I love Lego
...but my parents didn't have the cash to buy me the swanky Lego Technic car in those ads that had been taunting me daily for some months. You know, the one with the battery-powered motor and moving parts.

So I decided to make my own. The first challenge was to round up enough Technic bits and pieces as I could, in which I was aided by a fortuitously-timed cereal-packet giveaway: collect some tokens and get a few gears and axles, for the price of a stamp. After a few months of stuffing myself with double portions of Weetabix I had amassed four packets (and wonderfully regular bowel movements).

Combining the Technic parts with my own motley collection of classic Lego bits and bobs was a long and painstaking process, but the pièce de résistance was the integrated motor. This I salvaged from a cassette player, and -- aided by copious quantities of sticky tape -- mounted transversely to give the car its own motive power. An ingenious arrangement of adjustable cogs even gave the car a rudimentary gearbox.

The finished item was a work of art, although it did require a gigantic battery pack (again, held together with tape) which had to be held separately because it was too heavy for the motor to move under its own steam.

The only downside? The wrath of my sister, whose cherished cassette player had unfortunately had to be cannibalised to provide the electric motor. I don't think she ever really forgave me for that...
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 14:28, 1 reply)

i did the same!
Although i used the motor from the bed bugs game and it was basically go and stop but i did make that technic car go.

This kinda makes me want to get the lego and technic out the loft and just build stuff again.
(phe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 12:53, closed)