Saturday, May 26, 2007

Ankerstein 6A

Anchor Block box 6A is the supplemental set to expand a set 6 into a set 8. From there, one would get an 8A to create a set 10. Only plans for structures using combined sets 6 and 6A are included with 6A, and only plans for combined 6, 6A, and 8A are included with 8A. The buildings just keep getting bigger and more complicated. My abilities, however, don't keep getting more advanced. I use set 6 much more often than I use set 8 (6 + 6A).

I have long wished for even a few plans that just use box 6A, without set 6. The number of stones would be more manageable for me, I would have more opportunity to enjoy the new and different stones introduced with set 6A, and I would have a new variety in play without making greater demands on my abilities.

My recent acquisition of the new pocket Ankerstein set brought this desire back to mind, and today I took out the 6A box, and built an ad hoc building using just stones from that box. It's not a great design, since I was working it out as I built, but it is not bad, and I am quite pleased. I know I will be doing this again in the future.

I'd still like to have a few plans though, so if anyone is up to the challenge of working some box-6A-only or box-8A-only designs up either in photos or in AnkerCAD, I would be hugely grateful, and I'm sure their are others who would be appreciative as well. I haven't used AnkerCAD for a while, but as I recall, it doesn't have an inventory feature, or at least doesn't have a function to restrict you to only the stones available in a given set, combination of boxes, or loose stones. I needed that badly.

It wouldn't take very many plans for box 8A for me to justify purchase of one - I couldn't justify it at all to just build set 10 (6 + 6A +8A) designs, I would do that so rarely.

In the meantime, I am rather pleased with what I have accomplished today, both in breaking new ground and in Good Block Play.

2 comments:

William Seppeler said...

I realize this is an old blog entry, but in browsing, I thought I'd make a comment. I think it's an odd request that you have for #6a only plans. I like creating designs, but I've never wanted to restrict myself to a specific box. However, your need to restrict yourself to using fewer blocks is a subject I can relate to. I've been using alternative packing plans with my multiple sets. Doing so makes it easier when constructing, however, it makes it much more difficult if you only want to build for a specific set. I find that I need to mentally keep track of blocks and constantly do counting to verify I'm only using blocks of that set. I'm now reverting my packing plans back to the originals and I only use the number of boxes for the size of the structure I wish to build.

Alan said...

I won't deny the oddness, but for various reasons I usually prefer to only build with a single box, and with 6A-only plans, that box would get more use, and my play would get more variety.