LEGO Ideas’ mechanical maestro takes yet another working model to 10K
One of LEGO Ideas’ most prolific mechanical maestros has managed to take yet another working model to 10,000 votes, which means they’ve now got five different projects in review.
Baron von Barron has leapt straight from LEGO Adventurers to LEGO Ideas, taking the crowdsourcing platform by storm with a string of functional models that are currently being considered for production as official sets. The 30-something technical writer from Germany (as per their Ideas 10K interview) has two projects in the third 2023 review, one in the first 2024 review and now two in the second 2024 review.
Their latest mechanical masterpiece to rack up 10,000 votes and progress to the review stage is Working River Rapids Ride – Fairground Rafting Coaster, a 3,000-piece build that packs in plenty of functionality. Each of the single-rider cars moves through the rapids thanks to a vertical axle that slots into the track below, passing from rotor to rotor until gravity takes over for the final descent.
The model as designed is able to be fully motorised, and you can even tweak the position of the axles underneath each car to have them ride smoothly or spin randomly as they traverse the rapids. As with all their designs – including their working log flume, canal lock and suspension railway – the good Baron hasn’t forgotten about aesthetics, and this might just be their best-looking build yet.
The mountainous setting for the ride includes three waterfalls, a ticket booth with turnstile, water shooters, trees, logs, mushrooms and even a seagull with a nest. The question now is whether all of that will be enough to convince the LEGO Group to greenlight a model that hews quite closely to its own LEGO Icons Fairground Collection (though we haven’t seen a new addition to that subtheme since 2022).
Baron von Barron’s initial working log flume was rejected in the second 2022 review, but they’re nothing if not persistent, so who knows what might come of the river rapids? It’s taken only a little under three months to reach the review stage, after all…
LEGO Ideas projects in the second 2024 review
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