Let’s get a little bit wacky.
This pair was built for Eurobricks’ Technic Mini Duo Contest [TC30] - build a pair of separate Technic MOCs intended to go together and be under 300 grams.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what 300 grams of Lego looks like. Off the bat, I figured whatever I was going to build needed to be light, which helped in deciding what subject this pair should be - office toys. Something simple and fun to bop around for movement. So of course, the first thing that came to mind was…
Technic Drinking Bird
I love drinking birds, so that alongside my Technic animals mission, this was a no brainer pick…Except for the function. Real drinking birds use a mix of temperature and pressure to make its “perpetual” movement. I’m sure there’s a pneumatic contraption I could make for something similar, but I don’t have the time right now for that experiment. Perhaps I could have used magnets for the job, but I don’t have any Lego magnet parts. Using gears to replicate the drinking bird’s movement would have been simple enough but seemed less fun. I wanted it to be based on weight and leverage. Which I think was largely achieved, just if the nose actually hits anything it dies so fast.
But with the bird decided and out of the way, that left figuring out what its pair should be. Newton’s Cradle is what came to mind first, but the mass required was a problem. Then I remembered this thing I have:
…Other than being another “perpetual” kinetic sculpture using magnetics, I couldn’t find a specific name for these sort of things.
Technic Orbital Kinetic Sculpture
Initially, I planned on using the rigid tubes to make the circle shapes with minimal Technic connectors. It would be light and easier to spin. Except, I didn’t have enough in the same length for that to work. And the more flexible rubber axels and tubes were either too long, too short, or not strong enough for what I wanted. So, simpler shapes with Technic connectors we go. Originally, I also wanted a small spaceship like in the example above, but that required a larger size than I wanted. Other decorations, like adding a small moon, kept throwing off the balance and spin, so just a planet in the center would have to do.
And I think that’s it! I hope you enjoyed.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another conniption to throw at those Heroes.