Podracer Bucket 7159

The Podracer Bucket 7159 set is unlike other Lego Star Wars sets inspired by The Phantom Menace because it gives your imagination free reign to create new pod racer designs independently. It comes with three minifigures and instructions for three pod racers, but they're really more of a jumping off point. You can inspire yourself with other pod racers from the Star Wars movies, video games, or comics to see what kind of cutting-edge designs you come up with. Then you can have your racers re-enact the historic Boonta Eve Classic where Anakin won his freedom, or you can have them compete on other tracks in the pod racing circuit.

Characters
The Podracer Bucket 7159 set comes with three minifigures: Jar Jar Binks, who is also available in 3 other kits; the long-legged Anakin Podracer, who is available in two other kits; and a third alien that looks like the Aldar Beedo figure from the Watto’s Junkyard 7186 set, except that the junkyard Beedo is a single piece while the one that comes with the bucket requires some assembly. Anakin and Beedo are naturals in the pod racer cockpits, but the idea of Jar Jar Binks as a pod racer is laughable. At least Jar Jar fills a cockpit if you're short one pilot. Better yet, you can also stage an "accident" where he wanders onto the track and suffers a tragic mishap, which is much more satisfying.

Constructs
The three pod racer plans that come with the bucket are Neva Kee's Farwan & Glott FG 8T8 Twin-Block 2 Special, Aldar Beedo's MARK IV Flat-Twin Turbojet, and Clegg Holdfast's Keizar-Volvec KV9T9-B Wasp. You can also look at plans from other kits like the Plug-F Mammoth and the Ord Pedrovia from the Mos Espa Podrace 7171 set, or Mawhonic's GPE-3130 racer from the Watto's Junkyard 7186 set. If you want to get really ambitious, you can try designing other racers from the circuit, like the Balta-Trabaat BT310 or the Plug-2 Behemoth, which you can recreate by looking at the video games.

The Podracer Bucket 7159 set was released by Lego in 2000. It contains 291 pieces that come in a large plastic bucket that can be used for storage. The set really pairs well with the Watto's Junkyard 7186 set because it gives you more parts to scatter around the junkyard for Watto to sell. You can also use the racers that you create from the bucket set to compete in the Mos Espa Podrace 7171 set.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace LEGO Sets

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