Details: If you've been following our coverage of LEGO-related events over the years, you've probably come across some interesting examples of official visitors to these events and official support for these events from various parts of the LEGO company. This is something that has been in flux over the years as LEGO tries to determine how unofficial events can be of use to the LEGO company and how best to support unofficial events. Those constant changes can make it hard to keep track of what LEGO does and doesn't do for the fan community, but all of the official efforts are managed by LEGO's Community Engagement & Events (CEE) team, which (since November 2012) has a blog to help you stay in the loop. It won't tell you everything (because some community support programs are relatively secret pilot programs), but it's a great resource and will show you many fascinating aspects of the LEGO fan community and the LEGO company.
We really can't thank the CEE team enough - they're out there trying to keep track of every LEGO User Group in the world, listening to a ridiculous amount of concerns from LEGO fans, and constantly answering the same questions (even though most of the answers are as follows: "No, we can't confirm or deny anything about the future or upcoming products", monorail/old grey/Bionicle/9V trains are not coming back, LEGO does not have the license to make that, and no, we can't supply you with free LEGO pieces for your personal projects). I don't know how they do it, but they are fantastic and do an excellent job of being our voice inside of the company and representing the company to the larger community of LEGO hobbyists.
Yes, more wordy news. This time we're revisiting our "Another Blog You Should Read." series, before we start adding new posts to the series. Here's where things stand now with our previously featured favorite bloggers:
Mariann Asanuma's Model Building Secrets - Model Building Secrets is still as fantastic as always, although perhaps updated a bit less frequently these days (justified by her ongoing career as a professional LEGO artist). Since 2009, she's also become a fixture on the convention circuit, allowing more of us to put a face to the name behind the blog. She's been getting more commissions lately, including a recent Rocketship House for the upcoming game WildStar Online.
TechnicBRICKs - TechnicBRICKs remains up to date and largely the same as it was when I recommended it in 2009 - the emphasis is still primarily on set news, with videos, techniques, and original creations being more occasional features. It's a must-read if you have even a passing interest in Technic, and a good way to keep up to date with the seemingly endless stream of new Technic pieces we've seen in recent years.
The NXT Step - The transition from the NXT kits to the EV3 kits didn't stop The NXT Step. Although updated a little less frequently than it was in 2010, it's still a good source of Mindstorms news - the best Mindstorms news source in RSS format that I know of (although I may be slipping, since the Mindstorms community tends to gather around forums instead of blogs).
reMOCable - Mike Doyle's reMOCable was apparently a bad call - it hasn't been updated since September 2011 (and we only featured it in August of 2011). It was a fairly new blog when I recommended it, although his Snap blog was more established at the time. Snap primarily focuses on his own creations and displays instead of covering other people's models, but is certainly worth keeping up with (and can take reMOCable's place on this list). Entertainingly, I described reMOCable as a cross between a blog of LEGO creations and a coffee table art book - and now Mike Doyle's gone on to release a coffee table art book of LEGO creations (a second volume is on the way). We probably won't end up reviewing the book (since it came out during our unintentional hiatus), but No Starch Press lets you see some pages from it online.
As a housekeeping sidenote, while we are still using the "Another Blog You Should Read" tag, most of our tags/labels will be in flux until this site's new format is settled in (and we have no idea when that will be). The handling of tags/labels was one of the things we didn't like about the 2012 update of Blogger, and we weren't terribly organized with them beforehand.
As another sidenote, at one point, we were planning on making a Google Reader Bundle for all of the other blogs we've highlighted here. Now that we're up to fourteen (14) blogs (with more that I intend to cover soon), it seems more important than ever to make it simple to start following blogs to keep up with the online LEGO community, but the days of easy RSS-based blog reading in Google Reader ended last year.
Details: You may remember Mike Doyle from some his shockinglydetailed creations. More recently, he's also taken to blogging, with an emphasis on the artsier side of the hobby. Models from a variety of builders (all credited) are presented as part of a coherent theme, and each post shows one theme. The result is an interesting balance between the of-the-moment feel of blogs and the more traditional feel of coffee-table art books.
Although I've put off featuring them in my "another blog you should read" series, The NXT Step is easily indispensable for us LEGO Mindstorms NXT fans. It may be a difficult read for those of you who aren't technically inclined, but they do try to keep it accessible for all ages. Several of the blog's authors have written books about working with the NXT, and quite a few of them are active in either the LEGO community or the educational community. In lieu of a regular model pick today, here are three recent highlights from The NXT Step:
In other news, the LEGO website has re-posted the online bonus models for the NXT 1.0 kit. They had originally been a casualty of a website update to include newer instructions for the NXT 2.0, but the company has since rectified the error and brought them back. Now, if they could just remember that they need to re-post the bonus instructions for set 8448...
Finally, they recently found a fantastic base for a very large robot on YouTube. The tank treads are made out of Technic beams, and the 9 NXT's and 16 Power Functions motors give this plenty of expense power:
Continuing myseries on other spectacular all-ages blogs by LEGO fans for LEGO fans, today I am spotlighting TechnicBricks. TechnicBricks is an excellent source for Technic-related news and reviews, and often features interesting features on MOCs and building techniques as well. Currently, they have up an interesting twopart interview with LEGO set designer Uwe Wabra, the man behind the flagship of the current LEGO Technic line (the 8258 Crane Truck).
While this isn't truly robot-related (I generally try to do a robotics-related post on Mondays), I would highly recommend TechnicBricks to all of the NXT fans out there - the building techniques and parts discussed on the site can be extremely useful for all sorts of motorized creations.
Continuing on my thoughts from last week, here's another blog I think you should be reading in addition to this one: Mariann Asanuma's Model Building Secrets. Mariann is a former LEGO Master Model Designer who wrote the book "Building Secrets from the Masters volume 1: How to Build a Round Ball with Square Bricks!" - but lately, we've gotten to know her through privately commissioned LEGO work, her spectacular blogging and engagement with the LEGO fan community, and her contributions to BrickJournal magazine. Her unique perspective and knowledge of parts and techniques makes her a must-read. These past few days, however, she's been a great source for news on Comic-Con (you know, that huge comic fan convention LEGO was at last year that I should have mentioned here by now). She's still writing more posts about the event, but for now, check out her Bionicle mosaic built on-site, her Giant Comic-Con logo mosaic and her recap of the LEGO, BrickJournal, and WB booths. It's been a big event (and one I probably should have covered here over the weekend), but Mariann's got it covered.
You can also view her other website, where she promotes her book and her skills as a LEGO artist for hire.
...and if you want more San Diego Comic Con (perhaps you're not just a LEGO fan), you can check out Joe Meno's flickr photostream for more photos than you'll know what to do with.
Ever since things have started getting slow here, I've been thinking a bit about the various other LEGO-related blogs out there that my readers may not know about. I hate to leave my readers in a lurch, and while no other site uses the same format as this one, there are quite a few other blogs by LEGO fans worth reading (particularly if you're an avid fan up for more than just one model per day). Yesterday's rush of moon-landing tributes brought out some nice blogging on all four blogs by this one blogging wunderkind I know of in the online LEGO fan community. The blogger I speak of is BrickTales, an admin at the Classic-Castle.com website and the author of MicroBricks (a microscale-themed blog), VignetteBricks (a minifig vignette-themed blog) , GodBricks (a blog on LEGO and religion), and MinilandBricks (a blog on the "Miniland" scale used at the LEGOLAND parks). All four are excellent niche blogs and certainly worth following - not to mention their uses as libraries of models in their particular themes. Bruce's writing is aimed at adults but generally all-ages friendly, and his surprising command of both LEGO and larger issues means even the potentially controversial subject matter of GodBricks is always handled in an intelligent, inclusive and inviting way.
If you've been following our coverage of LEGO-related events over the years, you've probably come across some interesting examples of official visitors to these events and official support for these events from various parts of the LEGO company. This is something that has been in flux over the years as LEGO tries to determine how unofficial events can be of use to the LEGO company and how best to support unofficial events. Those constant changes can make it hard to keep track of what LEGO does and doesn't do for the fan community, but all of the official efforts are managed by LEGO's Community Engagement & Events (CEE) team, which (since November 2012) has a blog to help you stay in the loop. It won't tell you everything (because some community support programs are relatively secret pilot programs), but it's a great resource and will show you many fascinating aspects of the LEGO fan community and the LEGO company.
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