We Made a Sheep!
Jul. 13th, 2024 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerA while back we found a pair of snap-together kits of wild animals at a national park. We bought a bighorn sheep and a peregrine falcon.
And when I say "a while back" I mean two years ago. We bought these on a trip in Colorado in July 2022. At the time we thought we'd put them together within a few days of getting back home. I even wrote that in the blog linked here. Now it's two years later and we're just putting together the first one!
Part of the fun in buying these— and now putting them together— is that I loved, loved, loved Lego sets when I was a kid. These aren't Lego, but they're the same idea.
I used a slightly different process, though, from when I was a kid with a new Lego set. Hawk and I laid out all the tiny pieces, sorting them by type, and compared it to the parts list in the instructions. As a kid I wasn't that disciplined. Or patient. Call it the benefit of an engineering education. And Lego sets never had parts lists when I was kid, anyway.
I wish I'd started taking pictures of our project when we had all the plastic blocks sorted into piles on the table. Alas I didn't think to start documenting what we were doing until after we'd gotten partway through. I'm disciplined about doing it; I just still don't have the natural habit of, "OMG, I'm doing a thing! Quick, take lots of pictures for social media!" 😂
The first few layers of the sheep were hardest. They involved the most pieces, and there was no clear overall shape to help us with the context of what we were building. But then the sheep started to take shape.
Once we snapped together enough layers in the body and got up to the neck we could clearly see the sheep start to emerge from the blocks. Before that we weren't sure if the white blocks we were snapping on at the edge of the brown were the ram's head or his rump.
At this point there were just a few finishing touches. We'd build his horns, his legs, and put him on the base.
Surprisingly there were a lot of extra pieces in the set. We knew there were extras when we started, because we inventoried the pieces and compared them to the parts list. Otherwise we might have gotten to this point and worried we'd skipped a step and left off part of the sheep.
It's ironic because my point in starting with an inventory was to make sure nothing was missing. I guess this company's quality control tilts the other way; they overfill the boxes to make sure there's no mistake.
Finished!
And when I say "a while back" I mean two years ago. We bought these on a trip in Colorado in July 2022. At the time we thought we'd put them together within a few days of getting back home. I even wrote that in the blog linked here. Now it's two years later and we're just putting together the first one!
Part of the fun in buying these— and now putting them together— is that I loved, loved, loved Lego sets when I was a kid. These aren't Lego, but they're the same idea.
I used a slightly different process, though, from when I was a kid with a new Lego set. Hawk and I laid out all the tiny pieces, sorting them by type, and compared it to the parts list in the instructions. As a kid I wasn't that disciplined. Or patient. Call it the benefit of an engineering education. And Lego sets never had parts lists when I was kid, anyway.
I wish I'd started taking pictures of our project when we had all the plastic blocks sorted into piles on the table. Alas I didn't think to start documenting what we were doing until after we'd gotten partway through. I'm disciplined about doing it; I just still don't have the natural habit of, "OMG, I'm doing a thing! Quick, take lots of pictures for social media!" 😂
The first few layers of the sheep were hardest. They involved the most pieces, and there was no clear overall shape to help us with the context of what we were building. But then the sheep started to take shape.
Once we snapped together enough layers in the body and got up to the neck we could clearly see the sheep start to emerge from the blocks. Before that we weren't sure if the white blocks we were snapping on at the edge of the brown were the ram's head or his rump.
At this point there were just a few finishing touches. We'd build his horns, his legs, and put him on the base.
Surprisingly there were a lot of extra pieces in the set. We knew there were extras when we started, because we inventoried the pieces and compared them to the parts list. Otherwise we might have gotten to this point and worried we'd skipped a step and left off part of the sheep.
It's ironic because my point in starting with an inventory was to make sure nothing was missing. I guess this company's quality control tilts the other way; they overfill the boxes to make sure there's no mistake.
Finished!
