Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published October 20, 2022. If you have ever been to a LEGO convention, you are probably familiar with the noise of hundreds of LEGO balls rattling through a continuous chain of mechanical madness. But do you actually know where the tradition originally came from? As a GBC (great ball contraption) builder myself, I was quite curious about this question because I didn't even have the answer. So I did some research and this is what I found. Let's go back in time to see where the idea of GBC came from and how it all started. Ping Pong Ball Handoff It all started with a ping pong ball. In 2004, The Lafayette LEGO Robotics Club (LafLRC) created a challenge called the “Ping Pong Ball Handoff”. The idea was simple: receive a ping pong ball from the robot to your left and pass it to the...

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published October 17, 2022. A common gripe among AFOLs of a certain age is that the instructions have been way oversimplified. “When I was a kid a whole castle had less than 50 steps!” (6074 Black Falcon’s Fortress had 36 and 6077 Forestmen’s River Fortress had 22—OK more of a tower but still). While building the recent Gift With Purchase (GWP) set 40567 Forest Hideout, I was pondering this complaint. Especially when assembling the cut-out doorway and remembering this step being frustrating as a kid—and it is still fiddly and frustrating! One of my binders of saved instructions! Since 40567 is a direct remake of 6054 Forestmen’s Hideout, I thought a comparison of the instructions might be interesting. I still have the instructions to 6054 as my dad cut them apart and covered many of my early instructions in clear contact paper. Thankfully for everyone else,...

LEGO has put up a product page for the new LEGO Christmas Fun VIP Add-On Pack (40609). Like with previous Add-On Packs, it’ll most likely require a $50 purchase to get it. It features a number of Christmas related elements such as snowflakes, a Santa hat, and lots of food pieces. For those who have been asking, the polybag does not come with any of the white parts to make the house in the pictures, just the decorative parts. The post LEGO Christmas Fun VIP Add-On Pack (40609) Official Images appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

I like sorting. It’s a soothing exercise (very unlike rewriting an article in Squarespace after not hitting save and hitting the backspace button). It’s calming, peaceful, and uses just the right amount of finger power while leaving brain power free to meditate on life’s joys and sorrows. It’s fortunate that I like sorting because I keep finding new collections to sort. So before we get started, let me walk you through The History and Times of Sorting LEGO Bricks According to Geneva. Then vs now My first sorting article was a time capsule of the collection I grew up with. The collection was sorted piecemeal as it came along. I started with a color-based sorting method, then went part-sorting crazy (did I really need Tile, Modified 1x2 with Bar Handle taking up a whole container?). Overall, the sorting method was patchy. Are wedges slopes or plates? Who thought sorting SNOT bricks...

Last year (wow, has it really been that long?), we took a look at individual LEGO parts’ mold variations and the different techniques that were unlocked by using one specific variation or another. Well, our amazing readers had all kinds of great feedback, including a few elements that I hadn’t even considered the first time around! I’ll be highlighting some of those, plus a few more that I’ve thought of or discovered in the interim as we dive once more into… molds over time! Stacking Up Let’s start with a brief summary of the last article: many LEGO elements have been changed over time for various reasons, such as to make them more “in system” to match the design ideology of more modern pieces, or simply to enhance their functionality. Whether deliberately or by circumstance, this has created situations where different variations of the same element can be used for totally...

“If you can draw the human figure, you can draw anything!” I’ve seen this statement in all manner of art books and websites. There’s a lot of truth in it, but also a mighty challenge! We all know exactly what a person looks like. So it is very easy to be hyper-critical of small mistakes. Plus, the human form is hard with so many curves, so many things that are proportional to each other, then tie in foreshortening effects, and on and on. Many of the same issues exist in building the human form in LEGO with the addition of working in a medium that is fairly rectangular. Figure/character building is so not my wheelhouse—my much-neglected Flickr is mostly spaceships, castles, and LUG events. That being said, some of my figure builds are MOCs I’m the most proud of. So I hope sharing my journey out of my comfort zone will...

By and large, the LEGO community is a place of childlike wonder and happy stories, where good wins and creativity prevails. That said, there is a darkness in the world of LEGO. That’s right, we’re talking about the Dark Age, that dreaded period where once-devoted LEGO enthusiasts grow apart from the brick. Absolutely tragic. I think it’s generally agreed upon that the ultimate source of these dark ages is college. Hit with the double-whammy of being away from your LEGO collection and being frantically busy 24/7, this is a dark time for many would-be AFOLs. That’s why, when I left for college about two months ago, I came in with a plan and determination to avoid this common pitfall. Now, I’m here to share some of my experiences so far in staying active in the LEGO hobby while at college. Display Only The first (and perhaps most obvious) method of staying...

One of the greatest parts of being a LEGO fan is all of the wonderful events hosted around the world—events for like-minded fans to display their models and socialize with each other. This is something I am especially interested in as I really enjoy traveling and have been looking into all the different conventions worldwide that I can attend. When I heard about the offer to attend LEGO Shows Kuwait, though, my interest was really piqued because I had never heard about it before, either online or from anyone in person. You may also have the same questions I had: what is LEGO Shows? What happens there? And where in the world is Kuwait? Well, to get the easy question out of the way, Kuwait is a small country bordering Saudi Arabia and Iraq with a coastline on the Persian Gulf. LEGO Shows is not like your standard LEGO fan event...

Best of BrickNerd — Article originally published October 17, 2021 and republished today to celebrate Creations for Charity 2023 where you can donate or purchase a MOC, including one of our mascot Nerdly! For 15 years, Nannan Zhang has been organizing Creations for Charity, a fundraiser where LEGO fans can donate and purchase custom MOCs and more to help raise money to send LEGO to kids in need. We sat down with Nannan to chat about this year’s efforts that just launched and learn how to get involved. Dave: Hi Nannan! We are so glad you are organizing Creations for Charity again. For those who may not know, can you tell us what it is all about? Nannan: Creations for Charity (CfC) is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that hosts an annual fundraising event from October to November where builders from all over the world donate custom LEGO creations to sell and...

Today’s BrickNerd article features a guest post about BrickCon 2023 by Joe Meno of BrickJournal Magazine. Hi BrickNerd readers! I'm Joe Meno, the editor of BrickJournal Magazine. One of my duties for the magazine is to look for builders to feature in issues and to sell copies of the magazine and subscriptions. The primary way I do this is by being a vendor at LEGO events and conventions. You might have seen me in a booth at BrickFair VA or at BrickCon. This year, though, I brought a special guest to BrickCon, one of Walt Disney’s legendary Imagineers. I’ll let her introduce herself: My name is Terri Hardin and I am a Disney Imagineer. I have a Patreon page called Terri’s Tribe, where I met Joe Meno and learned about LEGO. I love learning new things and when Joe and Naomi Takeuchi began to share with me LEGO in the 21st...