The Brothers Brick

RoboRealm software from Wizard Robotics enables you to use your Xbox 360 controller to control your MINDSTORMS NXT robots. How cool is that? Get the source code here. (Via The NXT STEP.)

Aaron Andrews took home the title in the recent Colossal Castle Contest V!

Our favorite Aussie won one category (Castle Spaces) and was Honorably Mentioned in three others. A big hurrah and round of applause for Aaron!

Ochre Jelly’s Stephen Hawking has become the stuff of Internet legend (previous post here on TBB). His latest creations are a set of characters (in the same “MINILAND” scale) who should be familiar to fans of great TV.

Check out OJ’s MOCPages for more shots of Bender, Fry, Leela, and Nibbler (my personal favorite). Here’s hoping Ochre Jelly builds the whole cast of Futurama. Zapp Brannigan, anyone?

Well, we’ve been holding our breath, waiting for the results of the Colossal Castle Contest V, and the winners have all been announced! (Actually, they were announced a while ago, but I’ve been too busy to post them here. Bad Josh, bad Josh!)

A most hearty congratulations to the winners!

Check them out here:

A good day for Lego Star Wars fans, we get to see pictures of the upcoming summer 2008 sets and their minifigs from coverage of UK’s Toy Fair. Check out the gallery!

The Steam Wars contest is wrapping up tonight. Check out some of the great last minute entries showing up.

Nelson Yrizarry (BigDaddy) enters with his steampunk version of Grievous’ Wheel Bike:

Motian with his steamfied take on the Slave I:

Adrian Florea with a steampunk’d AT-TE cleverly named the AT-sTEam:

ACPin‘s steampunk Sail Barge:

ARC-17 Steamfighter from Thire:

There’s plenty of entries in this exciting contest. Click here to see them all! Good luck to the skillful builders out there, the judges will have a tough time!

The latest episode of LAML Radio hosts an interview including content about Brickarms. Learn more about this great customs minifig weapons shop and listen to the podcast.

Ethan writes to remind us of something we missed recently (but the boys over at Kotaku didn’t) — awesome Big Daddy and Little Sister characters from BioShock by Brickshelfer Snyderman.

The Adam extractor disturbs me.

The brilliant mind of Mike Crowley strikes again. Check out those legs! As with so many of Mike’s building techniques, the simplicity and elegance — dare I say inevitability? — of the design are what makes it so awesome.

Future Boy Conan was an animated Japanese TV show in the late 1970s that helped solidify the reputations of renowned Studio Ghibli animators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Luís Baixinho has created a beautiful plane inspired by the Falco in the TV series:

I’d love to see Luís’ take on the gunship from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

To avoid inadvertently posting spoilers, I will merely link to the page with the awesome new Indiana Jones 4 LEGO sets.  But trust me, the risk of spoiling Indiana Jones and the Crystal of the Crystal Skull is well worth drooling over the LEGO.

EDIT (AB): I’ll just add a belated thanks to Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo for sending us a link to his post this morning (when we were still having technical difficulties). This was the first thing I was going to blog when I got home from work, but Nathan beat me to it. ;-) Oh, and I’ll add the cool banner because it’s just too awesome.

Steven Marshall is known for his realistic models of everyday objects and vehicles. Check out his most recent two works of a pushchair and tractor.

Great use of those orange treads!

Check out this amazing Predator bust by misterzumbi. Great use of those tentacles and nice work on the base as well.

The worldwide response to the 50th birthday of the LEGO brick today has been amazing.

As Nathan posted late last night (our time), Google LEGO’d their home page. Naturally, somebody (namely Antonio Manfredonio) had to build it with real brick:

• Neatorama has a list of the 10 Neatest LEGO Facts and Links.
• LEGO Ambassador Peter Reid and fiancee Yvonne Doyle showed off their LEGO room on Sky TV.
• Another LEGO Ambassador, Tânia Baixinho, posted another cool video.

Finally, LEGO Certified Professional Sean Kenney made a cake:

Well, not really. Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson created a time-lapse video of himself building the Ultimate Collector’s Millenium Falcon:

Joel wonders what to do with all that LEGO now that the Falcon is done. I vote for more ships of his own design. You’ve got some skills, dude!

Thanks for the tip, Xeni!

EDIT: I didn’t read the whole post earlier, but Joel also has a great list of his nine favorite LEGO sets. From 497 Galaxy Explorer to 7036 Dwarves’ Mine, it’s a great list indeed.