The Moment Makers

In LEGO Inspiration today, we will continue showing 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 connectors. 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 blue and white one in this article as “part 2” about this set (see “part 1” for orange vehicle).

Turning Mechanism

You can steer the truck cab as you push it along. The steering is controlled by turning a small black double bevel gear mounted on the top.

Turning left…

Turning right…

Through the steering gear, an axle turns and bends slightly toward the ground, using a universal axle joint. These universal axle joints are great to use for your Technic or EV3 robot building if you need to change the angle slightly of your rotating motion!

The axle pointing downward from the universal axle joint is connected into an axle hole of a blue lever beam (see the blue beam in center). This blue lever beam turns from side to side as you turn the steering gear. As it turns from side to side, it pushes and slides between the two pieces that the wheels are connected to. This causes the truck cab to steer left and right. Bigger Technic sets use racks to complete this motion, but this is simpler than a rack while simulating the same movement for this smaller model.

Using Them Together

As we talked about in part 1 of this set there is also a companion vehicle to pick up and move the large grey blocks. This way you can play with picking up and transporting the blocks.

The blue trailer can hold two of the large grey blocks. The trailer has beams lengthwise to create a platform for the blocks and holds them in place with one-long beams placed to separate the platform in half.

Cab doors and friction connectors

The truck cab’s doors can open and close.

Door open…

Door closed…

They are attached to the truck cab’s body with single black friction connectors. These connectors allow movement when you push or pull against the doors, but the connectors have enough friction to help the doors stay closed in normal play. The connectors will wear over time and may need to be replaced with extensive play. Still, these friction connectors are good tools in LEGO Technic. They are often found providing resistance to hold racks in up positions, etc.

Trailer attachment with axle connector

You can also detach the back trailer from the driver’s cab.

The vehicle has an axle peg sticking upward. The trailer for the back has a hole area, so you can put the axle connector in the hole to support it. Since the hole is circular (not an axle hole), the axle connector has a smooth fit and can slide in and out easily.

40 Years of Technic!

This set was released as part of the 2017 Technic production year. So, it was part of the 40 years of Technic celebration. It comes with a special white three-long beam imprinted with a 40 years of Technic logo, showing the years of Technic production (1977-2017) and part of a gear. Can you believe Technic has been around that long?!? It has advanced a lot in just the last couple years that we have been playing with the Technic sets as part of our FIRST LEGO League experience! We can’t wait to see what new things Technic can do in the future!

Thank you for reading this article! We hope you liked it!