LEGO is made from plastic. Plastic is made from oil. And Gilcelio Chagas is extracting oil with this neat pumpjack. A pumpjack is essentially a device to convert rotational motion to pumping motion to suck oil out of a well. As Gilcelio illustrates very nicely in his video of the pumpjack at work. I lied about the oil bit, you need to go underground for that.
Here’s a working Danger Button for your DEFCON 1 needs, complete with arming switch, protective dome (to avoid accidental launches), and light up indicator! Be careful, though!
A video to see it in action.
LEGO magnets are cool, but most people just use them for connecting trains or picking up crates. Not so for Simon Liu, the ever-innovative Canadian builder. This mass transit suspension bridge is actually held aloft by magnetism, providing a cushy platform for the mag-lev train that rides on it over an earth-quake riddled fault-line. Be sure to watch the video of Simon disassembling it to show the magnets’ effects. Besides having an uuber cool concept, though, Simon has nailed the style of this futuristic bridge, giving it an edgy, techy architectural look. Also, I’m pretty sure Simon is crazy, because he’s competing concurrently in both the Iron Builder competition and the MocAthalon contest, and this creation counts for both.
Bruce Lowell (bruceywan) has taken one of the most fun old Adventurer’s sets, 5935 Island Hopper, and put his own skilled hands to recreating it for the MOCPages MocAtholon competition. The Island Hopper was always a favorite of mine in the final Adventurers setting, and Bruce’s version is all decked out with more advanced building techniques and smooth surfaces, and of course, a lot more pieces.
76008 Iron Man vs. The Mandarin: Ultimate Showdown is the smallest set of the trio of LEGO sets for the upcoming Iron Man 3 film. With only a vehicle and two minifigs, it’s clearly an action-based set. The box includes two un-numbered bags, the instructions, and the same 10-page comic as the other Iron Man 3 sets. The comic includes scenes from all three sets, and is really quite nice.
The vehicle seems to be some sort of flame-thrower armored car, and it’s driven by the big-bearded Mandarin, aka Iron Man’s new nemesis. The vehicle is pretty standard, with the flame-thrower stand holding two flick-fire missiles (where would we be without flick-fire missiles? Here’s a challenge: build a creation using only flick-fire missiles!) and being mounted on a 4×4 turntable. The rear of the vehicle does incorporate one of those multifaceted train slopes, which is a nifty under-utilized piece, so that’s cool. Beyond the missiles, though, there are no play-features in this set, so you’ll have to use your imagination. There are a few left-over pieces of the regular sort, and as usual, I’ve included a shot of the inventory page. I suspect 
the real reason that most people will buy this set, though, is for the minifigs. Both are exclusive to this set. Although a minifigure of the Mandarin appears in the Malibu Mansion Attack set, and naturally Iron Man is in all the sets, both are unique versions here. This Mandarin has a bedraggled look, with a kerchief covering whatever-that-is on his chest (here’s a picture comparing the versions). In fact, this torso looks terrific for making your own generic guerrilla fighter, since it doesn’t really have anything in the print that specifically ties it to the Mandarin or this theme. The Iron Man minifigure here is the star, though. This is my favorite of all the LEGO versions of Iron Man we’ve seen so far. This Iron Man features awesome blue eyes and a blue power circle on his chest (here’s a comparison photo between the two armor types).
With an MSRP of $12.99 USD, and 91 pieces, I would pass on this set, unless you want the minifigs. 
It’s not a great parts pack for those of you who aren’t enamored by the minifigs. On the other hand, a great many of you will thoroughly enjoy the minifigs in this set, and with the set price being so low, it’s probably cheaper to buy the whole set than attempt to buy just the minifigs on the secondary market.
Read my review of the Iron Man 3 Malibu Mansion Attack set here.
These book-ends by Bart De Dobbelaer would make the perfect ends for any sci-fi book collection. In fact, Bart has me thinking that book-ends might be a fun new format to try building.
Bart has done his usual great jobs on these. The technical bits on the bottom have just the right amount of details to look interesting and clean at the same time. The contrast with the brightly colored organic tentacle shapes adds motion as visual interest for a scene that keeps me looking.
Justin Pratt (legotanks) makes excellent little delivery trucks as well as tanks. At BrickCon last year, I gave him a couple of engraved “The Brothers Brick” bricks on condition that he build us a delivery van. Justin recently finished it, and posted it online last night (after displaying it at Emerald City Comicon this weekend).
That’s “me” behind the wheel, but you may see someone I’m hauling along behind. Per his request, my co-founder Josh is along for the ride in a little red wagon.
Justin’s truck joins what’s turning out to be our delivery fleet, led by the truck Nathan Proudlove brought to BrickCon 2009 (where we successfully fought off a zombie horde).
Of course your first thought would be, “A Bug’s Life,” but beyond that, this little creature by Riccardo Zangelmi is a beautifully delicate creation. It is elegant in its minmal use of elements. I can imagine a series of vignettes based on the adventures of Tom the Ant. I wonder if it’s inspired by Tom Sawyer?
Now here’s a gorgeous bit of medieval architecture by Paul Vermeesch. Paul says this lovely seaside monastery was inspired by his deft modding of Bombur’s hair into a tonsure. The white and medium-dark flesh tones of the building give a wonderfully refreshing feeling that’s different than the gritty, disheveled look so many castle builders aim for, and the stone-work on the cliff is a mastery of the technique. Paul even took a shot of his concept sketch for the diorama, showing us a bit of his thought-process.
As though making a very nice looking cutaway street scene with an underground Metro (subway for our US readers) train wasn’t enough, serial genius Esben Kolind has gone several better. His Metro train and station uses NXT, technic and a load of smarts to feature sliding doors which open when the train hits the station. But wait there’s more. Not content with just having the train doors open, the station doors open at the same time, preventing minifig suicide, and impressing the pants off onlookers. And to lift (excuse the pun) his game, Esben also adds a working elevator.
Andrew Lee’s (onosendai2600) most recent offering in his Iron Builder Challenge with Simon Liu (Si-Mocs) is an amazing Bionicle version of the Silver Surfer. The challenge is for each builder to create models utilizing a “secret” ingredient, much like Food Network’s Iron Chef competition. In this case, they are using the Silver Bionicle Weapon Air Katana. Andrew has re-purposed them to make the Cosmic Surfboard of Galactus’s Herald. All that you know is at an end.
