SweBrick III - ULV

Ultimate LEGO Vehicle competition

This was part of SweBrick III, for more information on other things we did, see here.

The task was to build a vehicle that should excel in several subcompetitions, Esthetic's, speed, endurance, aerodynamics and construction quality.

Since we only were four competititors and some built faster then others, it was allowed to participate with two vehicles. All but Röde thus built a serious attempt and a not so serious one.

The competitions were held in a steep slope, the vehicles were not allowed to have engines and should be driven by gravitational pull.

In short, the subcompetitions were:

Esthetic's

Each competitior got ten points to award among the vehicles as they saw fit. This competition was first while the vehicles still looked liked intended.

Maximum amount of points availible: 30, 10 by each opposing competitor. You were not allowed to award your own vehicles.

Speed

Vehicle 1 started at the same time as vehicle 2, the first to cross the finish line was awarded one point. Then vehicle 1 started against vehicle 3 and so forth until every vehicle had raced against each other. In this competition a blanket was used as finish line to stop the vehicles before they crashed, at least that was the theory.

Maximum number one positions and points: The number of opposing vehicles, in this case 7.

Endurance

The blanket was removed and the vehicles were allowed to roll until they came to a natural halt, some bounced against the wall in the other end of the room and in those cases the lenght of the bounce was also measured.

The results were measured in centimeters, the more the better.

Aerodynamics

The long steep hill was fitted with a jump in the end. The blanket was used as a landing zone to soften the impact. At first it was meant that the distance to the drivers resting point (which very well could be separate from the vehicle) was to be measured, but when Tobbes vehicle landed on all four wheels and rolled all the way to the opposing wall the others decided that the measurement was to be from the lip of the jump to the place of landing. Bastards!

The results were measured in centimeters, again, the more the better.

Construction quality

This competition was parallel to all the others, all vehicles was awarded with ten points from the start. Each brick or cluster of bricks that fell off the vehicle meant that one point was deducted from the ten initial points. If a vehicle reached zero no more points were deducted.

Maximum points: 10
Minimum points: 0

This is the slope used, two parallel courses. Before the competition started we made it even steeper.

While waiting for the others Tobbe built a few design concepts. The gray 4x4 cylinders in the front rotated in high speed via the front axle.

This had a tendency to fall over.

To give JarJar a ride for the money this was constructed. JarJar sits on two 1x2 bricks with a + hole, thus he spins like crazy while tumbling down the course. It worked very well and might have won all subcompetitions apart from the esthetic's round.

All has arrived, the real building can take place.

Since there only was seven vehicles an eight "house vehicle" was constructed to make it an even number. It felt hard to loose against JarJar!

Tobbes unserious entry, note the red minifig helmet between the wheels.

On the right keel. It worked quite well but could not jump.

Harris serious entry.

Harris unserious entry, santas sleigh!

Tobbes serious entry.

Adam and Röde still building.

Harri tried some modifications but had to go back to the original design - this was to long to fit in the gate!

While passing time Tobbe built this Fred Flintstone car, it was not in the final race.

The vehicle did one jump with the most spectacular landing, bricks flew all over the place. Unfortunately no camera managed to capture this mayhem.

Even more time killing, Tobbe built a 4x4 that could climb the course.

Rödes serious entry.

Hood opened.

Adams serious entry.

Adams unserious entry which performed quite well. The idea was that it should bounce against the wall and was named Harvey Wallbanger.

All the vehicles.

Röde judges esthetic's.

Harris sleigh gave up existents, sorry kids, looks like the Christmas is canceled - forever.

Röde lines up the vehicles for start...

...and off they go. The house vehicle against Harvey Wallbanger.

The purpose of the bag with the blanket was to smooth out the impact, this did not work so well with Adams vehicle.

Röde lines up Tobbes both entries.

And they're off! Note that the boat is going for the edge.

Yet another nasty accident for Adams car.

The boat lost both a wing and the driver.

Rödes vehicle disintegrated.

Tobbes vehicle hits a shelf and snaps an axle, the first brick is sacrificed to the ULV-Gods.

Röde let's go off Adam and Tobbes entries, Adam is already several centimeters ahed...

...although Tobbes vehicle takes the impact a tad better.

Tobbe lines up Röde against Harri, the two vehicles looked quite similar. Note that Röde -on demand- starts backwards.

Tobbe snaps yet another axle in the exact same shelf.

Rödes vehicle explodes.

Harvey Wallbanger from team Adam throws in the towel. Note that the black 6x-plate is bent. The same shelf leg that Tobbe has hit twice.

Adams other vehicle is not in any better shape.

Harris vehicle gets a nice impact with the wall. If the driver had stayed in the vehicle Harri would have won this subcompetition, but the driver is still close to the wall...

The Fred Flinta-vehicle had another go at the jump.

Harri rebuilt his sleigh to give the jump a go but it disintegrated before take off.

Harri phones in an order for pizza, Röde improves the jump and Adams does what he constantly did: Rebuilds his vehicle.

Something went to pieces in the jump.

JarJar chickens out and steers off the jump before the lip.

Adams car after the jump, his hopes for achieving any points in construction quality is long gone...

Adam let's go of his Harvey Wallbanger while Röde judges the airtime. In the speed competition the builders were not allowed to handle the vehicles, unlike in the individual competitions.

Rödes vehicle in pieces.

Another time killer-build smashed into the sleigh in the middle of the jump. Bricks everywhere!

The competition is over, but not the lust for destruction.

If you look closely right above the vehicle you can see a green 2x4 plate coming loose.

The winner Röde with his vehicle.

Adam.

Tobbe.

Harri.

The alternative model from set 8845 bites the dust.

And so did the alternative model of the 8841, LEGO's own models did not do to well in this competition.

Neither did the SweLUG-logo.

Parts that died, a pair of axles, a Technic bushing and a plate.

Results

The winner of each subcomp in bold, looser in wimpy italics.

Competitor		Esthetic's Points		Speed Number of #1's		Endurance Place		Aerodynamcs Jumped cm		Construction Remainder of points
House/JarJar		0		1		7		48		9
Tobbe		8		3		6		103		6
Harri		8		2		2		57		8
Röde		11		3		4		131		2
Adam		9		3		5		91		0
Sleigh		4		Did not start		Did not start		0		0
Boat		0		4		3		6		7
Harvey		0		6		1		114		0

It came as a total surprise that the house vehicle with JarJar won the construction quality-comp, it never made it all the way to the deconstructive wall but still...

Winner in total

The winner was called with some help from math. A table was constructed for each entry where every result in each subcomp was noted. For example, the house vehicle came 1st once, 6th and 7th twice each. Then the results was awarded with different points:

8th = 0 points
7th = 1
6th = 2
5th = 3
4th = 4

3rd = 8
2nd = 9
1st = 10

In this way a result worthy of a podium placement was awarded with more points then the rest.

The amount of points was then multiplied with the number of results in each position and finally all the points were summed up. In retrospect 3rd should be worth 6 points, 2nd 8 points and 1st 10 points. This did not affect the outcome of this particularly competition.

Result		Competitor		Total points
1st		Röde		35
2nd		Harvey Wallbanger		33
3rd		Harri		31
4th		Tobbe		30
5th		Boat		28
6th		Adam		26
7th		House vehicle		16
8th		Sleigh		5

Only five points between #1 and #4 so the system seems to work.

Things to improve for next time

A deadline for the building process would be a good thing, put a little preassure on the slow builders and reduce waiting for the fast. 90 minutes should be enough, now it took 150 before everyone was finished. Or a time when the race starts and the ones feeling they need more build time can come earlier.

Either there should be a limit in wheel diameter or the incline of the hill should be decreased so the vehicles don't reach the end of the room. The bouncing principle worked poorly. Or perhaps a hill in the other end for the vehicles to scale, to hit the wall is not good for vehicles or the competition at large.