City Advent Calendar: Day 1
Posted by CapnRex101,
LEGO has produced a new City Advent Calendar every year since 2005. The latest version, 60201 City Advent Calendar, captured my attention as its packaging exhibits some miniature toys and they have frequently been among my favourite gifts in previous years!
Discover what lies behind door number one after the break...
Many different renditions of the Space Shuttle have been produced during the last three decades and this model holds the distinction of being the smallest. It contains just eighteen pieces but is still immediately recognisable, due primarily to its distinctive black and white colour scheme which looks marvellous. The model can stand on its solid rocket boosters and fuel tank which is ideal for display but their appearance could probably be improved.
I like the trans-orange 1x1 round tiles at the end of each booster but the central structure also includes a trans-orange 1x1 round plates which seems out of place. Furthermore, all three cylinders are light bluish grey rather than the traditional combination of orange and white. Perhaps this little model is intended to represent a fantasy spacecraft, in which case these inaccuracies may be excusable, but I suspect not.
Overall - 3.5 - This is a reasonable rendition of the Space Shuttle, although it lacks some important details which is unfortunate.
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I myself thought this was quite a nice build, although I wish it had some wings because it kinda looked odd, otherwise I really thought it was a great build
For an 18 piece space shuttle, I love it. As did my 4 year son this morning!!
I thought it was a good shuttle. Big hit with my boys!
I agree with the comment upthread. It's not a bad shuttle but it's missing ... wings, it just looks so odd without them. But I don't suppose there's a piece that would work, at this reduced scale.
It's not a Space Shuttle at all, but a Hermes Shuttle mounted on an Ariane 5 rocket, thus the missing wings and overall look. The Hermes Shuttle programm was abandoned in the nineties. Too bad. It would have been a nice craft.
A cute build and a good start.
Same thing here: my almost-6-year old son thinks it's fantastic: He loved the build yesterday and has been playing with it all day. Watched youtube vids of space shuttle launches and landings with his brother because of it, he then enacted landings on the small printed road/runway of the box flap; after lunch they modded the microbuild together and added wings by replacing the black 1x4 plate by 2 1x3's to add wings to the orbiter.
Loads of spares too. Excellent.
I wonder if anyone has any good mod solution to give it wings so it looks more like a shuttle and not a rocket?
We loved it too - a great start! My four year old has been running through launch, separation, then re-entry and landing all morning!
Erm... think I prefer the Star Wars day 1 :-D
Hadn't noticed at first, but nice to see that the insert has been changed from the plastic tray of previous years.
Well my 48 year old self loved it! lol
I’m a sucker for a those Lego 1x1 bits...
@SinKiller Nick:
Sure. It's not elegent, but at such a small scale such things are often impossible. The bottom of the shuttle is a black 1x4 plate, which has a white 1x3 plate and cheese wedge attached. This means you can replace that with a 1x2 plate connecting the cheese wedge to the 1x3 plate, and you have two studs of space (Space!) to work with. Put a jumper plate and a 1x3 plate in black where the other half of the 1x4 used to be, and you have a very rough shuttle-shaped wing design. Short of getting a better 3-wide wedge plate, I don't think you're likely to find any better options.
@ Shirhac, sorry, I'm not buying that. It looks even less like the Hermes shuttle than it does the NASA space shuttle. The Hermes shuttle had a triangular shape, no tailfin, and was mounted to the front of rhe rocket.
I rebuilt mine in about two minutes, with a dark orange external tank, more accurate boosters, and a white jumper for wings. Also I made the payload bay doors two studs long instead of one.
Re adding a wing, I reckon Kerre's boys' idea of the two 3x1s is great. You could then add these pieces - https://brickset.com/parts/6181713/right-plate-1x2-w-bow-45-deg-cut
and
https://brickset.com/parts/6181720/left-plate-1x2-w-bow-45-deg-cut
on either side (usually found in Speed Champions sets) for a very sleek looking wing.
I'm really excited about the possibility of lots of mini toys to add around the big Christmas Tree in my Winter Village.