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Here's a new feature I'd like to get started on right away (mostly because I just found out about this great website): a spotlight on useful resources within the LEGO community. BRICKITGOOD is the work of Mr. Corey Sanders, a schoolteacher from Nevada who runs (and personally funds) an after-school LEGO program for elementary-school aged students. The site features a wide variety of models, with plenty of photos for each one. Most of the models also include instructions - some of which are in LEGO Digital Designer format so you can easily buy the parts needed to build them. An advantage (for teachers especially) of creating building instructions is that you can save designs while taking the models apart - which is particularly important when you need to make the parts available again for other students. In addition to creating instructions for his own designs, he has also created instructions for a number of popular models that haven't been available to the public (such as promotional items that were only given away as glued models). These models are a great starting place for your original creations - or you could try rebuilding some of the designs as shown. The events section covers student creations, regional events, and the 2004 Master Model Builder search (yes, when you build lifelike sculptures this well, LEGO takes notice).
The photos below show examples of the variety of material available on the BRICKITGOOD website, and each one is a link that takes you to the appropriate section of the site.
Since we've clearly been failing at trying to catch up lately, I think it's time to fill you in on what's been going on behind the scenes.
First, we need to make our accidental February hiatus official - there's just no way we can reasonably make up the time now. We'll return to the of-the-day format in March, and actually be on time for a while.
Seeing that events in my personal life can still interrupt the blog a bit, I think it's time we look again into bringing new contributors to this blog. Let me know if you'd be interested in doing something here. While I'd like to pick off a few writers from other LEGO blogs out there (it seems there's a new one every day lately), we're open to trying out new ideas as well - if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them in to legomodeloftheday@gmail.com
We're actually already looking into some new features, but you know how us LEGO fans are - we like to stop writing and actually build something once in a while. It's better to have a few more people involved and more ideas in the pipeline.
I prefer not to bore my readers with my personal life, but here's a quick rundown for the interested: about a week after my hand got better, I came down with a really nasty sinus infection. Somewhere in the middle of that, my main laptop died. After warranty-covered repairs were done, it came back without an operating system - I've been trying to get my regular tasks going in Ubuntu over this past week.
Oh, and did you know I build? I'm planning on debuting a sculpture and some new Cafe Corner style town models at this year's LEGOPalooza - where I'm also coordinating a town/train layout. If you're near Chapel Hill, NC, USA on March 5th or 6th, you might want to check it out.
Details: Folding shirts takes time. Building and programming this robot to do it for you doesn't take that much time. The obvious next improvement is to make it grab the shirts itself so it doesn't need to be loaded with each shirt. This definitely speeds things up, though. The use of a cardboard box alongside standard NXT parts is pretty clever. In the interest of showing something you probably haven't seen before, the video above is of the second (faster) version of this machine.
Details: For December's LUGNUTS challenge - "By Random Appointment" - members of this elite club of LEGO car builders randomly swapped assignments to build specific vehicles. While you can always count on LUGNUTS to collectively come up with some great designs, this particularly challenge required people to commit to participating before they were assigned a car to build - which brought out some different approaches than we've seen in the past. Case in point: the model I've pictured here, built by someone who generally builds in the 4-wide "Tiny Turbo" scale. That the jump to minifig scale worked at all is impressive, but this is actually a classy-looking 1937 Bugatti that'd fit well in any minifig-scale town. Elsewhere, we can see some more welcome improvements in the variety of models showcased - while "Model Team" style models are common in the group, it looks like Technic builders are finally starting to make serious inroads into LUGNUTS. You should, of course, check out all the models you can from the links above.
Details: Since we're still behind (I swear I can't remember being this one-thing-after-another sick since I was little), for this post (last Saturday's - ugh) we're foregoing the usual model in favor of highlighting this brief look at what's going on with the construction of the new LEGOLAND Park in Malaysia. It looks like the park itself has a ways to go, but the model shop is clearly fully operational and the master builders seem to already be used to working with the press. For those of you in Malaysia, they're still looking for model builders. The job description can be found at the link featured above.
Details: Every once in a while, you come across a model that rewards close inspection but can't be photographed well from a distance. Trust me - this model is one of them. This airship (in a loosely "steampunk" tradition) features some spectacular techniques and part usages. One thing you can see in many of the photos is a choppy, water-ish texture (perhaps it's supposed to be a cloud) created by dozens of minifig legs. The balloon-shaped bit hear the top is made entirely out of 2x2 round plates - and that's attached cleverly with hooks, chains, and skis! The front hull is a pair of sideways staircases, with click hinge sections attached. That hinge element reappears in quite a few other places, somehow feeling like an intentional motif instead of an overly-available part. Minifig telescopes make nice railings on the sides, and an unusual open cabin rounds things out - with the fins in the back being an entertaining nod to proper ship steering.
Details: You may remember Henry Lim (we'vefeaturedhimbefore), one of the first few LEGO hobbyists to build sculptures on the scale of what the LEGO company uses for promotional events and LEGOLAND attractions. This time, we take a look at his mosaic of Catwoman (as portrayed in the movie Batman Returns). This mosaic was made in greyscale, using the shades of grey available in bulk from LEGO during the heyday of official mosaic kits in the late 1990's / early 2000's. In a departure from the instructions (actually a computer-generated image - this mosaic line was based on being able to upload a photo and purchase a "custom" kit with everything you needed to build a low-resolution, studs out, greyscale mosaic of that image) offered in the official kit, this was built in a studs-up manner. I'm sure any experienced builder can imagine what can go wrong here - we're talking about an image made almost exclusively out of stacks of 1x1 plates. Needless to say, some structural adjustments had to be made. The final version of the mosaic is actually two studs thick, and the front layer is tied into the back layer with larger parts wherever possible. Since larger elements in one of the colors (very light grey) are rare (Bricklink only knows of 24 parts in the color, and additional parts are likely only available to LEGO's own professionals), it can be particularly difficult to tie this together sturdily.
In spite of all that effort, this mosaic fell down and fell apart - once. Now it's been re-built with glue to ensure that it stays together.
Details: Last weekend, scurrilous rumors flittered about the LEGO-interested parts of the internet after someone found some leaked photos. Rest assured - if you see a post about a new set here, we've already verified that there really will be a new set out and will only post official announcements before the kit is actually released. Now, for something completely different (that just coincidentally sounds very similar):
This Maersk train locomotive was created by misterzumbi before he became a designer for the LEGO company. This actually could never be a set - the sheer size of it would rule it out. There's some argument in the LEGO train community over what the proper size of trains should be (mostly because "minifig scale" is a wildly inconsistent "scale"), but the official kits are almost always 6 studs wide. This one weighs in at 8 studs wide and 59 studs long. This is packed with great details, but the brick-built lettering on the sides.
Details: On the left, there's today's model of the day. On the right, a picture of the character he is based on. The builder decided to try building a version of the character after getting hold of just the clothes from the doll version of this mascot character (widely used by LEGO in Europe in the 1950's, the mascot seems to be the earliest version of the "Jack", "Zack", and "Max" characters we've seen more recently in LEGO advertisements). This version ends up looking more like the cheery printed version of the character than like the doll. It holds together surprisingly well considering how many sections had to be built sideways or upside down in order to get curvature to come out.
Details: Now that the soccer/football table idea has been done successfully a few times, it was time to spruce up the concept. Here, we have one that includes ball handling and a computerized scorekeeper. The Power Functions WeDo system was used to give the laptop access to two motors and a pair of motion sensors. Fuller documentation's at the links above.
By the way - are posts with videos (like this one) still loading alright for everyone? YouTube seems to have changed how they handle embedding, and we want to make sure we're not losing anyone by using the newer embed code.
). This mosaic was made in greyscale, using the shades of grey available in bulk from LEGO during the heyday of official mosaic kits in the late 1990's / early 2000's. In a departure from the instructions (actually a computer-generated image - this mosaic line was based on being able to upload a photo and purchase a "custom" kit with everything you needed to build a low-resolution, studs out, greyscale mosaic of that image) offered in the official kit, this was built in a studs-up manner. I'm sure any experienced builder can imagine what can go wrong here - we're talking about an image made almost exclusively out of stacks of 1x1 plates. Needless to say, some structural adjustments had to be made. The final version of the mosaic is actually two studs thick, and the front layer is tied into the back layer with larger parts wherever possible. Since larger elements in one of the colors (very light grey) are rare (
