886 Space Buggy holds a special place in my heart, so I always appreciate seeing reinterpretations of this tiny, classic set. I recognized the inspiration behind this version by _zenn immediately.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
BrickCon 2011: A word from the Prize Goddess
Aaah, BrickCon. That magical time each fall when hundreds of LEGO fans descend upon the Exhibition Center in Seattle for a relaxing weekend of fun, friendship, and sleep.
Wait. I’m kidding. Sleep never enters the equation.
BrickCon has morphed quite a bit for me from my first event to now. I began attending BrickCon in 2005 (it was NorthWest BrickCon at that point). The ENTIRE event fit into the Rainier Room, which now is just the general assembly room. This year marked my seventh BrickCon and ninth overall event.
Time flies when you’re having fun, right?
What’s also changed quite a bit for me is how I experience BrickCon. In the beginning, I was simply an attendee. I registered, I went, I showed off my MOCs, and I went on my merry way. I’d help out coordinating the Castle display when I could. But in 2009, that changed. At one of the SEALUG meetings, it was mentioned that they needed someone to coordinate prizes. “I can do that,” I thought. So I stepped up.
So there’s the story of how I became Prize Coordinator for BrickCon. I can blame (thank?) Sean Forbes for the “Prize Goddess” moniker, and that’s the one that stuck.
Determining which prize goes what, where, and to who is an entirely scientific process, but not really. It’s taking a look once again at what I have to work with and spreading it across the four major ceremonies that have door prizes (Opening, Keynote, Awards, Closing). Making sure those are dividing properly and separate from what goes to the public is important, too. Part of my job ensures that any incoming prizes are dividing amongst the various pools, too, so that one event isn’t too overloaded. I try and keep Closing as short as possible, too, since by that time people typically are packing to head home.
This year we added a sort of “Santa Claus” prize pool for public and private hours. During the public hours, volunteers would wander around the crowds and hand small sets (provided by the con) and kid’s t-shirts (provided by the LEGO Store in Bellevue) to the kids. Watching their faces was amazing; the look of disbelief was typically first, followed by the giant smile. There was some suspicion that the gifts were completely free, but it was pretty easy to work around. Anyone who passed out those prizes had the same smile.
It’s incredibly busy working with the prizes. In terms of BrickCon, if it didn’t involve prizes, I typically had no information or clue about it. My focus was prizes; I needed to be available to receive incoming donations and prep for the next assembly. I had enough time in between assemblies to enjoy spending time with my friends and enjoying BrickCon for what it is.
Thanks to Joe Meno, Andrew Becraft, and Bill Ward for their photos!
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...
…could stop Bruce Lowell from building this awesome mailbox. I never thought I would say that a box had beautiful lines and curves but this one does.
Wrap up: Castle at BrickCon 2011
I have to say that Castle totally rocked this year. This was my sixth year being involved in the Castle section at the Con and I think this was the best so far. Everyone involved really stepped it up this year and they all deserve a round of applause.
The quantity of creations was overwhelming and we had to beg, borrow and steal more area (Many thanks to Steve Walker and Wayne Hussey for making that process virtually painless and to Scott Fowler for graciously giving up part of the neighboring Pirate tables). But quantity doesn’t really say much about a section. It was the quality of the creations that really blew me away. I knew that the builders who were coming had skills but they all out did themselves.
Our collaborative layout was packed with so many builds, flowing from one to another, that it was difficult to see everything and the section of stand-alone models was outstanding.
We had three categories for which builders could win a trophy and a LEGO set. The voters were very hard pressed to make their selections, but they finally did and the winning models and builders were:
Best Overall Castle Creation:
Hogwart’s Castle by Alice Finch
Photo of Hogwart’s by Bill Ward
Best Community Contribution:
Al Wahat by Sebastiaan Arts
Best Fly-in Dragon:
Whiskers by Myself
Hearty thanks also need to go out to the following people and companies: To Will of Brickarms for the awesome contributor packs and prototype weapons that he made especially for us, to Ryan of BrickWarriors for the sweet fig packs he donated and to Learning Loft Toys for the Lego set prizes they donated to our winners.
We all had a great time and plan to make next year even bigger and better. So if you want to ‘Go Medieval’ at BrickCon next year, please join us! BrickCon!!!
6 feet long Lego Battlestar Berzerk
Garry King likes building ships from the Battlestar Galactica universe, and he likes them big. His newest Battlestar Berzerk is so large that it requires internal supports for this 54-pound behemoth. More pictures and detailed descriptions are on MOCpages.
Wrap Up: Numereji 2421 at BrickCon 2011
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the Numereji 2421 display at BrickCon in Seattle last weekend! Because of your skill and creativity people got a much clearer idea of our vision.
We plan on a Numereji 2422 collaborative display at BrickCon 2012 and look forward to the return of great creations, changes to reflect the passage of time, and phenomenal additions.
Congratulations to the winners in our four categories who were acclaimed by peer balloting!
Best Overall: The Ark by Drew Ellis (also Best Capital Ship for the entire Space display)
Best Building: Communication Station Iris by Alex Fojtik (counter-rotating arrays of awesome)
Best Terrain: Numereji Ranchero by Josh Wedin (and unofficial sillyness prize)
Best Vehicle: Scavenger by Shane Weckstrom (NPU purple basketball player pants)
Special thanks to Brandon Bannerman for his CSS Howland hull design and for working on the hulk up to the wire.
Justin Pyne also deserves a shout out for his very close second in the Terrain category and for embracing the challenge of a peaceful space town. Shows heart in a youngster.
I also enjoyed displaying my own Earthship House, and a barn built from a sections of Howland hull. More pics of that once I get a good light box set up and get rid of this stalker rain that followed me back to San Diego.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
A few hours ago, the world learned that it had lost one of its most brilliant stars. Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died after a lengthy illness.
Nearly every post I’ve written on this blog, every line of code, and every photo I’ve taken has made its way through the MacBook sitting here on my lap. But more importantly, Jobs inspired a generation of creative professionals to do amazing things with their imaginations. And no matter what kind of computer or mobile device you’re reading this from, I know that’s something all of you out there can relate to.
New brick separator adds Technic axle pusher, tile-removing wedge
Paul Lee just got back from a trip to Billund, where he picked up a brick separator with some new features.
Paul says:
The brand new debricking tool. It’s smaller. Streamlined down to about the footprint of a 2 x 10 plate. There are many notable new features. There is a technic axle pusher for removing those stubbornly embedded axles. There are of course the standard top and bottom brick removing configurations. Also new is the pointed wedge at the back end of the lever, very useful for popping tiles and splitting plates that the other end can’t. It basically doubles as an ABS thumbnail. It’ll do whatever you would do with your thumbnail without ruining your manicure. Lastly, another nice added feature is the jumper plate offset in the underside, allowing the removal of jumper plates that the previous version of the tool could not handle.
LEGO in the White House
This is such a great photo. President Obama casually sits on a desk talking to three beaming winners from a science fair, each proudly holding their trophies built from LEGO.
Official caption: “President Barack Obama congratulates Google Science Fair winners, from left, Naomi Shah, Shree Bose, and Lauren Hodge in the Oval Office, Oct. 3, 2011.”
Thanks for the tip, Bruce!
日本郵便配達車 – Japan Post delivery van
October 2011 LEGO sales & deals [News]
Between BrickCon and my birthday, October has been a great LEGO month for me for the last few years, but it looks like the rest of you out there can share in the joy with a plethora of LEGO sales throughout the month.
First off, LEGO.com is offering double VIP points for the full month of October, and it looks like all magnets are 50% off.
The new holiday set 10222 Winter Village Post Office has just been released.
And in case you missed it, 10220 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van is also out.
Not to be outdone by TRU’s Bricktober (which we won’t be supporting since they dropped FBTB, TBB, and Brickset all at once with no explanation a while back), Amazon.com
25% off is nice, but Amazon has several more at 30% off, including 7066 Earth Defence HQ
Finally, if you’re in the UK, October 8th brings free LEGO sets from The Sun.
With which to light your way.
I had to do a double-take with this one. The thumbnail looked like it was just a lovely presentation of a small-ish lantern. But it was lovely, so I looked, and realized I was actually looking at a LEGO creation.
Luke Watkins said this was a random creation that took very little time, but I definitely appreciate the build and the thought that went into the presentation.
