Hot on the heels of my fantastical Lunar School Bus, here’s a much more mundane version.
This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a need to specify “wheeled” with reference to a school bus – how about you? :-)
Anyway, it wasn’t that hard. I was thinking of doing it anyway, but when Flickr user Mad physicist asked about it I decided to give it a whirl. I pulled off the antigravity bottom and rocket engines, and otherwise left it intact. The hardest part was the nose, because it contains SNOT sub-units facing in several different directions (up, forward, down, and to both sides), plus half-stud offsets here and there to keep things interesting. However I found a way to reuse as much of the original as possible.
I was also asked if I could make instructions for it. Well, I have done that too. I made a CAD version of the lunar school bus first before I started tearing anything apart (just in case!) and then later adapted it so that you could build either school bus from the same set of sub-units. I have a master MPD file containing everything needed to build both versions, and thanks to the MPD Wizard from Orion Pobursky (see the LUGNET thread where I heard about it for details), I also have separate MPD files containing just what you need to build one or the other. I’m not sure yet how I’m going to publish it – should I charge money or just give it freely? Would people be happy with the MPD file or would they want proper directions?
I included some interior shots from the lunar bus in the photoset because the interior is identical.
Great work Bill. Would you consider sharing MPDs and maybe charging only for developed instructions?
Yeah that’s the direction I’m leaning toward. The MPD for this one is quite complicated though…
Bill, did you make any progress on distributing instructions or the MPD for your school bus?
No, I dropped the ball on this. I’ve recently learned a lot about how to use LPub, so I may take it up again. It’s complicated by the fact that you can build either the wheeled or the lunar version of the school bus from the same core parts.