come up with LEGO Scenario models be sure to use the #legoscenario hashtag and will look to put links on the Scenario page and social media accounts to feature your LEGO Scenario creations.

Congratulations on making it this far in this video – that is a real accomplishment. Leave a smiley and sad face in the comment and I’ll know you got this far into the club.

What are your thoughts? Are you inspired to create any of your own LEGO Scenarios? Let us know in the comments below and respond to them all.

This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or be super awesome and subscribe!

In this video we look at the standard around building LEGO Scenarios. Thus all the parts can come together easily and you can spend more time on the themeing, rather than driving yourself crazy with the engineering.

Visit https://www.mattelder.com/scenario for all LEGO Scenario resources

NOTE: In the future, plan to release video instructions and plans so you too can build these … or your own versions.

#legoscenario #scenario #legodots #mosiac #legomosaic #LEGO #legomoc #legoart #moc #legomocs #legobricks #afol #mocs #legobuilder #legoideas #legocreations #legoinstragram #legofan #afolclub #legomania #dotyourworld #legostarwars #legostarwarsmoc #starwarslego #greatwaveoffkanagawa #greatwave #london #london4all #legolondon #standard  

Transcript from the show:

G’day Everyone, Matt Elder of mattelder.com and in this video we are going to look at the developing standard around LEGO Scenario boxes. This is the 2^nd video in the series and be sure to check out mattelder dot com forward slash scenario for the LEGO Scenario resource page. Lets get started.

The Standard

Just want to talk briefly about the standard we’ve been developing around this, similar to how Great Ball Contraptions, GBC and Micropolis building have standards. Thus you can develop sections in modules and easy to interconnect. In this case too, when there are standard configurations and components, the drive components can more readily be plugged in.

Thus one can spend more time on just theming and being creative with the overall scenario, than spending days pulling your hair out developing the drive mechanics and gears (as I’ve done to date).

Action Box

The Action box is built on a 16×16 base. In the middle of each side is a 1×4 technic brick with 3 wholes. This allows the modules to be interconnected on all sides. On the 8^th brick high, another 1×4 technic brick with 3 holes is placed. This allows for the main axle height for any wheels to be placed. A drive motor is designed to be connected up easily at this height.

By doing so, it gives a 1 brick height at the base to place any other technic gears or axles and will be out of the way of any objects on the wheels turning and bumping into it. The height of the box is 10 bricks high with a finishing layer of tiles if desired. This can help securely connect any way bricks.

This 10 brick height enables maximum height of objects placed on the bracelet bands, and also hiding any of the visual noise of the action box components. 10 high also means it could be placed infront of any GBC module to theme out the GBC.

On the back side, drive axles will run 2^nd brick height up, and in 3^rd stud position along from each side. They are generally designed with a Technic knob wheel on the left (sitting a ½ bush out) and a Technic Gear 20 Tooth Bevel on the right (sitting flush). There is some flexibility with swapping these around but you’d have to update the driver on the power unit.

We’ve tried to design this so it is ‘hot swappable’ so you generally connect it up to the drive unit sitting under the billboard, subtle tweak to align gears and away you go. To keep it quick, simple and interchangeable

Billboard

Looking at the billboard module, you can see the gear and Technic knob that will connect up to these. For the time being, I’ve made this piece readily detachable. At a later date it could be built in but find it is really hand for maintenance, little tweaks, and adds a little support for all the weight coming from the upper levels.

You have a space for the Power Functions L-Motor to slide into here and drive the main wheels. You can have a couple of gears come off the top here as well but just found that wasn’t providing enough torque.

The other motor you can connect into here – this probably needs to be refined a bit. Initially these 40 tooth gears are all about slowing the motor speed down. The wheels and billboard don’t need to turn at great speeds to get a nice effect. Actually the opposite is true, I find the power coming directly out of the motors will spin everything way to fast.

At this point here you have a corkscrew that slows things down again and this leads off to the main lower section to drive anything at the base. If we continue along and up, you’ll eventually get to the main gear that drives the billboard, and from here with a modificiation and a couple other gears, you can branch off and drive the top wheels. If you only wanted to use 1 motor and have enough torque to do so.

To take the billboard off to swap over to another one, take of a 1×16 panel and adjacent 2×16 panel. Then unclip both top and bottom and everything will come off. You then have 2 drive locations with the main axle running straight up here. It is like putting 2 tread mounts sideways and placing some lift arms in between. The lift arms and spaces take the weight down to the lower structure.

You also have a few guide posts here to stop the upper billboard from swaying too much. You are limited by the fact the treads have to flow over the top of this. There is also the ability to have this axle turn from the treads moving all these wheels. I just found the treads are a little too loose fitting to actually do this but sure some bright spark would be able to get it to work.

Treads

The back of the billboard is 2 rows of 20 treads each. In this case I’ve used a height of 16 studs, which leads to the treads being placed in this configuration. Theoretically you could use more of less, you’d just need to adjust the associated billboard sprockets height – which would be simple enough to do by adding or subtracting lift arms.

The billboard is alternating 1×16 plates and 2×16 plates. In this case I didn’t have enough 1×16 plates so used 2 lots of 1×8 plates and joined with a 1×2 plate. So I find this to be really flexible. They are connected to the threads using half pins, which plug into the plates anti-studs. There is something very satisfying about rolling this over.

We use the Technic, Link Tread Wide with Two Pin Holes, 57518 here. Surprisingly with just a layer of tiles, and plates, it does become surprisingly heavy. You could possibly use the smaller 1×3 link treads but they unclip really easily. With the 57518 treads, you really have to get at them to unlink. The alternating 1×16 and 2×16 pattern also means you have the 2 stud wide plates every other link. This is really handy for attaching minifig stands and the like.

Billboard Changing

I only built 1 billboard power unit but 2 of these billboard tracks. That’s why through the video you’ll randomly see either The Wave or Star Wars design on the billboards.

First up, remove the last 1×16 and 2×16 plate on each end of the treads. For the Wave, you can just lie it down and I try to align the join over these lift arm L pieces. Thus when you push down, you have something offering resistance so it becomes possible to clip the treads together. Place the 1×16 and 2×16 plate designs back on. 20 treads seemed to be the magic number for this configuration. 19 was just too tight and wouldn’t join.

And there you have it. A billboard design quickly and easily swapped over. I’ll give the gears a quick test to make sure it is rotating freely. And now it is ready to be joined up to the Action box.

Front Display

The front display I’ve found visually works best when they are using a 8×16 plate. In doing so, the 1×4 3 holed technic brick can go in the middle of the long side. On the short side, place a 1×2 technic brick on the corners. Thus 2 can be connected up if needs be to keep the 16×16 grid working. The Star Wars one does cheat this a little bit but I’m not anticipating anything on the front, and onto sure you could get the crank arm in there otherwise off a standard connection.

In the 3 boxes we’ve generally used 1x2x5 bricks for the walls, but there is nothing to stop you using anything else. We just happen to have a number of these pieces and recently they have been on pick a brick walls so you can get a cupful pretty easily. They are also pretty quick to optimally stack, just grab a plate of the pick a brick wall and going them to it.

Resources

If you go to mattelder dot com forward slash scenario , it will bring up the homepage to this LEGO Scenario. It will be the main resources page where I’ll have videos like this one, the standard, instructions and other resources. It is only early days so plan on building out this resource over time. So do be sure to check this out and come back to it.

In the next video, we’ll look at the gears that drive the various wheel mechanisms and the origin of the scenario name. You can also check out Part 1 video that gives a more general overview.

This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or be super awesome and subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.

Thanks very much for watching. Here are some other videos you might find of interest. Until next time when we talk about all things LEGO.

In this video we are going to look at what we are calling our “LEGO Scenario” creations. You might be looking at this and wondering what exactly is it that I am looking at. We like to think of it as a LEGO version of a snowglobe, or a diorama.

Think of it as a cross between LEGO building with micropolis, mosaics, technic, architecture and Dots techniques all thrown into the mix. Add a little motion and wrap it up in a narrative.

#legoscenario #scenario #legodots #mosiac #legomosaic #LEGO #legomoc #legoart #moc #legomocs #legobricks #afol #mocs #legobuilder #legoideas #legocreations #legoinstragram #legofan #afolclub #legomania #dotyourworld #legostarwars #legostarwarsmoc #starwarslego #greatwaveoffkanagawa #greatwave #london #london4all #legolondon #legoarchitecture

Transcript from the show:

G’day Everyone, Matt Elder of mattelder.com and in this video we are going to look at what we are calling our “LEGO Scenario” creations. You might be looking at this and wondering what exactly is it that I am looking at. We like to think of it as a LEGO version of a snowglobe, or a diorama.

Think of it as a cross between LEGO building with micropolis, mosaics, technic, architecture and Dots techniques all thrown into the mix. Add a little motion and wrap it up in a narrative.

This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or be super awesome and subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.

Introduction

In this video we’ll be covering what these LEGO Scenarios are, the main components, a look at the 3 different themes created here, the standard developing, look at the individual components, the gears involved, origin of the name and ideas on the future direction. This is going to be a longer than usual video.

The concept is based upon wrapping one of these new DOTS bracelets around standard LEGO wheels. Once you do that and pop an axle through the wheel, it opens all sorts of possibilities for motion and storytelling. Sometimes have to think this would have been the furthest thing from the minds of the designers of the bracelets. That is the joy of LEGO – people will mould it for their own uses beyond its original inception.

3 Themes

Here we’ve themed out 3 “Scenario” examples – one being based around Star Wars, another being the city of London, and another the famous 19^th century Japanese print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”. Each of these have varying levels of complexity so hoping to create an entry point for various ranges of abilities.

These Scenario boxes we like to think of as a blank canvas or framework. Then they can be “skinned” or themed out in any creative way you can think of. A lot of the time when building something mechanical with moving parts, it becomes a single use design and can’t be adapted for anything else.

The goal was to try to come up with a universal base design so don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel each time. So, a fair amount of time was spent on the engineering side, prototyping, reaching dead ends, cycling back and starting again. I’m not a Technic guru and know enough to get by. I’m sure these can be further refined by experts but gives a solid foundation.

At this size, feel that it will enable one to create scenarios based around favourite scenes from books, movies, TV shows, artworks, cities or any other popular culture idea or subject matter. It also means you don’t need thousands and thousands of pieces and months to build. Thus, it helps to keep it accessible to everyone.

Main Components

There are 4 main components to a LEGO Scenario – The Action/Wheel Box, Front Display, Billboard and Drive source (either a hand or a motor). Designed it around a 16×16 plate and interconnecting modules. This seemed like a striking a good balance between size and ultimately cost. It hooks into the already existing design language of micro builds. Connections can be made to micropolis layouts and add motion to cities.  

Lets start off by looking at each of the 3 themes.

Star Wars

This is the Star Wars Scenario. It is based around Episode 4, apart from the minifigs. The front box has is the trench run scene with Luke’s x-wing, which moves side to side. Also has a gun turret that spins around trying to shoot down rebel ships. There is this maintenance panel which opens so you can get in and make any subtle adjustments to the gears if you need to. This is my first attempt at any serious grabbling, or creating the hint of detail and was a fun process.

Moving to the action box you have the rebel ships on the middle wheel flying in one direction, while the Empires ships on the other 2 wheels flying in the opposite direction to intercept.

Ships here are the Tie Fighters, Tie Bomber, and a couple of Star Destroyers. For the rebels, an X-wing, Tantive IV and or course the iconic Millenium Falcon. A few colours might be slightly off but just dealing with the colours and pieces that we have available to us.

On the billboard we have the Death Star in the process of firing the primary weapon. The Death Star itself does have a subtle light relief effect going on over the space of 4 tile heights. Tried to have the main dish area a little countersunk. Being the 16 bricks wide, think it has a nice rotation effect.

The other scene is from the climax of Empire Strikes back with Luke and Vader fighting it out on the Cloud City platform. Been challenging to create the platform in alternating 1 and 2 brick wide sections. Think it has turn out OK and really opens up possibilities with being able to include minifigures. Yes there is some slight inconsistency with scale but think of it as artistic licence. Like when you see movie posters with giant background heads and tiny foreground elements.

My apologies to any Star Wars purists out there. We are probably casual Star Wars LEGO fans so the minifigs have all been mixed up and we only have a handful (yes I know Luke wasn’t wearing his orange flight suit in this scene but you get the idea).

One thing to note, due to the tight tolerance of one of the Star Destroyers, the wheels will only rotate in one direction (as the Star Destroyer can be massaged through the gap. If it tries to go the other way, it just gets stuck. That’s why you might hear a slight clicking sound as the Star Destroyer goes around).

London City

Next up is the London Scenario. We’ll start off with the Action box as it has the icon London red double decker bus. Here we’ve mixed up the colours of the bands to go with the ground type. The first band is teal with trees and parkland type environments. The next band is a road with the bus, car and pickup truck. The next band has a train and some track.

The blue medium azure band is a water way with sail boats and a cargo ship. The last band rounds out with some more trees and foilage, and a plane flying past.

The holes that allow you to adjust the strap while wearing are slightly larger than a stud so if you try to put anything into the hole, it will just fall out. We did find however that if you have a cone piece inverted and push it in, it will start to clutch the cone piece. The clutch isn’t brilliant but enough to hold the cone if you get it just right.

That was how we managed to get some of these trees in. Otherwise as the band goes around, it will have ‘gaps’ where no pieces are attached.

Onto the billboard. The billboard is a 16×16 design so you have to get creative with any mosaic image you come up with. Here we’ve gone for Big Ben and a cloud in light relief. The bottom 3 or 4 rows you always have be careful when designing as you get the elements from the spinning bracelet bands possibly getting caught on them. The front display is a general waterfall scene over some rocks. It gives away to get from top of the Action Box down to any other micropolis base you might want to connect.

This Scenario I did want to keep simple without too many crazy and elaborate building techniques. The 5 bands in the action box we’ve gone a little overboard to show possibilities of planes, trains, automobiles and everything in between. If this wasn’t so much a demonstration piece, I’d probably lose on type of transport and just let the Action box “breath” a little more.

Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Lastly is the “Great Wave off Kanagawa” Japanese print design. Here is laid out the moving billboard image and the design it is based off. This shows the LEGO Scenario can be applied to other media, in this case artworks and designs.

Again used subtle relief for depth as the waves in the front are slightly higher than those in the back. We’ve used quarter circle white tiles to give the wave a better feel of organicness as originally it feel very blocky. Also used transparent blue round studs over blue plates to give a couple subtle shades of blue. There is Mount Fiji in the background but like the original print, it is subtle.  

OK, we’ve wrapped the design around the drive train for that and now we’ll move onto the middle wheel action box. This box is driven by a series of pulleys and rubber bands. The effect that I was going for is the waves closer to you move faster and break more dramatically. The wave in the back has that effect of being further back so slower moving and more subtle. Much like if you stood on a beach looking out at the waves – those closest to you are crashing with quick movements, those in the far distance moving a little more slowly.

The middle wheel has a fishing boat, also present in the original image but more of a second read item. It travels in the opposite direction to the waves and at a speed that is slower than the fastest wheel, but faster than the slowest wheel.

For purposes of this demonstration, I’ve done the back 2 sides in transparent pieces. Thus you can see more the gears, pulleys and what is happening inside the Action box.

The front display is imaging what might be below the water line, so very much where you can start to make your own creative interpretation of extending the scene. So there is some green seaweed locked in between 1x6x5 panels, along with some transparent blue studs.

In the middle is actually a whole section of these studs. I’ve also put a little wheel mechanism in there so it can churn up all the studs. The mechanism is a little undercooked as the little studs can make it really difficult to turn and needs further refinement. But conceptually showing you what else could be don e.  and trying to add a further dynamic motion of the sea churning.

End of Part 1

I’ve decided to split this video into 2 or 3 parts and here seemed like a natural breakpoint. Check for the next video in the series around this one which will cover a more detailed look at the developing standard, mechanics and how it may develop into the future.

This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or be super awesome and subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.

Thanks very much for watching. Here are some other videos you might find of interest. Until next time when we talk about all things LEGO.