Blog Post 2 - In Progress LEGO Assignment

Blog Post 2 - In Progress LEGO Assignment

This is an in-progress report on my work for the LEGO Car Assignment. At the moment, I have a total of 12 LEGO pieces modeled, and I am currently working on the 13th. So far, the progress for the assignment has been fairly smooth. The project expands on topics that we have already been working on within class and for previous assignments, so there is not a lot that I am struggling to figure out at this point. However, I know this will change because I have yet to deal with the LEGO piece that acts as the axle for the car.

The regular pieces, such as the 1x1, 2x1, 3x2, and 4x2, were very straightforward. Once I had the base 1x1 modeled based on the reference provided for the assignment, the other pieces were essentially modular and could be mirrored and duplicated from the base 1x1. The challenge only began once I needed to create pieces with unique geometry that deviated from the typical format of LEGO bricks. 

The “Grab” 2x1 brick was created by tracing the reference in an orthographic view with the Bezier Curve tool. I had not previously used this tool before, and it allows the user to create a smoother curve with fewer points. After extruding along that curve, I attached the “grab” portion of the brick to the 2x1 portion, which I created using the tall 2x1 LEGO brick.

The next brick that I made was the corresponding brick, which contained a cylinder that the “grab” brick could latch onto. This brick was quickly made using a cylinder, which I extruded out based on the reference, then attached to another 2x1 brick.

I am currently working on a series of bricks with a smooth, curved slope. These were made by creating a plane and moving the vertices to follow the curvature of the brick in orthographic view. This brick was the most challenging due to the need to prevent edge loops from being unevenly spaced along the top of the curve. If they were to be unevenly spaced, it would cause pinching, which would stick out poorly in comparison to all of the smooth faces and edges that the LEGO bricks are meant to have.