A few years ago a wooden kinetic sculpture inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was making it’s way around the internet. It was designed by a Chinese artist who goes by the name Wild hui uncle, and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to build a LEGO version for myself.

I quickly prototyped a wave generating mechanism – and it promptly sat on my build table for several years. I finally dusted it off a few months ago, and you can see the finished model in the video below, along with an overview of all the details.

https://youtu.be/lJPjH0jwhbs

If you want to build one for yourself, I have put together building instructions for it, which you can find after the break. A kit is also available from BuildaMOC, which comes with all the pieces you need to build it, along with the instructions.

Build Notes

The build is pretty straightforward, primarily brick-built with a simple Technic drive system, but there are a few things to take note of.

Special care should be taken when assembling the spiral cam, to ensure the adjacent cams are offset by the correct amount.

Make sure the base of the seagull mounts are not too tight or too loose. If they are too tight, the seagulls won’t freely move down. If they are too loose, the seagulls may vibrate excessively. You can test this by slotting the seagulls in manually when you finish building them.

I prefer the movement if the seagulls are a little bit out of phase from one another. You can adjust this by taking note of the cam orientations when adding the second seagull cam in the instructions.

The mast for the boat is only connected by a single stud, so take note when moving the model or handling the boat.