Despite a redesign of the input conveyor last December for my Lift & ZigZag Great Ball Contraption module, it was still proving to be not reliable enough, but I had been putting off doing anything about it. Wih several shows looming where I needed to take GBC to display, a few weeks ago I gave it some more thought and decided to completely rebuild the input side. I had found a GBC Workshop module design online (WM01 by Matt Norman).
Updates To My 3 LEGO GBC Modules & A New One!
Since the last show I displayed at back in early November, I have made a few changes to my Great Ball Contraption modules to improve their reliability. In this video I show you the modifications I have made to my existing three modules, and showcase a new one.
Exhibition: LMEE 2018
The London AFOLs were sharing a stand at the London Model Engineering Exhibition with Brickish at Ally Pally over the weekend. Several of our members had built GBC modules and they were all put together to make a ridiculously pointless ball-carrying contraption, including two of mine. The punters loved it! Here’s a video of the circuit:
I was helping to run the machine all day, and heard many complimentary comments. The two best ones were:
This is the best LEGO model I’ve ever seen!
and
This is the best model in the whole show!
High praise indeed… Anyway, here are my two contributions merrily shifting balls.

And the public clearly loved it – there were loads of questions from young and old alike.

I was allowed out for a little while to look at the rest of the LEGO on display, here is a selection of photos of other builds:








So all in all my first experience at exhibiting was a good one, great fun and excellent company. When’s the next one?
GBC: Lift & ZigZag
The GBC test day in Caterham went well, and while the Big Bird was being tested, Alistair and I managed to put together another module with the Technic bits I had taken with us. The conveyor is a straight lift from the Bucket Wheel Excavator, with some pins stuck in at regular intervals. The ZigZag ramps were again built from BWE bits, the siding plates from another conveyor forming the bottom surface. I’m quite pleased how these turned out too.

When I got home I made a little video of my two modules running together: