Eco-Intel Mod by Planet Express Klan

Foreword, by Richard Swinburne

The Planet Express Klan is probably the biggest cooperative of modders we've seen. They're like some sort of modding machine but each has individual talent in his or her own way. The Futurama-esq clan is made up of DaVo, S.I.TO., Changó!, PROBO, S.O.R.R.Y., Nadi and Goofyahead, a group of computer and industrial engineers from Madrid in Spain.

The "Pek" clan, as they call themselves, started four years ago and promptly won a string of events:

• First prize in the en originalidad competition with a robot called Bender from the TV show Futurama, and another "bomb" design Mod won the second place in the "other materials" category.
  
  
• The following year they made the first group Mod in the country called THE ATOMIUM, which was rewarded a first place prize on originalidad, and the one with more votes among the participants, setting a standard for all modders in Spain.
  
  More recently in 2007 they won the first prize overall again, and second place on [i]acabado with the Mod called Tetris that was featured on bit-tech as well.
  
  
• In 2008 Planet Expresss Klan broke all Spanish records with the Eco Mod winning seven awards with the top three places.

With plenty of images and a huge worklog sent to us originally, we've got the details of this latest, award winning Eco Mod here now to show you, so sit back and enjoy!

The Build Outline

The build was designed around the four basic elements from Greek Civilitation: Fire, Air, Earth and Water, although in the mod we've used the Latin wording: Ignis, Aeris, Aqua and Tellus. In its origins, they represent the basic composition of the cosmos. The idea goes that these four elements are not only the ones that built the world but the ones that can destroy it as well: a thought that's clearly prevalent again in modern society mainly due to climate change: fires, rising sea levels, hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes.

In other to put a strong emphasis on climate change because of human intervention, we have represented the centre of the world with smoke due to the heavy usage of our planet.


In the mod itself, each element was used uniquely: different sizes, materials and lighting allowed us to work with different modding techniques that allowed us to express our own personalities within each mod. The design phase, which took around six months, was spent using software to plan everything: SketchUp, Autocad 2007, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Mathcad 14 and Microsoft Office. Because of the diversity, this phase required different studies in order to achieve effective designs that worked in the building phase of the project.