The Moment Makers

In LEGO Inspiration today, we will show you what we found interesting in LEGO Technic set number 42062 Container Yard.

This is one of the medium-sized LEGO Technic sets, but even though it’s small it has lots of cool gearing and use of connecters. It is a 2-in-1 set, so it also has available instructions to build a container straddle-carrier, but for this article we will deal with the main instructions for the 2 container yard vehicles. Of these two vehicles, we will focus on the orange one in this article as “part 1” about this set. We have found many neat and inspiring things about this vehicle.

Gripping Things

This model is meant to pick up Technic blocks from the ground or from the other vehicle of the set, and it is very adjustable. It can move up and down, lengthen, and pick up.

This lift has a gripping function made to hold on to the blocks. The Technic block is attached…

The Technic block is not attached (released from the vehicle)…

The way this works…

Raising and lowering the lift arm

There is also a motion that makes the arm go up and down. This set also uses a worm gear for strength (so that the weight of the arm won’t pull the attachment right back down after it is lifted). There is a small black gear which acts as a knob. Turning this knob turns an axle that the worm gear is on. When the worm gear turns, it turns a medium double bevel gear. As the gear turns the axle in its center it turns lever arms that lower and raise the lift arm.

The arm is lowered…

The arm is half-way raised…

The arm is raised…

Extending the lift arm

There is also a simple extending motion. It is pretty awesome because a turn of only 180º of an axle-lever with your hand is able to fully extend the rack on this model!

The rack is in (see axle-lever by hand is fully to the right)…

The rack is half-way out (axle-lever facing upward)…

The rack is fully extended (axle-lever is turned 180º to the left)…

We had never seen a LEGO rack used this way before and thought it was so cool. Sometimes in FLL, it can take a motor a lot of rotations (and so it takes a lot of time) to fully extend a rack. In this model, the action of extending the rack is completed with only half a turn of the axle. We tried to look up more about this method and found descriptions of how this is similar to examples of circular motion (our turning the axle-lever) being converted into reciprocating motion. A popular reciprocating motion example would be pistons moving in an engine. This LEGO model is not a perfect example of this reciprocating motion in that the axle-lever cannot actually turn more than 180 degrees before reaching its limit (it cannot go endlessly like a motor driving pistons). Still, we challenge you to look into reciprocating motion to learn more!

Other Playability Functions

When you get a LEGO vehicle set, often you want to drive it around and put LEGO characters inside. LEGO designers added features to this set to allow you to do just that and play with these vehicles. There is a function that makes the vehicle turn. You just turn the black gear side to side as shown below, and the wheels in the back turn the same way in sync.

The vehicle will turn right…

The vehicle will turn left…

By pushing the vehicle forward while you turn this black gear, you can steer it as it drives around the floor or table!

The LEGO designers also made it easy to add a LEGO minifigure to the drivers seat of the vehicle. The hood covering the driver’s seat can move up and down to let the people driving in and out as shown below. They use axle friction connectors; so the hood can stay up as the person comes in.

The hood is up…

The hood is down…

We thought this was a really cool set and were glad to share it with you! We will make a part 2 for this; so you can see the other car. Thank you for reading this article. We hope you liked it!