"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."

Day 125:

I love it when Opeie shows me a picture he's found on the internet and says "Can we build this?". Mainly because it means an afternoon of sitting down with the LEGO and working something out together. Its rare that he ever wants to add Technic functions into builds but this kinetic cowboy build by Tankybrick had really got him excited. So we watched their video about 50 times to try and work out the functions. After building pretty much the entire thing no matter haw many times we watched the video we couldn't work out the final piece that got the horses moving as the video wasn't very clear. After a stressful 30 minutes or so of trying all sorts of different elements we finally cracked it. It definitely wasn't the same piece, and the horses the finitely don't run as smooth as theirs but overall it came out great and ended up being a fun afternoon building with my bestie.

"And I can take you for a ride on my big green tractor. We can go slow or make it go faster. Down through the woods and out to the pasture. 'Long as I'm with you it really don't matter."

When it comes to LEGO from what I have seen from friends and family, it is the large kits that really spark the kids interest. Before Christmas, I spoke to a lot of parents who had said that their kids either wanted the Deathstar, The Ewok village or one of the large Technics kits like the Porsche or the Bucket Wheel Excavator. In the past when the boys have wanted larger kits we have always sat down and built own custom versions but when it comes to Technics we just don't have the parts.  When Seth was younger, like lots of kids at that age he LOVED tractors and the one Tractor make that always stuck out for him was the Claas tractors. He would get so excited if we were out for a walk and he spotted one while in his pushchair. So when LEGO released the Technic Claas Xerion 5000 Trac VC it was a no brainer. 

A friend of mine had bought the kit for his own son and although I had not seen it built it looked really impressive on the box. All my friend simply said was "It is Huge"! and "It took my son 4 days to build". So the prospect of the boys building it was pretty daunting. When we first Opened the box and sorted the bags we were really confused by the amount of bag 1's and bag 2's and as we started to build the kit it was clear why the kit had taken my friends son 4 days to build. 

With the age range being slightly older on the Technic kits, you can see why. A kit like this takes a completely different kind of building, there is a lot more strategy involved to make the build run smoothly. So we spent a fair bit of time separating all the parts into their own piles, which helped a lot! Seth really wanted to get into building the kit but because of his muscle condition he finds it really difficult to connect the parts, so it was all down to me. That was of course after I stopped being distracted by those awesome giant wheels (I'm going to have so custom fun with those).

The build really did take some time but what I loved about it was that with each step you could see the ins and outs of how each of the power functions was going to work and it was really quite fascinating. I'm not sure what the estimated building time on this kit was but I spent 4 hours on it the one evening, I confidently started it at 10pm, thinking that a master builder like myself would have it done before bed (how wrong was I), when in fact I slipped into a LEGO building meditative state and was completely engrossed until I had finally finished the main tractor part at 2am (oops). 

The following morning I couldn't wait to complete the crane while the boys wheeled the Tractor around the house. The crane took me just over an hour to put together and although 5 hours seems a long time to be building a LEGO kit, it was worth every single minute, This kit is a sheer masterpiece. The was that sinking feeling in my stomach when I put the batteries in a and the power functions didn't work but after going back through the impressively huge manual I realised that it was on something minor and was easily fixed.

All that was left to do was to take the Technic Claas Xerion 5000 Trac VC out where its supposed to be played with, out into the garden to roll over the rockery and plough through the grass. The boys had fun extending the outriggers and controlling the crane and being able to rotate the main cab was a great extra.  This is definitely going to be a fun summer garden toy and the boys love it, it was just a shame that they couldn't join in with the build. I guess I got all the fun this time.

If I haven't made it completely clear in this post yet, this kit is a dream for any Technic lover, it has now got me looking at the Bucket Wheel Excavator even more.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

A few weeks back the boys built the LEGO Technic Fire Plane and although it did take them a lot longer to build, it didn't deter them from attempting something bigger. There has been some pretty amazing Tecnic kits released this year and Seth really wanted to get stuck in to one with electric functions. The Crawler Crane is a huge build and when you see pictures of it online or see the box in a toy store the images really don't do it justice. I honestly didn't think that the boys would attempt something like this and I thought they would lose interest early on.

The instruction manual is HUGE, in fact I think it is the thickest one we have owned. I thought alone would put the boys off straight away, but no! they were adamant that they would complete it no matter how long it took. It did take the boys a long time to complete but a bit was built at every spare moment and it was really interesting to watch. Apart from the LEGO trains (which I love), we've not owned any kits with power functions so building this was definitely something different.

Although I definitely favour the more classic LEGO, one thing I do love about Technic is that because the parts are generally larger the builds can start to look quite beefy early on and the LEGO Technic Crawler Crane is a great kit for this. After the first two bags it was starting to look pretty big but I wasn't prepared to the final piece.

 The kit comes with a pretty big bag of crawler tread pieces which was the first clue to just how big the finished Crane was going to be. 

A few bags in and the Crane was starting to look enormous. Ive got to admit that I was getting more and more impressed as the build went on. The thought that has gone in to the the design of this kit is amazing and the huge series of different cogs used to make everything move is fascinating. Looking at it I started to think how I could include the power functions in to the custom things that we build.

The boys were awesome putting it together but I couldn't help but think that they had made a mistake some where down the line as there was no movement in the two reels that pulled in the two seperate strings used in the build. I was really hoping that I was wrong but I couldn't see how it was going to work. When they did complete the kit we couldn't get it working at all. There was no power coming from the battery pack until I realised it was my fault and I had only put in three batteries not 6 (I shouldn't have got involved).

Eventually that magical green light came on...

All but one function worked perfectly but we worked out that one of the pieces had come loose that was stopping the crawler from crawling. I am starting to see why LEGO Technic is so popular. When that light went on and we starting moving those levers around we were hooked. As you are building it, it is like any other LEGO kit in a way but when you see that what you have built can move around, the claw can be raised, lowered, opened and closed and the cab can spin it really adds to the fun. This for the boys really made the build and it was clear how impressed they were by what they had achieved.

The LEGO Technic Crawler Crane has changed the way I look at LEGO Technic now and I think the power functions are something that Seth will be wanting to look in to more. The Mercedes-Benz Arocs 3245 is now starting to look quite appealing, could keep us quiet over the Christmas holiday.

"Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire."

If I'm honest LEGO Technic doesn't really appeal to me as much as the classic brick does but I could see while building recently that Seth is getting into the more technical side of LEGO building and he's even been eyeing up the electrical kits in our local toy store. I thought it was time for us to try something a little different. Although the parts used in Technic don't do it for me, the amazing finished articles that are popping up in the range look really interesting.

To start with, one of the mid range kits to get Seth's technical building started (42040 Fire Plane). I personally find it really difficult to custom build with the Technic piece system but that's mainly because I am so familiar with the classic bricks. As we made our way through the build though I was really impressed with the design and being able to see the moving mechanisms starting very early on. The propellor on the plane moves when you push the landing gear along a surface and the boys found it really interesting that that was made possible using only a series of cogs and a small rubber band. I could hear the cogs in Seth's head going round as he was asking "could I make something that does this...." and "If I built this could we make this bit move". The ailerons and elevators also move using a joystick on the plane and if that's not enough, there is a button on top of the plane that you can press to release the water bricks from the hatch below, it is a really detailed build.

LEGO Technic offers a completely different side to LEGO building and for a builder that wants what they have created to include motion it really is a great addition. the Fire plane looks awesome and has great playability. What makes this build even better though is it is a 2 in 1 kit and can also be rebuilt in to a jet plane. A lot of thought has gone into this build especially being 2 models and it has got me thinking more about my own creations.

*Note: The plane does come with stickers, unfortunately our over excited 4 year old is yet to let us stick them on until we have built the jet plane.

Now to move on to a bigger build, we have started kit 42042 The Crawler Crane which is taking Seth longer than expected but he is loving learning more about the power functions so stay tuned for that post very soon. I may have been converted to the magic of LEGO Technic after all.