The eccentricity of the Earth's orbit is low enough that simplifying it to a circle causes a 2% error at most, which is practically invisible at this scale. The Moon perhaps could've done with a proper elliptic orbit, since it's almost 10% closer to Earth at perigee, although given that the relative distances aren't to scale anyway, I can see why the designers would forgo the mechanical complexity this would add.
Yeah I find the review quite good and the criticism spot on, except for the remarks on accuracy: 1) "Sun is yellow and smooth": that one is not too bad, and I agree this Sun is not great from an aesthetics point of view. But the Sun does look uniform (and yellowish from Earth depending on the time of day) when you look at it without a filter. 2) "Sun/Earth relative size": this makes no sense! The Sun's diameter is 109 times larger than the Earth diameter, what was Lego supposed to do? 3) "Sun/Earth distance is constant": well yes as it should be! The Earth orbit is veeery close to circular. If you can see that it's not a circle, that's when you know it's inaccurate. I mean look at the second image on the wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit . 4) "Moon's orbit is perpendicular to Earth's": I think Sariel meant "parallel" here. The angle between the planes of the Moon's orbit and Earth's orbit is only 5 degrees so I think it's reasonably accurate to show them in the same plane... Then the real accuracy issue is not mentioned in the review: The Earth's print shows parts of India, Yemen and Mexico and the rest of Central America in the Southern Hemisphere! Now that's seriously wrong... How did this happen? Still a great review, thanks Sariel!
Honestly, if you complain that Earth is too big compared to the Sun, you just don’t have any concept of the actual size of the Sun. Next to the Sun, Earth is just a tiny little speck. You’d either need a model of the Sun the size of a football, or a (at the current size of the Sun in this model) LEGO piece smaller than a 1x1 stud to represent Earth, and if you wanted to display the orbit of Earth around the Sun correctly at that scale, you’d have a LEGO set the size of a room. It’s also not the main purpose of an orrery to be to scale. It’s nice if it is, but the primary function of an orrery is to show the relative positions of celestial bodies at different points during their orbit, something this model apparently does very well (which is also quite an achievement if you consider they only had off the shelf Technic elements to work with).
This ⬆️ All of this. That comment alone pushed this whole review into "deeply unserious" territory. And think of the mechanical complexity needed to get properly elliptical orbits! These are just not realistic criticisms! And the price per piece math is silly when you look at the deep set of gears, uncommon and very useful "Spike" style wheels, and the extremely useful long frames. This is useful as a parts pack alone for anyone looking to jumpstart their selection of gears. Also, the rattling noise complaint has some validity, IMO, but most of that is because they used yellow frictionless pins to join the two halves of the sun (for the color match, which I do appreciate) but this has the trade-off of making the sun rattle quite easily. I swapped them out with standard black friction pins and it made it much quieter, but yeah it didn't look very good. A better modification might be to use a bit of (non-reactive!) putty inside the seam, or just stick a crushed up wad of craft paper inside to keep the halves from wiggling as much. Probably a lot of other options too, use your imagination.
I haven't bought a lego set for a while, but I finally have a job. I'm going to buy this set and keep it boxed until I move out of my current apartment. I get all the downsides, but I'm glad lego Technic are finally starting to become more... I mean, they're obviously creative, but like... do I want a race car in a specialty color, or do I want to spend over 400 on something interesting? and even when I buy something, it looks so nice, it would be a shame to take it apart... you see what I mean? I love the new technic space line because of how properly _unique_ they are, and I love how they look like old school technic sets : you build it once to learn the techniques, play with it for a while, and then it slowly dissolves into your pool of lego parts, as you build something and just need _that_ piece. All the new lego technic sets look too nice to take apart, and aren't even worth taking apart, because they all use unique colors. Construction equipment used to reliably be yellow. Every set had black and gray. What the heck am I supposed to do with four 15m light deep sea aqua beams? make a pride flag with my 6 other rainbow colors?
I think two interesting developments could be achieved with this set: one is obviously attaching a motor and a simple transmission so that we could see Earth rotate much slower too. The other one would be to 3d print a more transparent ball for the Sun and put an all-round led into it, so that one could observe day/night as well for Earth in a darker room.
I have to say, sun/earth relative size would really put it out of anyone's reach in terms of cost/value of it were realistic. Either that, or the moon wouldn't be visible.
I have always appreciated that Sariel is not stingy with his praise NOR his criticism! His criticism of this set was a bit harsh, but not undeserved. I agree that the designers could have made different choices with this model's parts and appearance. However, I also think that this set could serve as an excellent jumping off point for an enthusiast to modify into something more aesthetically pleasing, like the stunning models of JK Brickworks.
To me esthetics are also the biggest downside of this set. So misaligned pieces of Earth - which we all agree is really the main actor of this set (not the Sun despite its central position and size) - is simply disqualifying. This is mostly "look-at-me-set" so visuals are very important. But I agree with your comment it's a great base to create something more esthetically pleasent.
Thank you for including my design in the examples! 😍 Designing an orrery is really difficult, especially with this low of a part count. But still, many of the problems you mention are entirely avoidable.
Would be fun to see it blown “into proportion” incl all other planets and their moons. One can dream can’t they ;) But if someone expects such a monstrosity as a commercially available set, it’s not dreaming but lunacy. :D
For 'Accurate', I first read 'the number of earths', and I laughed. I do think you meant to say 'planar with', not 'perpendicular', as that would mean it is at a 90 degree angle. But great review, as always. And yes, it is sad (we speculate) the Lego marketing department did not want to put 'partial orrery' on the box, just because they would think people might not be familiar with the word. Imagine putting 'SIAN car' on the box because 'Lamborghini' is too difficult. Love your stuff, as allways.
Forces slowly change our Earth's orbit between more circular and elliptical shapes over hundreds of thousands of years. I don't see "constant Earth/Sun distance" as a "con", but worth mentioning. Thanks for the review.
It looks awful to be honest. Especially if you know that there is the CaDA Master set "The solar System", which is officially licenced by JK Brickworks (whose name should ring a bell ^^) with the same idea in mind. BUT it comes in a CaDA typical premium box, with very high piece quality and looks like a set you actively want to display on your shelf/desk. And not to forget that the official price here in germany for the CaDA set is jast 40€, where the LEGO abomination costs 80€ and has 300 pieces less ... no LEGO, just no. So far 2024 for LEGO Technic is a huge diasappointment ... but hey, atleast I can invest the saved money in mocs :D
Many cada sets are better than Lego... And piece quality is great. At half price... But people prefer Lego without even try other brands... I also think this set is awful and overpriced... As most of latest set...
The new Technic Space sets look pretty decent, at least on first glance. This one, though thematically and mechanically interesting, just seems rushed and poorly thought-through. Or it's a victim of designing to a price point...
I thought I would never buy Technic again (I like system more) but could not resist buying this one. I like it.
7 месяцев назад
Technic fans: "They keep doing looks instead of functionality, like they used to!" System fans: "Why all these Technic pieces? It's ugly!" I like what they were going for here, but seems like if there's no pleasing everyone. For example, I really hate all those Ideas sets because a brick built sphere is even worse looking than these new Technic ones, and I don't really care for the ornaments, these things should have their mechanic parts on display. The SW spheres weren't meant to be used for anything else, and I don't see how they could have done the new ones differently while allowing for separation and use in other ways.
well the big problem is that technic is supposed to be functional (so if it isnt then it auto fails because it has no reason to be made out of technic stuff) buuuut if you build functional things with technic, that doesnt mean theyre automatically required to be ugly. sariel builds all kinds of things out of almost pure technic that are quite pretty, but also have 38 motors somehow. its possible to do, and this completely missed the mark. also, he did demonstrate how they could be built as two pieces and still be used in other ways because he was holding that piece. heck, just having a single axle hole in the top and bottom to be held together with a certain number of spacers between wouldve worked too. move the pin holes inboard even! anything but pins at the periphery where they cant be hidden.
@@jackradzelovage6961 I love Sariel's work, but he doesn't have to consider a price target that is set before he finishes building; ease of construction and instruction flow for customers, some of whom are somewhat novice - part of the reason there are so many colors is their requirement for certain pins to be certain color to make them easy to find; a price that will sell - this might be overpriced but what would a 38 motor version cost (just borrowing your exaggerated example). That being said, damn, why didn't they at least use the star wars pieces for the sun? They look so much better. Waiting to see if they've got another set coming soon that uses these new hemispheres that made them seem like a better idea for them. Gotta be said too, I think they've gotten worse at almost anything that involves printing in any way. Shame.
@@BboyCustomz its just a point to say that technic doesnt necessarily have to be ugly, but for this kit they didnt even make an attempt. it would not have been too much more expensive if at all to either put proper paneling on it or to strip it down for form-from-functions sake
I almost completely disagree with you. I like the look of the set, don't mind the pinholes, of course it will fall over when you handle it like this, ... For the innaccurate "Sun/Earth relative size": the sun would bei several meters in diameter if it would be to scale 😉
I dont know if it is only me, but i think you got a problem with the new filters applied to the video : the dark orange pieces appeared almost red on my screen... :/
This set had such great potential, especially useful for schools and yet, I cannot help but agree with you. The final result is remarkably ugly for a model of something so precious. As soon as I saw the globe of the sun, I looked across to my old Planet sets and again could not disagree with you. Great work as always Sariel.
I don't disagree about the earth being a bit ugly with the gaps and misaligned print... But I think you're being overly critical otherwise. Right after explaining how difficult an Orrery is to make with LEGO, how many fan creations have fallen short of being able to do the mechanics right, you complain about how ugly the LEGO version is, even though it's about the most mechanically accurate out there. That's clearly not easy to do. This is one of those "you can have it Accurate, Pretty, or Affordable, pick two" situations, and LEGO didn't pick Pretty. I don't mind the pinholes in the Sun either. I see many MOC uses, and so will accept them. If this set was prettier overall, I might agree that it detracts from the overall, but in this case exposed mechanicals is kinda the vibe and I think the pinholes are fine. They should have been skipped on the Earth though.
But mate, it's not the most mechanically accurate one out there. One of the fan-built examples includes tilt in Moon's orbit which LEGO set ignores, for instance. And it's not exactly affordable either, not with price-per-piece being higher than in any other 2024 Technic set revealed so far, including the massive Mercedes F1 set.
Yea it's far from perfect, but I really like this set. I think I'll buy it, maybe at a slight reduction. Also, what's the music starting around 8:00? Love it
Comparing the new Sun sphere parts to the Star Wars planets feels like a false equivalency to me. The Star Wars planets were essentially flimsy containers just robust enough for kids to look at and hang from a ceiling. That's very different from actual LEGO bricks that need to be up to the standard of all the other bricks in the set when it comes to strength and connections.
10:47 inacurate sun/earth relative size is not a fair cons. The sun is 110 times bigger. BTW I agree that the hemisphere looks wrong and ugly. And I really dislike the new color reddish orange (or neon yellow). But this set has a great accuracy in it's mechanism. Thank you for the review
By far the biggest annoyance for me is the 0 degree moon orbit inclination. That said in the real world that is just 5.15 degrees, so I guess it's understandable that they omitted it at this scale
Space for battery box and motor would have been nice, and would have made it more stable too. I can't get over those technic pin holes on the hemispheres though - they're bothering me more than they should...
It must be bad, it didn't even merit being passed to the Hamster QA team. Since I already own one of the brass-effect versions shown in the example section, I think I'll be passing on this failed effort.
As a Technic fan and a space nerd with adult money, I'm probably the ideal target audience for this set. I even bought a clone brick set of JK brickworks' orrery a few months back, with brick-built sun and earth, a beautiful brick-built pedestal, and cost me half the price. Especially compared to that model, LEGO's offering is a fail. Expensive, ugly, and....just clearly uninspired.
This set is so disappointing. It feels cheap and it looks so ugly. Lego should just look at the MOCs and learn how to use their stupid bricks. I mean, who the hell would ever buy this set , you could do it better by yourself and it wouldn't even be that hard 💀
