Steps for buying anything

How do you ensure that you are getting the best deals when you buy anything?
Following steps will help you achieve that!

Meaning of Saam Daam Dand Bhed [ साम दाम दंड भेद ]

This is the advise given in ancient Hindu scriptures. 

1.   Saam  - the policy of getting work done through peaceful negotiation

2.   Daam - the policy of getting work done through money or allurement

3.   Dand - the policy of getting work done through punishment or fear

4.    Bhed - the policy of getting work done through creating differences or divide and rule policy.

How to make a choice?

People often don't make any choice if presented with too many options!

50% of all decicions made by average CEOs take less than 9 minutes.

An average person (in USA) makes around 70 choices per week.

Following 4 steps are believed to help individual to make a better choice for each decision.

1. Cut - Less is more, make only fewer options available.
2. Concretize - Make consequences vivid. Try to understand real consequence of each option.
3. Categorize - In a way that it suits choosers' needs rather than choice maker's!
4. Condition - Go from fewer choices to more choices as you go on decision making process.

Source: TED talks

How a Lego 4-speed transmission works?

The following images explain how a Lego 4-speed gearbox works.

The brown numbers indicate how many teeth each cog has. The blue numbers indicate which gear the image explains. The green marks on cogs indicate which cogs are rotating to transfer the drive (some additional cogs in the image might also be rotating as idle).

For example, when 3rd gear is selected, the red holder adjacent to 3rd gear clutch (as marked by 3 in the image) moves and attaches to it. Then the associated cogs marked green starts to rotate and finally transfer the drive to wheels.

Please click on each image to view larger size.


If you want to model it, you can do this using either studded or studless beams. When using studded beams, there needs to be 2-plate depth separating upper and lower beams (to hold the axles). Please also note that inside the driving rings, there must be axle joints (as shown in the instruction manual for 8880 for reference).


I can confirm that I have actually modelled this mechanism and it works as shown.


If you own any Lego Technic sets like 8880, 8448 or 8466 then you already know how gearbox works!