Lego Saturn V launched

[barn]

Rebrickulous modifies a Lego Saturn V and launches it.

 

[neil_w]

Cool that they did it successfully, but damn what an annoying and uninformative video.

 

[barn]

Cool that they did it successfully, but damn what an annoying and uninformative video.

I agree. I should have mentioned to mute the sound until the actual launch.

 

[kuririn]

Haven't built mine yet. Might be my first LMC.

 

[Woody's Workshop]

To skip the hype, go to 2:30.
Darn it's hard typing one handed with my doggie in the other arm with a broken back...standing up unable to bend over.

 

[Nytrunner]

I thought this was going to be an utter failure, then I thought "wait a sec, that beard looks familiar......"
Glad they got hooked up with NAR to make this happen instead of trying something.......unwise...on their own.

The expressions on John Lyngdal's face are priceless while they're bouncing around, and John Hochheimer looks like he's worried they'll break his launch controller

 

[aerostadt]

I thought this was going to be an utter failure, then I thought "wait a sec, that beard looks familiar......"
Glad they got hooked up with NAR to make this happen instead of trying something.......unwise...on their own.

The expressions on John Lyngdal's face are priceless while they're bouncing around, and John Hochheimer looks like he's worried they'll break his launch controller

You can't get much better than the top 2 honcho's in the NAR and AIAA (an Estes owner, too). Would be nice to know what motor they used and if the escape tower was intact on landing. It sounds like the Lego conversion is not that difficult.

 

[manixFan]

Wow, that was both cool and annoying. I hate the 'pop media' aspect of the video production but at least they knew enough to get some extremely competent help. It would have been a lot better if they had some background on how they modified the kit to be able to launch it. Obviously they added fins and recovery gear, but after having built one of those kits, it seems like it would take some work to get it converted. On the other hand that fact that Lego has you build up the internal fuel tanks and then a shell around them means it might not be too bad.

Hmmm, I even bought a second kit, just in case...


Tony

 

[neil_w]

You can't get much better than the top 2 honcho's in the NAR and AIAA (an Estes owner, too). Would be nice to know what motor they used and if the escape tower was intact on landing. It sounds like the Lego conversion is not that difficult.

It would be nice to know *any* of the many, many pertinent details. Unfortunately the video seems to be have been made for (and by?) caffeine-addled juveniles.

 

[Ted Cochran]

Chris Flanigan on FB says there were two models--his and John Lyngdal's. Chris used a G79, John an H128. I think you can catch a glimpse of the second model in the video on the table as they run out to recover the first one. Hopefully John and/or Chris will provide details--I would think they'd have to do the build with glue, then bore out the inside to fit body tubes and recovery devices. But I don't have any inside info...

 

[BEC]

I pinged Chris Flanigan to see if he'd share any details. (Actually I asked him how got roped into this....!) If you put the video on full screen and stop it in a few key places you can see clear fins that go to the top of the engine fairings, what appears to be an Estes 29mm motor retainer and a few other key bits of info. I was going to guess Aerotech single-use G40 but as I was typing Ted popped in with the info that is now just above.

 

[neil_w]

If you put the video on full screen and stop it in a few key places you can see clear fins that go to the top of the engine fairings

Good catch, that was one of the details I was wondering about. I would seriously love to see a build thread or build video on these things, there's lots of interesting stuff going on.

 

[cerving]

I want to know if the bottom of the first stage was melted by the blast...

 

[muddymooose]

This video was too obnoxious to really watch. The hosts were annoying, the production was silly, the sound effects were dumb, and the whole thing just struck me as "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" more than anything remotely serious.

It would have been much better if 90% of it was the NAR guys explaining how they fit the motor, the coupler, etc. I've built the Lego Saturn V and there's a ton of structural stuff throughout the center of it...removing large chunks to fit a motor, coupler, chute, etc. seems non-trivial but this video glosses over all that for a few more *ZOINKS!* and *OMGS!* Ugh.

Also I would have liked to examine that thing upon recovery.

 

[GlenP]

The LEGO YouTube channel is probably not targeting the typical rocketry community demographic so much, but rather they are catering to their 7 million subscribers.

 

[Nytrunner]

The LEGO YouTube channel is probably not targeting the typical rocketry community demographic so much, but rather they are catering to their 7 million subscribers.

Nailed it. The average lego end user is on the young side.

And if this video makes them wonder and ask questions about how to make real rockets (even years down the road) then more power to it

 

[cerving]

Agreed. The video looks like a Disney Channel spot...

 

[mcderek]

Exactly. Rocketeers aren't the videos demographic. It's still annoying!

 

[burkefj]

My only worry with this is it would cause someone to try and just stick a rocket motor in and think it was going to be stable as they didn't really talk about or show the modifications or the fins or where it should balance. That's not the rocketry folks fault, that's the video creator.

John Lyngdal said there were two versions his was the one that was stable. His fins were probably larger than he needed but he said he still had less than 2 calibers of stability with the H-128. They glued the Lego pieces together. The bare model without rocket motor weighed more than 1,500 grams so this was definitely far 101. He said he'd chime in with more details if there was a thread started we'll see if he does.

 

[BDB]

I hope we learn more about the details of the build. I’m tempted to buy another Lego Saturn V to emulate it. I think I’d rather build this than the new Estes Kit for the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing.

On a side note....I actually know the guy in Rebriculous videos. His name is Dimitri, and he is one of the children’s pastors at our church. My kids and their friends loved the video, so that’s a win for our hobby.

 

[K'Tesh]

A soon as I can, I need to get myself another Lepin clone.

 

[Ted Cochran]

If you look at the video carefully, you can see that the Saturn V that was shown launching was not the one that was recovered (the recovered one had larger, square fins). Also, there is little chance that kids will try to stick a motor in a Lego Saturn V--the thing is pretty much solid lego and would have to be glued together and then bored out.

 

[manixFan]

I built one and it has a pretty distinct internal structure that mimics the fuel tanks and an external structure that is attached to the tanks. By replacing the interior tanks with body tubes and then fastening the skin to that it should work pretty well. It would definitely have to be glued together though. I've attached some screen shots that show that's pretty much what they did - you can see the body tube surrounded by the external panels. I re-watched the video and actually it was really cool at the end. While a lot of their enthusiasm is likely for show, they seemed genuinely excited by the launch and recovery. Once I realized it's aimed at the lego set, it makes a lot more sense.


Tony

You can see the two different fin shapes in the images below:

 

[burkefj]

You can see in the screen shots there are two models, the clear fins are different so they did a mashup of ignition shots and the one good straight flight....

 

[Johnly]

Chris's build was much more aesthetic than my conversion. Mine weighed in at 5 lbs on the pad, Chris's was a few ounces lighter.
The mass of the airframe combined with the limited volume for the recovery system was a major constraint.
I ended up using two 50" Top Flite thin-mil parachutes on my project and it was a challenge to pack them into the limited volume.

 

[James Duffy]

This video was too obnoxious to really watch. The hosts were annoying, the production was silly, the sound effects were dumb, and the whole thing just struck me as "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" more than anything remotely serious.

Um, you know that the target market for Lego products is young children, right?

This is great publicity for the hobby and the NAR. Let's not gripe that it wasn't handled with the reverence of a Ken Burns documentary.

James

 

[dhbarr]

Um, you know that the target market for Lego products is young children, right?

This is great publicity for the hobby and the NAR. Let's not gripe that it wasn't handled with the reverence of a Ken Burns documentary.

James

If they didn't argue about glue for 20mins, how real can it be? :-D

 

[muddymooose]

Um, you know that the target market for Lego products is young children, right?

Lego is generally advertised toward kids, sure, but MPR/HPR motors generally aren't. If they're going to make a kiddy video about Lego maybe they should leave MPR/HPR motors out of it. All we need is for some 10 year old to try to stuff a few F motors from Hobby Lobby in his Lego Saturn V, try to ignite it with a lighter (thanks, YouTube), and burn his hands off or create 1969 pieces of plastic shrapnel.

If they're going to talk about putting HPR motors in toys, it would be nice if they would treat it with at least a modicum of seriousness.

"*ZOINKS* hey kids, it's a real hoot to jam explosive material into your toys! Ha-yuck!" just isn't something that will go well for us.

I guess I'm all for treating rocketry with the seriousness of a Ken Burns documentary for good reason. Personally I don't want to go back to the days when a cluster of 3 D motors required an FAA waiver or BATFE regulated APCP.

 

[BEC]

...which may be one of the reasons that all the details WE want to know about how it was done are omitted from the video.

There's precious little in the other model rocket one (linked from this one and the one in which the built Saturn V is presented to Christiana and she remarks about launching it at the end) that explains what they are really doing there either. That said, in that one I found it amusing that their LEGO launch controller is obviously (to me) an Estes Electron Beam encased in LEGO bricks.

 

[muddymooose]

Side note: Lego has been increasingly marketed toward adults over the last 5-10 years. The $120 Saturn V, $300 bucket wheel excavator, $400 roller coaster, and $800 Millennium Falcon weren't designed and manufactured for 8-year-olds. They were designed for people who grew up on Lego and now, as adults, have piles of money to burn on the comforts of youth.

A report from a few years ago indicated 5% of Lego users were adults. Consensus is that adults make up a far larger share of gross sales since adult collectors have a far larger amount of disposable income than kids and their parents.

If the "H motor in a Lego Saturn V" video had been directed toward such adult fans I would be cool with it. Indeed this video, while produced for children, seemed to garner much more interest from adults in spite of going into nearly zero detail about the more interesting aspects of such a feat. I worry that this misstep will encourage kids to do dangerous stuff more than it will encourage adults with money to burn to get into rocketry.

Then again it was my build of the Lego Saturn V a couple years ago that inspired me to get back into actual rocketry. And I didn't even have to stick a motor in it to come to that revelation.