I used to MOC a lot. In the olden days. I am, by trade, a professional parent, and while even under optimal conditions, that entails being on-call 24/7 with a Sisyphean list of tasks. I would usually carve out some LEGO time in the day when my people were all in school and the worst of the fires had been put out. I’d let my brain dive deep into the creative pool and build. At least, that's how it worked in the “before times.” Minifig me at my minifig house. We’re here all the time. In March 2020, we suddenly all had more time. But also all my people were now home all the time. All. The. Time. All. The. Time. So, yeah, “Lots of extra hours in the day!” But most of that time is “short attention span theater.” Ask me how many times I’ve been brought up to code...

“Woah! You do NOT look like what I expected!” This is the greeting that I received after finally meeting one of a handful of Bionicle/constraction builders displaying in-person at Brickworld Chicago 2022. At LEGO conventions, it’s fairly common for people to mistake any grey-haired person like myself for being the parent of one of the displaying builders—as opposed to actually being one of the displayers. In addition, some people still envision the stereotypical Bionicle/constraction builder as being a young male teenager, who spends as much time debating Bionicle canon in online forums as they do actually building with Bionicle. Receiving this reaction after meeting another male Bionicle builder means to me that there’s still work to be done in changing this paradigm—even within the Bionicle community. More and more builders from varied backgrounds have been trying their hand at building with Bionicle/constraction parts. It is evident that annual community-building contests like...

Once again, the festival of sport is upon us. The Summer Olympics are here! In Paris, no less, which hosted the modern Summer Olympics previously in 1900 and 1924. France has hosted three Winter Olympics as well, including the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968, and Albertville in 1992. Source: LA Times A whole deep-dive article on LEGO sets tied to Paris could easily be created. Everything from UCS Christmas trees, cathedrals, and other Paris-themed sets are ripe for analysis; but so are sports-based sets! Given the global event occurs only every four years, Olympic-themed LEGO builds tend to be sparse. But today we are searching faster, higher and stronger to bring you a glimpse of what is out there when it comes to some of the lesser-known Olympic sports. To start us off, the French LEGO forum Brick Pirate is having a contest with some excellent...

It’s Christmas in July—which means there’s only five months until Christmas! A staple of the Christmas season is the winter village, and LEGO winter villages are no stranger to the season. In light of Christmas in July, I wanted to discuss the work of one man who offers one of the most accomplished winter villages I’ve seen: Alexandre Lejeune, aka Alex Winter Village. Beginnings Sam: Hi Alex, can you introduce yourself? How long have you been in the LEGO hobby? Alex: Hi Sam! Thanks for your interest in my work. I’m Alex, 43, from the Gard, south of France. I’m an SNCF TGV ticket inspector, and I've been a full-time guitarist in the Ska Punk Metal band Les Kroutes since 1999. I've been building with Danish bricks since I was 8. Time flies! Sam: How did you get started on this diorama? How long did it take? Alex: Despite a slow...

I can’t count the times that LEGO builders or even the general public see an awesome GBC (Great Ball Contraption) layout at an event and want to make one themselves… but just don’t know how to get started. So today we are going back to the basics, breaking down GBC modules into their core mechanisms to show how to make balls move. We’ll explore some of my favorite and most frequently used mechanisms found in almost any GBC module. These core mechanisms enable a wide range of functionalities for transporting balls upwards, and each can be customized to fit whatever your brain can imagine. Even the most complex modules can be broken down into basic movements and mechanisms. There are certainly more ways of moving balls, but these five are the most common in my experience. Slider-Crank Mechanism Slider crank mechanism by bricksngears While there are several variants of this mechanism,...