Details: BZPower periodically runs contests in Bionice-based creations. They're now up to BBCC 59, and the theme this time around is "Let There Be Rock". The full entry list is already posted, but the contest ends July 10th. This electric guitar uses Technic beams for most of the body, with gears for the knobs and Bionicle elements for the head, cord, and pickup.
Details: Recently featured on Brick Town Talk (which you should be reading in addition to this blog anyway), this Burberry store stands out as a high-water mark amongst recent highlights in the Cafe Corner standard of modular building (I post those highlights over at Brick Town Talk instead of here at LMOTD, but I did feature another model by the same builder this past March). Some of my favorite bits here: The Grand Emporium's awning technique recast in gold using parts from the Battle of Alamut, the use of a wheel and a dish for a unique gold-ish flourish at the top, and a group of bracket-plate-tile testures on the second floor (this actually adds up to the width of a normal brick and gives you that vertical stripe effect). I'm also a big fan of the studs that face toward the front of the building - the added texture looks great, and it's a feature that tile-crazed LEGO fans tend to forget actually looks pretty good in many contexts.
Details: Remember the Pinball Machine we featured back in 2007? Someone inspired by that model has now created a Mindstorms NXT version. This one is also purist - all LEGO except for the ball (I suspect they could have used a LEGO ball too). Only 6 NXT bricks were used, compared to 13 RCX bricks in the original. A substantial amount of instructions are up at the site above, including source code (you know, for all of us with 6 spare NXT programmable bricks and over 8000 spare LEGO pieces to turn into a pinball machine).
Details: Last weekend at Brickworld, a new Star Wars set was announced. A sort of revival of the UCS (Ultimate Collector's Series) line of scale models of large vehicles, this is, well, a large, exceptionally detailed version of a Star Wars ship. Most surprising, however, is the unusual construction - it appears that a several new sizes of Technic beam are included in this set in large quantities for the wings. The full announcement is at the link above, and you can also check Shop at Home to see if it's in yet (currently expected to come out on September 1st 2010).
Details: Every once in a while, you find a new way of looking at a part and suddenly have an interesting new model idea. That was the case here, when the element widely used as a window arch or a car wheel well mudguard suddenly turned into the face of a dog. From there, it wasn't hard to build full bodies to create a group of dogs. Two of the dogs even make use of other wheel well arch elements!
Details: I've featured fairly recent photos of LEGOLAND parks before, and usually, you can spot a few new easter eggs in each round of photos. This time, we have a new photoset that shows what the park looked like 11 years ago. Most of the buildings look completely different - I'm not sure if there are any true repeats between this photoset and the last set of LEGOLAND Windsor photos I featured. Between the way things have been improved with newer elements and colors, and the newer landmarks that have been added to the park, things have really changed!
Details: Recently, The Brick Scho recreated the Biltmore Estate in microscale. The use of tiles inside of arches to make doorways is a clever way of imitating the building's architectural style. While it's hard to capture many details at this scale, this rendition is pretty recognizable when evaluated next to the original.
Details: Plenty of exciting new items have shown up at LEGO Shop-at-Home recently. Among them are the new collectible minifigures. They're selling quickly (and with a limit of 5 per order), so if you want them you better hurry. If you're looking for an interesting way to display them, check out the links above - LEGO's "club" is offering complete instructions and parts lists to build a display podium (pictured here), a Ninja gate, a Skateboarder ramp, a saloon door for the Cowboy, and a stage for the Magician. Perfect vignettes for the minifigures!
Details: I've previously featured Sariel's first "hand" model, but he has now created a second one. This one makes use of the WeDo Educational Software. LEGO WeDo is only sold through the LEGO company's educational division (see http://www.legoeducation.us/store/), and is designed to work directly with the Power Functions motor system. A USB hub allows a computer to directly control two of the PF motors. Up to 3 hubs can be controlled with the off-the-shelf software, and 2 hubs were used for this particular model. One motor controls the pneumatic hand itself and the pneumatic compressor for that hand, using an autovalve. Two more motors are used for the turntables (one per turntable) to power the wrist and the base of the arm. The fourth motor controls the elevation of the hand through a linkage that does not tilt the hand. Software-wise, there's a task programmed for the arm and the ability to use the keyboard to control the motors individually.
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I put off blogging this one in favor of getting some photos and news coverage in addition to what Sean Kenney wrote for his own site. That decision paid off, since I can now offer you a round-up of coverage of this exhibit, which lasts for several months. The particular picture above is roughly minifig-scale, and is one of three showing a rainforest in various states (healthy, destruction, replanting). The rest of this exhibit (running from April 10th to October 31st at the Philadelphia Zoo) features large, life-size sculptures. Here's a round-up of links covering the events:
In addition to the long-term display, there are also two "Build with Sean Kenney" events scheduled for visitors to the zoo (both events are free with zoo admission). One is next weekend, the other is in September.
Details: This epic model was built for Brickworld, which is going on right now and continues tomorrow in Chicago, Illinois. I'm afraid I've taken too long to post this for anyone to head over there during public hours today, but this (and hundreds of other fantastic LEGO models) will also be on display tomorrow (Sunday) from 10 AM to 3 PM. This model includes many interesting features, any one of which would have qualified as a blog-worthy on their own. Sand green soccer field plates are used sideways to create the walls of the buildings in the complex. One corner features a spectacular crashed spaceship diorama, curved nicely (probably with click hinges) and surrounded by a crater. An obscene amount of bricks with grooves on them make up- most of the track for a motorized monorail. Inside a few of the towers, there's a simple ball contraption - one tower brings Bionicle Zamor spheres up an elevator, and ramps bring the spheres back and forth. A carefully assembled scrap pile sits in front of a conveyor belt that looks like it's unloading pieces onto the pile (the belt is motorized, but the pieces are stuck to the belt). The buildings features large dark tan roadways connecting them, and elsewhere we see a Bionicle canister lid and two Pick-a-Brick cups used as part of the building. They also made up a storyline for the minifigures in this diorama, which is hinted at in "teaser" photos. There's also a video where you can see some of the motorized bits in action and hear the music from the iPod built into the base. Oh, did I even mention that this thing is in sand green and dark tan?
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Remember last year, when I told you about how awesome the mech named The Mighty Doop-Los is? He has an enemy now, and the enemy is also awesome. Unlike the previous mech, this one uses more traditional parts to build most of the body and joints. There are still plenty of great uses of DUPLO parts here, though. Lever bases fit into a DUPLO 2x2 brick to create eyes for his face. DUPLO bricks are cleverly angled in the way they are attached on the feet and lower arms. Studs-not-on-top elements are used to flip sections over and have separate DUPLO pieces on both the front and the back of various sections (DUPLO pieces connect properly to the regular-size LEGO elements, provided the measurements line up correctly - e.g. 4 studs to 2 DUPLO studs). Tiles line the edges of those sections, maintaining the sleek boxy look. Those fingers on his left hand are minifig legs. Now if only more people would build in the DUPLO/Mecha genre...
Details: Word on the street is that there is some sort of football tournament going on now. Oh, not that type of football? Oh well. This spectacular sculpture is roughly life-size and is spot-on. It was an attempt at reverse-engineering a similar model by the slightly more famous Nathan Sawaya. On a side note, this is exactly the sort of sculpture I recommend you start out with if you're interested in experimenting with LEGO sculptures - although the brown parts can be hard to come by, the quantity of parts used here is actually pretty reasonable. Nathan Sawaya's version only used about 500 pieces - well within reach even if you have a fairly small collection. The most challenging part of this sculpture is the laces - they're made out of Technic 1x2 bricks with jumper plates attached. You connect the studs directly into the side of the Technic bricks.
Details: There is now another great entry in the category of life-size LEGO furniture. This buffet has four drawers and two doors. While there doesn't appear to be any particularly trickery building technique here (we all already knew you could use tiles to let part of a model slide on top of another part of the model, right?), the scope of the model is very impressive. Over 25,000 LEGO pieces were used to make this life-size - over 6 feet long. Based on a design by Dutch furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld, this model captures the look of the 1919 original as perfectly as can be done with LEGO parts. This buffet will be on display as part of droog's presentation at design miami / basel 2010 from June 15th to june 19th, 2010.
Details: Here's a smaller project that's a little easier to try out - a miniature functional sundial. Full instructions for building this model and setting the sundial to work correctly in your area can be found at the website above. In addition to actually working as a sundial, this can be easily folded up and stored in a pocket - hence the "portable" bit. It's not terribly practical to use a sundial to tell time these days, but this project is easy enough and the documentation is thorough enough to warrant attention anyway.
Details: It's a bit hard to grasp the scale of this enormous chess set. Each piece is actually a large Mindstorms NXT robot. The base of each one is fairly standard, but the top of each one actually looks like a particular chess piece - some of them are even animated (note the kicking front legs on the knights). The 38 NXT programmable bricks here are controlled by a laptop through Bluetooth - which requires that the laptop is constantly disconnecting and reconnecting to the "brains" in each chess piece. A project of this scope is beyond the reach of most NXT fans, but since a few of the builders involved with this project have worked with the LEGO company before as part of MCP, MDP, and the BrickWorld staff (according to their bios on the BrickWorld site), I'm guessing that the cost of this (roughly $30,000 retail) was partially subsidized by the LEGO company. This is fully functional as a chessboard - you can play against the computer, play against another human player, watch the computer play against itself, or watch the chess robots act out a saved game. To see this in motion, you have to check out the two videos of this game in action at the site above. Alternatively, you could go to BrickWorld this upcoming weekend to see this in person when these robots make their LEGO convention debut.
Details: It's time for another LUGNut's round-up. This time, the challenge was to recreate a car manufactured before 1950 (hence the "Kickin' It Oldschool" title). As usual, there were many great entries, but my personal favorite is the Oldsmobile pictured above. While it's not based on an exact make/model/year of car, it's an evocative, distinctive design that gets the idea of curves down without actually using many curved elements. Better yet, it's an alternate model that can be made out of only the parts found in set 4939 Cool Cars.
Details: Remember last year's Bad Day for Micropolis contest? This year, TWINLUG and Reasonably Clever have teamed up again for another contest. The Second Annual Micropolis Building Challenge - The Sands of Time takes advantage of both the new Micropolis 1.1 standard and a Time Twisters theme to encourage people to build micropolis standard compliant models that are a bit different than what we're used to seeing. The new version of the standard includes rules for building waterfronts and bluffs - so now micropolis standard cities even have a sort of landscaping.
A little something different today - NPR recently featured the work of Wayne Peltz, an assistant clubhouse manager the Indians (baseball team) at Cleveland's Progressive Field. His mosaics use various mixes of colors - they're clearly meant to be more impressionistic than realistic. Still, it's interesting to see the hobby emerge in such an unexpected venue. There's a short interview and slideshow for this feature, but be aware that neither the builder nor NPR bothered to use the brand name correctly (what part of "they're LEGO bricks!" is so hard to understand?)
On a semi-related note, this seems like a good time to remind my readers of the LEGO company's Fair Play policy which explains the proper use of the word LEGO (among other policies the company uses to protect their trademarks). Although these aren't strictly enforced (there are, after all, bigger problems in the form of knock-off and counterfeit toys marketed illegitimately using LEGO's trademarks), it's a good idea to keep these guidelines in mind and not let things get out of hand (like, for example, when someone attempts to pretend "laygoes" is actually a word).
Details: Eric Harshbarger - the first and in some ways still the best LEGO artist to pursue commissioned work to make a living - has recently taken on his first sculpture in years. Although he has since moved on to other things, Eric Harshbarger was the trailblazer who proved that it was possible to make decent money creating LEGO sculptures without working for the LEGO company. Nowadays, the LEGO Certified Professional program has made it a bit easier to get started as a professional builder, but when Eric started, the only impetus to try building sculptures was low-priced tubs of brick (in the late 1990's, there were a few different types of tub that contained ~2000 pieces and cost less than $20. It's unlikely that LEGO will sell basic bricks at that price point again). If it weren't for the success of his work, it's doubtful that the more famous "brick artists" of today would have dared pursue building for a living at all. That's before we get into the advancements in mosaic-making that Eric Harshbarger spearheaded - at one point, the LEGO company was using a variation Eric's pixelego program to sell custom grey-scale mosaics online. While other advances in LEGO mosaic making and sculpture making have happened over the years (not to mention the introduction of new LEGO colors), there is yet to be another LEGO sculptor who has been quite as influential with his artwork. Enough of why I'm convinced that Eric is the most important sculptor - plenty of people build LEGO sculptures now, and this model is a nice model in it's own right even without the background (which I'm sure you knew by now anyway...right?)
This giant heart was made for BARD, a cardiological company that wanted a 4-foot-tall cross section of a human heart made out of LEGO. Although the design process was difficult and a certain amount of effort (read: money and access to parts) was required to talk Eric Harshbarger into doing another sculpture, the effort definitely paid off. More pictures and a few paragraphs on the experience are at the link above.
Details: This castle scene features a surprising amount of unique landscaping. Toy Story Green Army Men bases turn up as leaves on bushes and trees. Bricks, plates, slopes, and wedges in lime, dark green, and dark brown show up in unusual places, frequently attached sideways. The amount of depth that these techniques give the scene makes the base of this look much larger than it is. The fence is made with another unusual technique - hundreds of reddish brown 1x1 round bricks and cones lined up gives a very rural, organic look. It's not much of a traditional castle wall, but the spikes sticking out of every other column of round 1x1's gives a properly intimidating look. That's before we get into the more traditional techniques that are well applied here, like the use of darker grey bricks on the walls to give the impression of a mottled stone look, or the way plates were used to achieve that Tudor architecture look on the buildings.
Details: These excellent miniland-scale characters have partially jointed arms (check out the other two pictures in this photo set to see some surprising expressions) and several evocative techniques. The groom's tie makes excellent use of a metallic gold colored 1x2 tile - a fantastic way to use a piece in a rare color that you might otherwise not be able to build with. The formal attire is recreated perfectly thanks to various studs-not-on-top elements. You really get a sense of a separate suit jacket hanging on the groom's figure, and the combination of curved slopes and wedges on the bride's dress creates a unique form that could be a real wedding dress. The back even includes tails on the suit and a train on the dress. The use of black studs-not-on-top brackets for hairpieces works much better than I would have expected - it really adds dimension to these figures. These figures actually outdo some professional LEGO wedding cake toppers!
Details: We've seen plenty of control systems that use cell phones, computers, or various LEGO-built joysticks, steering wheels, and other traditional set-ups, but we haven't seen that many creations that use form-fitted input devices. This "robotic hand" copies the movements made by someone wearing a "sensor skeleton". Three RCX's translate the sensor input into motor actions on the hand. That makes it a nice little project, but as an unexpected twist, there's a very organic and unexpected mechanism for controlling the fingers: two degrees of freedom are controlled by a "tendon" made out of flex system casings. I feel a need to build my own copy of this to determine how well this sort of system can handle lifting heavy objects.
Details: The official, full-fledged Maker Faire event happened in San Mateo, California on May 22nd and 23rd. As always, the local LEGO Users Group and LEGO train club (BayLUG and BayLTC) were on hand to represent the LEGO hobbyist community. Their set-up featured large layouts, small models, and even a free build area.
Details: .eti has created another brilliant scene - this time, a fully landscaping minifig-scale mountain full of hikers and hijinks. This also has a bit in common with the other model I've mentioned today - note the use of differing scales, forced perspective, and a mosaic background in this model. This model will be on display (among hundreds of others) at 1000steine-Land 2010.
Details: Revisiting Tuesday's model for a bit, here are some behind-the-scenes photos of how it was done. It's a bit revealing, but there are plenty of surprising techniques that you can learn from here.
Details: We've seen a few remote-control LEGO boats before (even one other that eschewed common "really floats" parts), but never one that used Bionicle canisters as a flotation device. Yes, kids, you can try playing with floating LEGO creations even if you don't have one of those big expensive "floating boat" kits (We do not recommend that anyone puts electronic LEGO elements near water. Experiment at your own risk). Although this set of photos is only named "boat", it looks like there are photos of multiple boats there - more inspiration for how we could use these plastic canister packages to win those competitive boat races that are increasingly common at LEGO fan conventions!
Details: The world of neo-Classic Space is alive and well, and people are still building new spaceships for it on a regular basis. Believe it or not, people are still coming up with original ideas to work with the limited amount of trans-yellow cockpits out there. This model in particular makes great use of greebling techniques. The "wings" are another fairly unusual feature - they're not solid, and are built entirely out of hinges and greebling. The overall effect is an imposing presence even with a fairly small body to the spacecraft itself. The links above include a larger gallery of 140+ photos of various neo-classic space models in addition to the four photos of today's model.
Details: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was cancelled 11 years ago today. As with most of the Star Trek franchise, the show has maintained a lively following over the years that hasn't let go of the series. This is the main space station from the series, in microscale. Want to build your own? You're in luck! The builder has posted various in-progress photos on Brickshelf, and you can also download instructions in LDraw (MLCAD) and PDF format. Although most of the links above show computer renderings of this design (I'm pretty sure that the snazzy photo I've used for this post is actually just an exceptionally good digital render - but I didn't even notice at first glance!), a photo of one physically built with honest-to-goodness bricks can be found on Brickshelf.
Details: Forced perspective is a difficult thing to truly do right in LEGO. This photo is how it's done. There's just the one picture of this model, but it's so perfect that you don't really need a second photo (and there's likely an issue with the model not looking as good from other angles anyway). The idea behind the forced perspective technique is to mix scales in a way that makes some things look further away. In this case, we see a cockpit that is built at about half of actual size, with microscale planes and missiles in the distance that are about one hundredth of regular size. The mountains on the backing mosaic are at even smaller scale. Even though the different parts of this model are very close together, they look like they're fairly far apart. More importantly, this looks more realistic than most first-person plane-driving video games. The illusion of screens is created by using old dark grey inlays inside of frames built in the newer dark bluish grey color. Additional studs-not-on-top trickery with small lime plates creates the details on the screens. A similar technique is used for the mountains in the background - the snowy mountaintops are surprisingly complex, and the rows of peaks in the front are brought out by using an older shade of grey, and some brown in front of that. Even the dark green plates for foliage turns out to be spot-on. Most of the techniques have already been picked apart in notes on flickr, so if you're still curious, check out the link above (you can also "embiggen" further).
Details: I would write more about this GBC, but I'm still spending time studying it. The video quality is a bit lacking, but the modules in this one are spectacular. Lots of brilliant stuff here - pneumatics, Mindstorms, trains (the train is controlled via RCX to stop and start in the right places to load/unload), an all-around great variety of both classic and very original sorts of mechanisms. There are even Spacewarp-style sections with loop-de-loops, a base 5 ball counter, and color-sensitive sorters to tell the basketballs and soccer balls apart. I'm not sure exactly where this layout was setup or how many people participated in constructing it, but I'm suitably impressed with all involved.
BZPower periodically runs contests in Bionice-based creations. They're now up to BBCC 59, and the theme this time around is "Let There Be Rock". The full entry list is already posted, but the contest ends July 10th. This electric guitar uses Technic beams for most of the body, with gears for the knobs and Bionicle elements for the head, cord, and pickup.
has maintained a lively following over the years that hasn't let go of the series. This is the main space station from the series, in microscale. Want to build your own? You're in luck! The builder has posted 
-style sections with loop-de-loops, a base 5 ball counter, and color-sensitive sorters to tell the basketballs and soccer balls apart. I'm not sure exactly where this layout was setup or how many people participated in constructing it, but I'm suitably impressed with all involved.
