At Paredes de Coura (PdC) Fan Weekend in Portugal in June 2018, New Elementary ran a 'parts festival' workshop where 25 builders were given 11 of the new LEGO® parts released in 2018 to experiment with. They used these in combination with general part stock (provided from the magnificent collection of Comunidade 0937) to create as many ideas, tablescraps, techniques and small MOCs as they could and we’re sharing the most interesting and useful ones with you. Huge thanks to Andrew Tipping for taking the photographs.
Today's piece is Design ID 35654 which comes only in Black (Element ID 6207258), largely in LEGO® CITY sets. TLG named it "Fender, Front, No.1" and BrickLink call it "Bar 1 x 4 x 1 2/3 (Grille Guard / Push Bumper)" but I call these things bullbars... is that just an Aussie thing?
This builder was obsessed with the element's geometry and how it fits into the System. It took him quite a long time to figure out how to secure both the 3.18mm bar connections while keeping one surface of the element horizontal. In official sets this piece is only ever attached by one of the 3.18mm bars. Seeing how complex it is to achieve this double connection suggests the element's designer may have never intended both ends to be connected within the System grid.
The example on the left is certainly simpler as the vertical distance between the centre points of the 3.18s is the height of one plate; the horizontal distance however is 1.5 modules and so jumper plates are required. The example on the right, with the bullbar rotated the other way around, proved more complex! The vertical distance is now 2.5 plates high (i.e. 1 module) and the horizontal is... geez... does that equal 1.4 modules (3.5 plates)?
Here the part serves as both cage and feet of an exo suit. The whole thing is mounted on a new minifigure back piece which we will feature in a post of its own.
Yes, it makes a nice antenna but... wow, what's going on down at the base there? You can tap/click any image on New Elementary to enlarge but here's a closer view:
Some fun 3.18 connections for you to decipher there, and note the clips attached to the 'wings' of the element – clearly an illegal connection but strong enough to support the structure, it seems!
Another antenna using an interesting layering effect that could be used for other applications.
This rear view closeup shows how they are connected.
This builder use the angle of the element to suggest a rounded form.
And finally... somebody give this guy a hand!
Currently "Fender, Front, No.1" / "Bar 1 x 4 x 1 2/3 (Grille Guard / Push Bumper)" (Element ID 6207258|Design ID 35654) comes in 12 sets, usually just one per set but there are six in 10261 Roller Coaster (Amazon USA|Amazon UK).
READ MORE: See the next post from this workshop using the minifigure neck bracket with four bar connectors
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Always seems to be out of stock on bricks and pieces.
ReplyDelete3.5 plates? Yes. 3 plates for the full brick height of the second headlight brick, and half a plate added by flipping the second headlight brick upside-down so the lip on the foot is on the other side of the tile w/ clip. Not that this is technically not connected, as there are no parts (that I'm aware of) that allow you to connect headlight bricks base-to-base...without modification, at least.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Wikipedia entry is for "bullbar":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullbar
However, in the US, depending on geography, the primary use you'll see for these is police vehicles where they serve the two primary purposes of being used as push bars to remove stalled/disabled cars from the roadway (I once had a bad spot on a distributor that periodically caused my car to stall until it was finally diagnosed, and had a cop push me from the front of a left-hand turn lane to a nearby parking lot...where it immediately started as soon as I turned the key), and to perform the legendary PIT maneuver (not something I have never had performed on my car, thankfully).
I mean, you sometimes see the really lightweight ones on an SUV here or there, but most of those aren't designed for offroad driving any more rugged than a well-tended dirt road, so I suspect all they're expected to do is save maybe half their cost in damage if a deer should run across the freeway in front of them.