Time to bump this thread, me thinks
What I have is not quite so awesome though.
Each year, my family builds a gingerbread house. Last year we did the Eiffel Tower and the year before that a scene from StarGate. This year we'll make a carousel.
However, there's one problem: How to make it rotate?
That was when I came to think of this Lego robot that me and my siblings had when we were kids. It had two electric engines, a basic computer and a couple of cogwheels. So I dug up the Lego box and started building.
This is the result:
A carousel drivetrain! Two electric Lego engines, one programmable Lego ECU and a home-made lowspeed Lego gearbox, to bring those RPM's down (after all, I'm making a carousel - not a centrifuge). The actual gingerbread construction will be placed on top of the rotating wheel, and if all goes well it will keep in balance too
At this point, the only problem is that the gearbox is made of 100% plastics, which is flexible. Each individual part doesn't flex very much, but together (the gearbox has a total of 9 cogwheels) they flex quite a bit. I tried putting something heavy on the rotating disc (which is placed on top of the rotating wheel) and the result was more rocking than rotating.
Also, the sound of this gearbox is amazing! Transmission whine? Nah, sounds more like a diesel engine at idle
(Sorry for the crappy camera)
and it might just protect your basil plants 
