I'm a Finalist!

Nick,

Congratulations! Your entry into the Cedar Point K’Nex Great Thrill Ride Build-Off Facebook Contest has been selected as a finalist! Your ride showed great creativity and we can see the hard work you put into building “Demon Drop”. We will be posting the three finalists’ entries on our Facebook Page tomorrow where our fans will be able to vote on their favorite. Facebook fans will determine the winner by clicking on the “like” button under the chosen finalists’ entry. A photo of your ride will be the entry that our fans “Like” and we will link to your video on YouTube for fans to see the entire ride. Comments on the original post or comments underneath the posted picture and/or video will not be counted. Facebook voting ends at 3:00:00 PM ET on April 12, 2011. The semi-finalist with the most votes via users clicking on the “like” button will be the winner.

Thank you and good luck!

Demon Drop K'nex Model

I teased you with a couple preview pictures earlier. Well, here it is in all of its glory- the Demon Drop K'nex model recreation for Cedar Point's Build Off competition. What do you think?

Legoland Florida Interview

Check out my interview with Jackie Wallace, media representative for Legoland Florida, opening in 2011!

My K'nex Coaster Models

As a mechanical engineer and a roller coaster enthusiast, I have always wanted to design or build roller coasters. While I may never get the chance to work on a real one, I have built several coasters out of K’nex back in the day. You remember K’nex right? The plastic rods and connectors which you connect together to form all kinds of contraptions. I recently found some pictures I took of my creations and would like to share them with you today. First, a few notes:

-I built everything with the original K’nex Roller Coaster set, way before the Screamin’ Serpent models came out.

-This is my parent’s basement before they remodeled. Why they would ever want to get rid of that carpet and furniture is beyond me.

-Sorry the quality of the pictures isn’t better. This was before I had a digital camera. I really wish I had been able to get video of these running too. Maybe I’ll have to rebuild them someday.

Now on to the models!

4D Coaster: My best creation was probably the S&S Arrow 4D coaster. This was built before X opened at Six Flags Magic Mountain. All I had to go by was a short video of a car being run through the test track at Arrow’s facility. The Lego people riders do a backflip over the camel back hill. I only had enough track to make the one hill. The car used a ton of wheels and was pretty heavy, similar to the real ride.

For more head over to Coaster101!

Vintage Lego Airport Shuttle Monorail #6399.

When I was a young lad, the Lego Airport Shuttle Monorail was a Lego set I desperately wanted to have. I remember gazing at the ad for it in the Lego wish list magazine we used to get every year. I never got the monorail. I think my parents deemed it too expensive, which at the time I believe was selling for $140. Today, I decided to look through the Lego sets on Amazon.com to see what they had. I sorted the selection by price from high to low. On the first page guess what model popped up? Yup, you guessed it, Vintage Lego Airport Shuttle Monorail #6399. And the asking price? $1,485.99! Can you believe that? I couldn’t.



Well, I decided to look through the pages and find some of mine and my sibling’s old sets and see if their prices had skyrocketed as well. I found six sets that I know we owned for sure. The total sum of those sets listed is over $1000! The average selling cost of each set is $170, which I am sure at least twice of what we originally paid for them. But would ours be worth that much in reality? Probably not. For one, all of the pieces are now mixed together in one large box. On top of that we probably dont have the boxes the sets came in and I can only hope that we kept the instructions. I think the main purpose of keeping them in the first place is for future grand kids.



Lego Wild West Gold City Junction 6765 $199.99
Lego System Aerial Acrobats Set 6345 $199.89
Lego Wild West Western Rapid River Village Teepee / Canoe 6763 $199.00
Lego Western #6761 Bandit's Gold Mine Secret Hideout $159.49
LEGO Legend 10036 Breezeway Cafe (Reissue of Town 6376) $129.90
Lego Sheriff's Lock-Up 6764 $115.50