Look at the stand on that

So sturdy. So tiltable 😍 The in-between bit just slides out so you have something to clench while engaged in a bit of nervous swooshing.

The original dream was to have it floating and bobbing. Tensegrity looked perfect, with service cables and guy ropes instead of the chains in the video below. Hard points and magnets, oh yeah.

Or maybe an optical illusion of a coil of “refuelling” tube that’s a sort of spring but looks flimsy. Luckily I realised in time that the torque was crazy and I was being waaay over-ambitous. The ship weighs over a kilo (!) after all.

Instead, holiday Lego that year was the 3 in 1 Hamster Wheel 31155. No MoCs came from it but oh my, well well well, those rings are perfect here. A absolute pleasure to knock out something functional in Technic and find a proper use for a linear actuator, all in full authentic 90s colour 🦾

The real star here is the ship itself of course. It’s by the amazing Nick Trotta (with instructions by Christian Weiß) drawing on the work of concept artist Shaun Mooney. The story of building that will get a post of its own but for now I invite you just to marvel at the engineering elegance that is that base.