Tag Archives: David Roberts

This anti-gravity Wipeout Racer has a checkered history

You may have heard the humorous adage that if you paint racing stripes on your vehicle it’ll automatically go faster. In the case of this LEGO anti-gravity Wipeout Racer by David Roberts that might actually be true. He tells us that this ship was first in its class partly due to its powerful engine pack and partly due to its color scheme distracting other pilots and causing them to crash. He goes on to explain that this led to a rule change where the team had to paint their ship in a more sober pattern and thus the success of the race sadly and predictably waned. The lesson learned here is that racing fans like crazy stuff and now we can’t have nice things. Speaking of nice things, this would not be David’s first lap with brightly-colored ships and other awesome stuff. Check out our archives to see what I mean.

LG Systems Wipeout Racer

This ship is barrels of fun!

While classic greys have their place, I’m a sucker for a vibrant color scheme on my spaceships. The Blue Barrel by David Roberts certainly doesn’t disappoint in that arena, with a checkerboard pattern of red and orange that really offsets the blue bodywork to make this vessel stand out. I love the smooth lines and the Technic gears in the nose.

The Blue Barrel

The real treat, though, is when this baby comes in for a landing. Dave’s focus on this build was the development of hinged hatches and extendable landing gear. Fingertip pressure is all it takes to pop open the landing struts, but apparently, you’ll “need some fingernails to get at the legs and pull them out!”  Truly, one of more obvious-but-still-clever uses of Technic rods I’ve seen in a while. Also be sure to spend a moment or two examining that innovative ladder. It doesn’t use standard stud attachments to hook onto the ship but rather uses 1×1 Tooth plate to hang on the cockpit rim.

The Blue Barrel

Did this whet your appetite for more space-y goodness? Take a stroll through our archives for even more great featured builds!

Double the tensegrity, triple the trouble

Over the past few months, LEGO tensegrity sculptures have been all the rage, with their gravity-defying stacking attracting builders of all stripes to try their hands. While most tensegrity structures consist of a single floating element, a few builders have managed to add another floating section to that, which makes the delicate balancing exponentially more difficult. David Roberts makes it look easy, though, with this tower of rings.

The Three RingsTensegrity sculptures stay aloft thanks to being held in tension with three tethers (chains in this case), but David’s model also adds tension to the rings themselves, which simply comprise Technic tread links joined inside out to make a tensioned circle. It all comes together to create a beautifully simple sculpture.

Now, who wants to try their hand at creating a tensegrity sculpture with three floating levels on top of the base? Any takers?

Want to see more tensegrity sculptures? Check out our LEGO Tensegrity archives for examples from tanks to dragons.

The art and science of LEGO tensegrity builds

The recent trend in the LEGO-sphere community has all been about magical floating compression structures, better known as a tensegrity – a portmanteau of “tensional integrity”. The fad started with a very rudimentary build on a Reddit and soon spawned many more creative iterations. We pick a few of the more outstanding ones that we’ve seen that has impressed us. A couple of them come with build videos and instruction guides for you to build your very own.

Click to see some of the best we’ve spotted around

Hot dog or hot rod?

Abandon all logic! David Roberts is back at his surreal best, with this fine meat-based entry to the Febrovery building event. David asks us why we wouldn’t want to drive around in a car shaped like a hot dog, and I really have no answer for him. Taking his inspiration from master children’s illustrator and author Richard Scarry, whose mad world saw anthropomorphic pigs at the wheel of just such vehicles, this build ticks all the LEGO fun boxes. Take a final moment to marvel at its mustard windshield, sausage chassis and wrap around bun – genius!

Frebrovery 2019: Hotdog

Built with ridiculous speed in mind

Described as the “biggest, baddest, most bulbous speeder bike”, by builder David Roberts, the Turbinia certainly lives up to its name. I’ve admired David’s work for a long time now, especially the way he mixes his humorous narratives with the knowledge of an engineering graduate. In this case the turbine element creates both the quirky nautilus-like shape of the vehicle, as well as hinting at the real-life mechanics of a centrifugal processor. Whichever way you look at it, this colourful model is a whole heap of gyroscopic fun.

Turbinia Speeder Bike