Autonomous Long Range Explorer

I’ve been playing around with hard-surface modelling. Thanks to Marcos González for the tip about the Photographer add-on for Blender. A few years ago I had made a model of R2-D2 from Star Wars. The ALRE is the result of these three influences. I may try to animate landing on the desert planet.

Fiat 130 HP

The Fiat 130 HP Number F-2, driven by Felice Nazzaro, won the French Grand Prix at Dieppe. The back story is that, to some extent, this is a model of a model. In 1977 I made a Pocher model of this car and most of the photos on the web are of the Pocher version. My original model was lost in a house move years ago and I thought it would be amusing to try my hand at a Blender version of the car.

1895 Ford Quadricycle

A decade after Karl Benz of Mannheim, Germany, built the first automobile, Henry Ford of Dearborn, Michigan, USA, a local farm-boy, mechanic and engineer made a car of his own; the Quadricycle. The car had a two-cylinder engine of his own design that ran on ethanol. In the following four years, Ford built two more Quadricycles and sold all three. It was the beginning of what was to become The Ford Motor Company. This model is based primarily on detailed photos of the original car and several reproductions. The model was built in Blender and rendered in Cycles.

1885 Benz Motorwagen

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885, is widely regarded as the world's first production automobile, that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine. The original cost of the vehicle in 1885 was 600 imperial German marks, approximately 150 US dollars (equivalent to $4,183 in 2018). The vehicle was awarded the German patent number 37435, for which Karl Benz applied on 29 January 1886. Following official procedures, the date of the application became the patent date for the invention once the patent was granted, which occurred in November of that year.

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was a three-wheeled automobile with a rear-mounted engine. The vehicle contained many new inventions. It was constructed of steel tubing with woodwork panels. The steel-spoked wheels and solid rubber tires were Benz's own design. Steering was by way of a toothed rack that pivoted the unsprung front wheel. Fully elliptic springs were used at the back along with a beam axle and chain drive on both sides. A simple belt system served as a single-speed transmission, varying torque between an open disc and drive disc. The first Motorwagen used the Benz 954 cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine with trembler coil ignition. (from Wikipedia)

WWII U.S. Army Jeep

The WWII US Army Jeep, officially designated as Truck, ¼ ton, 4 X 4, was manufactured by Willys-Overland Motors and the Ford Motor Company. From 1941 to 1945 over six hundred thousand were produced. With its Willys-Overland MB engine it had a top speed of 105 kph ( 65 mph) and a range of 483 km (300 miles). Interestingly, the final design chosen by the US Army was an amalgam of the best features of the three companies in the final bidding process.

Land Rover

A few months ago Jaguar-Land-Rover, J.L.R. (a Tata Company) announced the end of production of the Land Rover Defender. The Defender is a direct decedent of the original Land Rover Series 1 introduced in 1948. The Series 1 car was built on the frame and axels of the WWII Jeep. Where I live in Herefordshire, England, a very rural area, there are still many Land Rovers, both old and new, on the farms and roads. The Series 1 was powered by a four-cylinder, semi-side-valve, 1.6L engine developed from pre-war Rover cars.

Gutenberg’s Printing Press

A few years ago, I made a model of Johanes Gutenberg’s printing press in SketchUp and I wanted to see how it would look in Blender. The two models are different in that they were based on different reconstructions of what the apparatus might have looked like. Gutenberg built his press in Mainz, Germany, around 1450 to use movable type, probably the first of its kind in the West. While there are no drawings or written records of its design, but most historians assume that it was an adaptation of an existing wine press. Famously, Gutenberg used his press and the new type to print the Gutenberg Latin Bible, of which 48 copies exist today. This model is based on the one at www.inkansblood.com.