Ben Smith had LEGO sets as a child and space was always his favorite theme. About ten years ago he came across the LEGO Factory set Star Justice (#10191) and started tinkering with it again; which snapped him out of his Dark Age. For Ben, the big eureka moment, however, was when he discovered the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) software. He had hardly any parts in his collection and his daughter had just been born, so it was really, really hard to find time and space to build. With LDD, Ben could fire up the computer and build for ten minutes without needing to get anything out or put away; he was also travelling a bit, so he could build in hotel rooms or even on trains! Now he continues to build almost entirely digitally, ordering parts off Bricklink to assemble the model when it’s complete; although he’s discovered it helps to build test models anytime you try and do anything with motors or moving parts! One of Ben’s latest creations is a huge build of a spaceship named the Ark. With the help of a couple of other builders, he created a spaceship that not only is internally lit, but also has a rotating section. BrickJournal talked to him about the model. BrickJournal: What was the inspiration for the Ark? Ben Smith: I had built a bunch of models with LED lighting in them, which I displayed at a LEGO show in the UK: the Great Western Brick Show in Swindon, in 2018. My display was next to another builder who had a model that was motorized, and I realized how the public were really drawn to anything that moved. So when I got back I decided to try and build something that had motors in it and had some element of movement. I only build spaceships and sci-fi stuff; so the obvious expression of that idea for me was the sci-fi staple of a ship with a rotating centrifuge to generate artificial gravity for the crew on board. How did you begin the project? I have a background in 3-D design and for my last few projects I’ve used this to rough out the model before I do any LEGO building at all. For the Ark, I built a really rough 3-D model on the computer to figure out the overall shape and how big the wheel would have to be to include the kind of details I envisioned. It very quickly became obvious this would be a pretty big model, and I decided to use a technique I’d been aware of for a little while: I would use a frame made of 16mm square steel to support it. I’m really glad I did this—I honestly don’t think it would have been possible to build a LEGO frame that could hold up the weight of the wheel safely, and allow enough room inside for the motors. The rough 3-D model used to design the Ark.
Article and Photography by Ben Smith (www.flickr.com/threeDadventures)
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