Yes, our completed LEGO® Parts Festival came back again! But it definitely finishes today, and what better way than with a creation by Duncan Lindbo who has really pushed the boat out with this festival.
Everything is made of star-stuff, to paraphrase the late, great Carl Sagan. In the case of this MOC, that’s not just true in an abstract cosmic sense, it’s true in a more literal “I used a bunch of the new star pieces”.
I was casting around for ideas when it dawned on me that because the stars (Design Plate, 4X4X2/3, No. 1 in Bright Yellow/ Yellow – 6248804|39611) are two plates high, with a one plate high base and one plate high points, two columns of stars would mesh together easily. Throw a few meshed columns together, and they looked like the teeth of a gigantic shredder.
The first thing that came to mind was the movie 30 Days of Night, which features a massive industrial shredder that has no problem chewing up 50 gallon steel drums (and vampires). Recreating those scenes seemed like it’d be a little grim for New Elementary, so I built a recycling plant instead.
Unsorted glass comes in on the conveyor, is separated by color, and then fed through the shredder and into separate bins for the ground glass.
Each shredder contains two rows of teeth, each comprised of five stars. Because the stars have a stud on top, I left a gap in the walls where the 'top' of each column sits to allow it to rotate freely.
To provide some stability, and to cut down on the individual stars in each column rotating independently of each other, I inserted a 6L bar through the column. Building off of this might be the best means for motorizing this sort of contraption, but the friction from all stars intermeshing is probably more than enough to overcome the grip of any gear on a 3.18mm bar.
Even though I avoided a truly gory spectacle, I still ended up placing some petite plastic people in peril… Fortunately, there’s emergency shutoff buttons for each of the grinders.
I was casting around for ideas when it dawned on me that because the stars (Design Plate, 4X4X2/3, No. 1 in Bright Yellow/ Yellow – 6248804|39611) are two plates high, with a one plate high base and one plate high points, two columns of stars would mesh together easily. Throw a few meshed columns together, and they looked like the teeth of a gigantic shredder.
The first thing that came to mind was the movie 30 Days of Night, which features a massive industrial shredder that has no problem chewing up 50 gallon steel drums (and vampires). Recreating those scenes seemed like it’d be a little grim for New Elementary, so I built a recycling plant instead.
Unsorted glass comes in on the conveyor, is separated by color, and then fed through the shredder and into separate bins for the ground glass.
Each shredder contains two rows of teeth, each comprised of five stars. Because the stars have a stud on top, I left a gap in the walls where the 'top' of each column sits to allow it to rotate freely.
To provide some stability, and to cut down on the individual stars in each column rotating independently of each other, I inserted a 6L bar through the column. Building off of this might be the best means for motorizing this sort of contraption, but the friction from all stars intermeshing is probably more than enough to overcome the grip of any gear on a 3.18mm bar.
Even though I avoided a truly gory spectacle, I still ended up placing some petite plastic people in peril… Fortunately, there’s emergency shutoff buttons for each of the grinders.
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Thanks to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Ryan Welles, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Iain Adams, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're all awesome!
You can also help us by doing what you perhaps do already - buying from Amazon. Amazon USA: Amazon.com Canada: Amazon.ca UK: Amazon.co.uk Deutschland: Amazon.de
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.
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ReplyDeleteWhat a great, detailled model with a creative use of the stars! And it's always nice to see Emmet in action ;-)
ReplyDelete