Posts by Dave Schefcik (TBB News Contributor)

LEGO IDEAS 2016 roundup, and what to look forward to in 2017 [News]

Each year, we are stunned by the creativity that stems from builders like you, constantly pushing LEGO to explore new techniques, themes and concepts through LEGO IDEAS. 2016 was quite the busy year for IDEAS, and the year ahead should be equally as exciting with the next deadline coming soon for LEGO to review projects that reach the 10,000 vote goal.

NEW LEGO IDEAS SETS: Looking back, 2016 was an exciting milestone year with four IDEAS sets that launched, introducing a two yellow iconic vehicles, a labyrinth and brick-built cartoon characters:

21308 Ideas Adventure Time | $49.99 USD | The LEGO Shop | Amazon
21307 Caterham Seven 620R | $79.99 USD | The LEGO Shop | Amazon (currently 15% off)
21306 Yellow Submarine | $59.99 USD | The LEGO Shop | Amazon
21305 Maze | $69.99 USD | The LEGO Shop (retiring soon) | Amazon

RETIRED LEGO IDEAS SETS: We also sadly saw four iconic IDEAS sets get retired from production by LEGO. We hope you were able to grab these while they were available since they are incredible sets, though you can still find them on Amazon:

But there’s more to look forward to, with some amazing projects approved for 2017, which you can check out below. Continue reading →

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO Boost unveiled: all you need to know to bring your creations to life [News]

This week at the CES technology convention in Las Vegas, LEGO unveiled Boost, an entry-level building and coding toolkit to help bring your creations to life. More simple than Mindstorms, LEGO Boost (17101) is like its little brother but cooler and easier to get to know. The Brothers Brick is at CES and we’ll bring you hands-on coverage soon, but in the meantime, here are the basics.

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for December 31, 2016 [News]

The Brothers Brick publishes so many interesting stories, that we’re giving you the best of LEGO news and reviews, as well as links to other interesting content. This is our Weekly Brick Report for the final seven days of 2016. (Woo-hoo! We made it!)

REVIEWS: TBB had its hands full with new sets from Adventure Time, the LEGO Batman Movie, and Star Wars: Rogue One.

LEGO Ideas 21308 Adventure Time – The next LEGO Ideas set has arrived, and what an adventure it is: 21308 Adventure Time, inspired by the crazy, yet meaningful, hit cartoon.
LEGO Star Wars Rogue One 75155 Rebel U-Wing Fighter and 75152 Imperial Assault Hovertank – Spoiler alert! Rogue One continues to dominate the box office, but how do the LEGO sets stack up against the movie?
LEGO Batman Movie 70903 The Riddler Riddle Racer, and Two New Batmobile, Batwing mini-sets – Batman and his many bad guys (who he does not fight around with, ahem) certainly travel in style! Take a look at this enigma of a vehicle.

TBB NEWS: We posted some cool instructions, our tribute to Carrie Fisher, and our create-a-calendar winners this week. Also, the LEGO Death Star set is still up for grabs!

Winners of the TBB Create-a-Calendar contest – Indiana Jones, Futurama and Classic Space nabbed the top honors of our contest with some incredible microbuilds.
New LEGO Speed Champions sets revealed – Take a look at these cool cars racing our way in 2017, including a Ford Le Mans GT40, Mercedes, Bugatti and a few Ferraris.
Remembering Carrie Fisher (1956-2016) – Carrie Fisher certainly ranks near the top of the list of actors with the most minifigures based off them with a total of 16 so far. RIP Princess Leia.
Build your own Oliver Twist pug dog and Dale Horvath’s Walking Dead RV – TBB has instructions for some of the cool things we feature on the site. Have fun building!
Creations for Charity 2016 raises $14,000 in LEGO for needy kids – Read about the great results of a holiday fundraiser to send LEGO sets to needy kids.
Win the LEGO Star Wars Death Star to celebrate TBB’s 100,000th follower – You still have time to follow us and enter the contest on our Facebook page to win a massive $500 set!

OTHER NEWS: There was a massive amount of LEGO news from other places around the web this week. Here are a few items we noticed and thought you might enjoy.

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Creations for Charity 2016 raises $14,000 in LEGO for needy kids [News]

Every year since 2009, Creations for Charity has sold custom creations donated by generous builders to raise funds and purchase LEGO sets for underprivileged kids during the holiday season. In 2016, they sold more than 100 creations and raised $13,877, which in turn helped them purchase and donate LEGO sets in nine cities in the US, Canada, Brazil, Hungary and Australia. You can see the massive amounts of sets they donated in the photo below.

TBB’s own Nannan Zhang founded Creations for Charity, which notably became a non-profit this year. This means future donations will be tax deductible, hopefully ensuring that such a worthwhile cause within the LEGO community continues for many holiday seasons to come.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for December 24, 2016 [News]

The Brothers Brick comes across so much LEGO-related news each week that we’ve decided to package up all the interesting stories we’ve written and the content that’s grabbed our attention into a Weekly Brick Report for your reading enjoyment. Some weeks there will be lots of links to share; other weeks there will be hardly any stories out there–that’s the fickle nature of the news. But these are some headlines worth sharing.

So without further adieu, here’s this week’s Brick Report:

REVIEWS: TBB’s hands got tired this week between building this massive modular and feeling out a full case of minifig bags.

LEGO’s biggest modular yet: 10255 Assembly Square – LEGO is celebrating the 10th year for its Modular Buildings. Read our early review to see what excitement is in store!
The LEGO Batman Movie Collectible Minifigures Feel Guide – With so many Batman cowls, what should you feel for? Here are the secrets you need to know.
LEGO Disney 41150 Moana’s Ocean Voyage and 41149 Moana’s Island Adventure – Moana joins the Disney Princess franchise, but how do the sets stack up against the movie?

TBB NEWS: We have the news you want (LEGO Gingerbread houses at the White House! Win a Death Star!) and the news you don’t (UK LEGO prices are going up, up, up!).

EXCLUSIVE: LEGO-made gingerbread houses decorate the White House, plus an interview with the design team – TBB’s exclusive interview with the elves that built 56 unique gingerbread houses out of LEGO for the White House.
UK LEGO prices to increase 5% in January – Only one week left to stock up on LEGO in the UK before prices go up!
Shortlist announced for Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2016 – Take a look at the Top Ten LEGO Creations of the Year! Which one will win our coveted top spot?
Win the LEGO Star Wars Death Star to celebrate TBB’s 100,000th follower – Geez, guys, you are going to make us blush! Enter the contest on our Facebook page!

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Behind on sending Christmas cards? Use this LEGO Mindstorms plotter to make them for you!

There are only a few days left until Christmas, so anything that saves you time is a good thing. Thankfully, 14-year-old Sanjay Seshan and his 12-year-old brother Arvind built the Holiday Card Plott3r to help in all your Christmas card needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGDPLqzy6EA

Built and powered by LEGO Mindstorms, the plotter can churn out cards decorated with trees, snowflakes and even Santa’s signature. The creation prints the designs using a dot-matrix and even includes a second contraption that slides out an envelope ready for your beautiful, new card.

Better yet, the project files are all online to be used or improved. That is really in the Christmas spirit! Now we just need a machine that licks and applies stamps and drops the cards off at the post office.

LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, Season One now available [News]

With Rogue One dominating the news, we wanted to highlight that LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, Season One is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

For those of you unfamiliar with the popular Disney XD show, The Freemaker Adventures is about a ragtag band of rebels tracking down a mythical lightsaber while the Empire goes about building the second Death Star brick by brick. In typical LEGO humor, expect to see cameos from all around the Star Wars universe, Palpatine’s gift shop, baby wampas, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meta-references, and a George Lucas lookalike named “The Maker” who’s gone into seclusion because he’s tired of space wars.

The DVD and Blu-ray sets are both available at Amazon on sale for around $25 — a steal for five hours of quality entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: LEGO-made gingerbread houses decorate the White House, plus an interview with the design team [Feature]

Each year during the holiday season, the White House transforms into a veritable forest of glittering Christmas trees with festive decorations as far as the eye can see. But this year, the highlight of the White House holiday décor began in Enfield, Connecticut, with seven LEGO Master Builders.

They were fast at work like Santa’s elves, designing and building 56 unique gingerbread-style houses representing each U.S. state and territory. The team also created two massive gingerbread men and a first-of-its-kind 18-foot long interlocking brick-built paper chain. 500 hours and more than 200,000 pieces later, the LEGO-built decorations are on display in the White House State Dining Room.

The LEGO gingerbread houses were built “studs out” in order to reduce the weight on each tree while still maintaining detailed exteriors customized to each U.S. territory and state. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

In this exclusive interview with The Brothers Brick, Amanda Santoro, Senior Manager of Brand Relations for LEGO Systems, tells us more about building a display for the White House which has been seen by nearly 70,000 people this holiday season.

The Brothers Brick: From the Winter Village product line to advent calendars, Lego has become a holiday tradition in many homes. How did the opportunity arise to create such an impressive display for “The People’s House”?

Amanda Santoro: We were contacted by the amazing events group that works directly with the White House to develop the holiday décor theme. There were some exciting discussions about potential opportunities and ultimately, we were asked to provide the decorations for the State Dining Room.

56 LEGO-built gingerbread houses representing each U.S. territory and state adorn the trees in the White House State Dining Room, along with two massive “ginger-friends” and an interlocking brick-built paper chain. (ALEX WONG/Getty Images)

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UK LEGO prices to increase 5% in January [News]

It may be time to stock up on LEGO if you are in the UK. Due to the falling worth of the pound in the post-BREXIT world, LEGO has confirmed that all prices in the UK will increase 5% as of January 1st. While that is only a few extra coins on smaller sets, it represents an extra £20 on the Death Star, currently priced at £400.

The price hike was announced in a letter from LEGO’s UK and Ireland’s general manager and vice-president, Fiona Wright. The letter explains the increased prices are the “direct result of the continued devaluing of the UK pound,” and that prices may increase again in the “event of a further negative trend.”

For context, since the UK voted to leave the EU in June, the pound has decreased 16% against the U.S. dollar. Due to these fluctuations, many companies and manufacturers have been increasing prices across the UK, especially on imported goods.

Image created by TBB’s own Elspeth De Montes

New digital LEGO building software, BrickLink Stud.io, now available [News]

Those of you who build with digital bricks now have a new option. BrickLink launched a CAD-like digital LEGO building software earlier today called Stud.io to compete with current programs such as LEGO Digital Designer and LDraw. The software was demoed for builders at BrickCon 2016 and is now available for free on both PC and Mac computers.

We have a review of the software coming, but at first glance, there are quite a few features to get excited about.

Direct integration to BrickLink’s catalog to make finding LEGO parts easier
Color check as you build to see if a part even exits in the color you want
Continuous price estimates to see how a part affects the total estimated price of the model
Simultaneous real-time building with multiple people
CAD-like controls to allow for building in any direction (including illegal connections)
Ability to import your current projects from LDraw and LDD
Integration with BrickLink to export a digital model to a wanted list

The Stud.io software is an open beta test right now, so you can expect a few bumps and more updates to come, but we’re always excited to see a new tool for the building community.

LEGO names new CEO and creates LEGO Brand Group [News]

LEGO is shaking up their box of bricks and appointing a new toymaker in chief.

Long credited as the man who saved LEGO in 2004, CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp will be replaced by Bali Padda, LEGO’s current chief operations officer, on January 1. Padda is British and will be the first non-Dane to lead the company. He has been with LEGO 14 years, starting in Enfield, Connecticut, and has in the past mentioned his desire for greater market expansion throughout the world, focusing on Asia.

Bali Padda will become the new CEO Jan. 1

Before you think that Knudstorp is off to take a well-deserved vacation, LEGO also announced the formation of a new parent-like LEGO Brand Group that he will head, as well as being named chairman of LEGO’s board of directors. The new group’s purpose is to increase brand cohesion and efficiency across all products, not just the interlocking bricks, and to pursue further partnership opportunities beyond its theme parks, Hollywood movies, television shows and video games. The new parent group will also serve as a way for the Kristiansen clan, Denmark’s richest family and private owners of LEGO, to become more personally active in all brand efforts.

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, left, with Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, fourth generation owner of the LEGO Group.

Oddly enough, this reorganization leaves the new LEGO CEO with fewer responsibilities and more time to focus on plastic bricks and sets. It remains to be seen what kind of impact this move will have on the LEGO fan community, but 2017 is shaping up to be quite an interesting year.

Press releases after the break.

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