2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo's TRT13 dropship

Our Parts Festival begins today! If you missed yesterday's post introducing the LEGO® parts that our selected builders are using in their creations, check it out. To kick things off proper today though we have the one returning builder from a previous parts festival, Duncan Lindbo (donutsftw on Flickr and Instagram). Duncan is a member of the North Carolina LEGO Users Group who generally builds mecha and Space stuff and for his first build he has chosen one of the most peculair and controversial elements from our selection.

Stud shooters: Kids love ‘em (I assume, since LEGO keeps making new ones) and AFOLs hate ‘em. So Shooter w/ Cross Axle, No. 1 (6248534|41812) probably wasn’t a part I would have sought out on my own but now that I’ve got my hands on a bunch of them (thanks Tim!) let’s see what I can come up with.

The various ridges, flaps, and clips that facilitate the stud-shootin’ action give this piece some interesting texture, and because every part is a spaceship (or mech) part, my first thought was to use them as thrusters/engines on a mini spaceship.

So, I present: the TRT13 dropship. Inspired by designs like the UD-4L Cheyenne dropship used by the Colonial Marines in Aliens and the Pelican series dropships from Halo, the TRT13 features 4 independently positionable engines for maximum maneuverability.

The primary connection point of the stud shooter is a 1L Technic axle sticking out of one of its sides, which I used to connect it to some stubby arms/winglets on the dropship for those crucial VTOL capabilities.

The way the part is supposed to operate is that by inserting a Technic axle with a stop into the “barrel” of the part to form a plunger, then inserting up to three 1x1 round tiles, the tiles can be fired by pushing the plunger in. I used these design features in a different way: I attached some thruster plumes to the hole for the Technic axle, and instead of 1x1 round tiles, I slid a 1x1 half-round tile and a 1x2 grille tile in to provide a little mechanical detail.

You can insert any length of tile into the barrel, but anything longer than 1x2 with a square end will stress the clip that normally keeps the round tiles in the barrel, because the slot they fit in seems to be rounded at the plunger end. A 1x2 tile and some sort of 1x1 tile with a round side seem to fit in securely without unduly stressing anything, but I couldn’t guarantee that with 100% certainty.

But this dropship isn’t just here to look pretty. No, it’s on a mission, and it’s doing a hard burn to make landfall as soon as possible… Where’s it headed? Stay tuned to find out!

READ MORE: Duncan also examined a 1990s LEGO part for us recently; Insectoid wings

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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.