I think my love for creating kinetic  models comes from my love of stop motion animation. I used to do LEGO stop motion when I was in college, and I had a lot of fun with it. But when you're an adult with more responsibilities, its a time consuming process!!  

So after seeing the Exotic Peacock set I thought to myself 'what if it could fan its beautiful feathers all on its own, in one fluid motion?

The first iteration of the design was simply a box that contained the gears to drive the 'fan' motion. It wasn't until after the first prototype that I decided it looked a bit like a parade float, and that i could squeeze in a drive motor next to the battery box.

The hardest part was actually trying to get this same motor to drive the dancing characters on top!

I'm always inspired by the subcommunity of LEGO alternate builders. The challenge is to take only the pieces from one set and try to make something new. Often we find that this limitation allows for creative experiments; we're forced to think of new ways to use the parts we have at our disposal.

This is a great way for builders to breathe new life into their old sets without having to order extra parts. 

Here, I've taken the wheel arches from this 1 to 8 scale LEGO Technic Porsche RSR set (left, below) and used them as a 'jumping off point' for the scale. I used the moving elements like gears and linkages to allow the eyes to 'follow' you around the room and make the jaw move!

As with many of the alternate builds I create, there's the challenge of resource management: not allocating too many parts to one section or structure because you will run out of parts for other sections. Obviously for bigger sets, this isn't such a problem!

It was pure luck that there were enough pin connector pieces that would resemble teeth here. 

Instructions for this model will soon be available!