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Ferrari World Theme Park – 2010

Opening in 2010, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is set to be the world’s largest indoor theme park, sitting under a roof designed in the style of a classic double-curve body shell of a Ferrari. There is energy, excitement and passion for the entire family at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi. With over 20 rides and attractions, including the world’s fastest rollercoaster, Ferrari World is more than a theme park – it is the total Ferrari experience.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is located on Yas Island, a 2,500 hectare island dedicated to leisure, entertainment and lifestyle.

According to sources … erhem Wikipedia

The building’s height is 45 m (147.6 ft), with a roof edge circumference of 2,200 m (7217.8 ft). The roof has a total surface area of 200,000 m2 (2,152,782 ft2), and an enclosed space (area accessible to the general public) of 100,000 m2 (1,076,391 ft2). The roof encloses within it a large number of attractions, including 18 separate buildings. The main level within the theme park is 9 metres above the surrounding ground level, and over 35,000 tonnes of steel has been used to reinforce the structure. The landscaped area around the main building is 450,000 m2 (4,843,759 ft2) constructed by Citiscape. A Ferrari logo adorns the roof of the building and measures 65 m x 48.5 m – the largest Ferrari logo ever created. The superstructure was declared complete on 29th October 2009 prior to the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The lead consultant for the building is Benoy architects with the Ramboll group as structural engineering consultants. The project manager and main contractor is a joint venture between Aldar Properties, the client, and Besix, a Belgian contractors. The civil contractor is Six Construct, and the interior finishes contractor is Depa (contractor). The 3-D spaceframe structure that supports the large roof was planned, manufactured and installed by MERO link title.

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Legos – Green Grocer, Corner Cafe, and Market Street Review

I like Legos.  Always have, always will.  Yes I’m over 30 and yes I got for Christmas the Lego Green Grocer set, Corner Cafe Set, and Market Stree Set.  I needed something for my space police to beat on.

These sets are more rare than most sets.  These sets were auired in the Lego store at King of Prussia Mall if you are searching them out.  Prices for each set were from $89.00 – $149.00.  I mention this because I just saw one of the sets going for $200 on amazon.com.

About these sets:
They claim to be codesigned by Lego and fans.  I will admit I have never seen anything like these sets from Lego.  The sets are complex and detailed.  The three sets do seem to have slightly different flares in consistency which make me think they had different designers.  For instance the interiors of both the Corner Cafe and the Market Street are very simple, where as, the Green Grocer has detailed grandfather clock, mosaic flooring, refridgerators, etc.  These sets took all day to assemble vs the 1 hour I would usually spend on some of the regular elite sets from Lego.  I was eager, when I first saw these sets, to build them with the aspiration of my Lego Mechs and police wrecking the buildings and bringing them to the ground.  After building them and admiring them I just can’t bring myself to harm them … yet.

For any Lego fan they are a must.  Lego has been continually adding new sets to compliment a real Lego City.  Unlike the City sets before, these new sets work together to form very detailed City Streets.  I hope they continue to build these for fans and I am sure Lego will begin to discontinue the sets as they add new so get them while they last.  I actually believe these may begin to increase in value unlike the sets of the past as collectors will loook to aquire these for their full city plan.

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HO Train Set – Making a free homemade miniature town for train set

I have gotten alot of flack for getting interested in making a miniature town for my train that runs around my Christmas tree.  Many people at work look at me funny when I tell them about it but what are you going to do.

It hit me this Christmas season that I wanted a little miniture town for under my tree to compliment the HO train set that I had.  There are many options for purchase but I found them too expensive.  I began by Googling around to see what people were doing and how they were doing it.  Believe it or not I couldn't find anyone easily that was posting ideas for town plans, examples, etc.  The best I came information I came across was a group of videos on ehow.com by Kevin Blakeney (http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_5810_make-model-train-village.html).  This was great overall information in a quick video format, however, when it came to the buildings he really just pushed for purchasing models and as for the platform he offered foam board.

So here is what I did.  I found a great little gem of a site at Family Garden Trains.  They offered tons of information and of course sell a ton of trains, accessories, etc.  Although you can get lost in the site, I found they offered free textures and images for doing a simple town (http://www.btcomm.com/trains/resource/index.htm).  Once I found that I had the textures I just needed a plan.  in my case it was easy.  My plan was dictated around the fact that my train track is round. 

In a nut shell, a simple plan for a quarter of a track is simply a small train station on the outside of the track, a bridge connecting the station to the town on theinside part of the track, about four buildings emulating a street and a wall seperating the train tracks from the town.  Here is a quick bullet of how and what I did.

1. Cut a piece of thin sheet plywood to fit about four links of track.
2. I got a tube of brown caulk and roughly knifed the brown caulk on the wood where the trak would be placed to emulate the gravelly area a track is laid on.
3. a took a can of black spray paint and loosly sprayed over the brown caulk to add depth to the ground.
4. I attached the track to the caulked ground while still wet to hold it in place making sure to not get anything on track itself.
5. I then took a can of "Great Stuff" spray foam and created the land areas around the track.
   - A note about liquid foam.  Use the insulation and not major gap filler.  You dont want the foam to go crazy and expand out of control.  The foam is able to be carved once dry.  Apply the foam by keeping the tip of the foam nozzle in the foam and moving in lines.  If the foam is applied by dropping it on you will get more tubed application which might be nice for snow banks but is weird looking for land masses.
6. While the foam was curing I build my buildings.
7. I printed out the building textures and land textures from the site above.  They did require that I set my printer to print the textures at 60% – 65% of the size.  Play with printing sizes before settling.
8. I glued the textures to thin cardboard and cut out buildings with the xacto knife.  For added interest, I cut out windows and taped wax paper on the inside to allow for a light ot be placed in the building.
9. I used the knives to carve the land masses.
10. I glued the stone printouts where I needed them on the carved foam land.
    -Note, you do not need all the land textures to connect if you are going to place snow.  When you add the snow you can cover up the foam land and just show the textere areas as you wish.
11. Drill holes from the underneath for where buildings will be and where you want to poke lights up into the buildings.
12. Score the textured foam area where you want to place the buildings and then push then imto the land.
13. Take white caulk and white acrylic paint to add snow to the scene.

This worked great for a fun project that didn't cost much at all.  A note about the textures offered from the link above.  Mostly you will find fronts of buildings.  They promote that you can just make a flat setting with just the fronts.  I chose to make full dimensional buildings.  I simply printed four of the same texture to make the additional sides of the building.  In some cases I used photoshop to modify the additional sides.  Really, you only see the front so worrying about the sides being different ended up not being worth the effort.

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