Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

The Republic Gunship will be one of the next Ultimate Collector Series LEGO Star Wars sets [News]

During the last week of January, LEGO Star Wars fans were busy choosing a model for one of the next Ultimate Collector Series LEGO Star Wars sets. Finally, the results of the fan vote are in, and the winner has just been announced on the LEGO Ideas blog. According to the results, the absolute winner is the Republic Gunship. The spaceship got more than 50% of the votes.

We have no idea what exactly the final product will look like. LEGO doesn’t share any details on when the set might be available, promising it will be one of the next Ultimate Collector Series LEGO Star Wars sets.

Click here to see full results!

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A History of LEGO Education, Part 3: Mindstorms over matter [Feature]

LEGO Education is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and we are exploring the history of this unique division of the LEGO Group. Part 1 presented an early history of LEGO Education, while Part 2 outlined the development of the first LEGO robotics platforms. In our 3rd and final installment, we dive into the story behind the game-changing release of LEGO Mindstorms.

Click to learn more about the historic launch of LEGO Mindstorms

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for February 1, 2020

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the last week of January 2020.

Check out our rundown of all the new LEGO sets arriving this month. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS AND INSTRUCTIONS: This week we celebrated the 62nd Annual International LEGO Day, learned how to make our own mini pool table and piano, saw the announcement of some mysterious new Fast & Furious LEGO sets and explored our arts and crafts side with the announcement of LEGO Dots!

LEGO Dots revealed: New arts and crafts theme puts emoji tiles front and center – LEGO Dots have arrived with new tile-based crafting decoration kits and emoji booster packs.
Happy 62nd International LEGO Day from The Brothers Brick – Sixty-two years ago today, a patent application was submitted that changed our lives. Happy 62nd anniversary, LEGO!
LEGO announces new Fast & Furious license coming to Technic – LEGO announces that they’ll be producing sets based on the Fast & Furious movie franchise.
The next LEGO Technic premium set is a 1:8 Lamborghini supercar – Make sure you have a spare shelf for the next massive LEGO Technic set, a 1:8 Lamborghini supercar.
Your guide to the 12 new LEGO sets for February 2020, including BrickHeadz, Creator Expert, LEGO Ideas and more – We have your guide to all the new LEGO sets available now, including the International Space Station!
Tinkle the tiny ivories with this teeny piano [Instructions] – Build this cute upright piano along with Tiago Catarino.
Build your own minifig-scale LEGO pool table [Instructions] – Round out your LEGO lounge with this pool table and couch instructions by Tiago Catarino.

OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

Celebrate International LEGO Day with these record breaking structures Guinness World Records – We’re showing you some of the magnificent and over-the-top structures that have made it into the record books using tiny plastic bricks.
Chronicle Builds a List for Adult Fans of Lego, Publishers Weekly – Chronicle Books has secured the rights from the LEGO Group to release licensed books and stationery for adult fans of Lego
LEGO Rainbow Unicorn Sculpture Awes on Santa Monica Boulevard, WeHo Times – The sculpture is a promotion for the new Fox reality competition series LEGO MASTERS.
The LEGO Group wins final decisions in major intellectual property lawsuits against Lepin manufacturer in China, LEGO – The LEGO Group announced that it has received favorable final decisions against defendants of multiple intellectual property infringement cases in China.
How to Take Your LEGO Building to New Heights, According to Real-Life LEGO Masters, SyFy – How do you become a real-life LEGO Master? Skill. Practice. Failure. Obsession. Any questions?

Keep your LEGO city clean with 60249 Street Sweeper [Review]

Year after year, the LEGO city keeps expanding with plenty of houses, modular buildings, vehicles and, of course, fire & police stations. All that development is bound to attract legions of minifigures — it’s only a matter of days before the plastic trash begins to pile up. To keep up with this issue, LEGO has released several garbage trucks over the years, but what happens when baseplate streets become filthy? You need a good street sweeper, but the last street sweeper to appear in LEGO City was carted around by a minifig 12 years ago. That’s a long time for discarded 1×1 plates to accumulate alongside the curb. The wait is over because LEGO is back to keep the brick-built highways clean with set 60249 Street Sweeper. The set consists of 89 pieces and is available now via the online LEGO shop for $9.99 USD | $13.99 CAD | £8.99 GBP

Does the LEGO Street Sweeper clean up well? Find out in our in-depth review!

Your guide to the 12 new LEGO sets for February 2020, including BrickHeadz, Creator Expert, LEGO Ideas and more [News]

A new month means new LEGO sets are now available, so here is your TBB New LEGO Set Guide for February 2020. There are 12 new items available (much less than the 153 sets from January!) including the Ideas International Space Station, Disney BrickHeadz, general availability for the Creator Expert Manchester United Stadium, and a few more.

Additionally, you can get the Hidden Side 40408 Drag Racer as a free gift with purchase with orders of US $45 | CAN $45 | UK £45 or more through Feb. 9th while supplies last.

See the entire February 2020 wave of new LEGO sets now available

A History of LEGO Education, Part 2: Path to Mindstorms [Feature]

LEGO Education is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary! As a birthday gift, we are commemorating the occasion with a three-part history feature on this special division of the LEGO Group. Part 1 provided an overview of the history of LEGO education from the 1980s through 1990s, but we left out an important component of the story. Part 2 picks up where we left off, covering the beginnings of LEGO’s programmable robots in the classroom and at home. These were the precursors of LEGO Mindstorms!

Learn more about the prestigious lineage of LEGO robotics platforms released before LEGO Mindstorms

LEGO announces new Fast & Furious license coming to Technic [News]

Today, LEGO announced a new licensing partnership with Universal Studios to create sets based on the mega-hit Fast & Furious franchise. With more than $6-billion in box-office revenue from the franchise already, Fast & Furious 9 is slated to hit theaters May 22. LEGO plans to release a tie-in set a month earlier on April 27, which will be a Technic kit with an age rating of 10+. LEGO has yet to confirm any further details about the set.

Jill Wilfert, Vice President of Inbound & Entertainment Licensing at the LEGO Group, had this to say about the partnership: “The LEGO Technic brand with its authenticity and attention to detail and the action packed Fast & Furious franchise are a great match. Both franchises are known for creativity and cool cars so we are really excited to work with Universal on this awesome product that both LEGO Technic and Fast & Furious fans are going to love to build!”

Happy 62nd International LEGO Day from The Brothers Brick [News]

Sixty-two years ago today on January 28, 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent application for a toy building brick which was approved six months later. That patent for his “highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system” has since led to LEGO becoming one of the largest toy companies on the globe.

The original Danish patent not only covered a single brick but an entire building system where multiple interlocking plastic building elements “could be put together in a great number of mutually different positions” including several early brick designs pictured below, courtesy of LEGO.

So let’s celebrate our love of LEGO today by building a new set or seeing what LEGO was doing the decade we were born. Sort those parts you’ve needed to, create something new from scratch, or re-build that one LEGO set you loved as a kid. Play well, everyone.

Want to know more about the history of LEGO and the fan community? Check out The Brothers Brick LEGO History timeline.

LEGO Dots revealed: New arts and crafts theme puts emoji tiles front and center [News]

LEGO has officially revealed its long-rumored new product line, LEGO Dots. The initial wave of the 2D tile-based arts and crafts theme features bracelets, picture holders, a jewelry stand, a pencil pot, and the first in a series of “Extra Dots” emoji booster packs. Prices vary from US $3.99 to 19.99 with availability beginning on March 1st.

The spiritual successor to LEGO’s previous Clikits play-jewelry product line, the Dots theme centers on colorful 1×1 tiles (square, round, quarter-circle and new gem tiles) with bright colors and expressive prints including emojis, rainbows, glitter, animals, space, music, and more. (Keen-eyed readers will also note that several of the tiles have appeared previously in 21045 Trafalgar Square’s hidden art gallery.)

Take a closer look at the new LEGO Dots product line

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for January 25, 2020

We launch into space with a review of the Ideas International Space Station set. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS: This week we saw the announcement of the LEGO Ideas International Space Station, took a look back at our most popular set reviews of 2019 and got some new interviews with the folks behind the upcoming LEGO Masters TV show on FOX.

- Top 10 most popular LEGO set reviews of 2019 on the Brothers Brick – Curious to know what were the most popular reviews on The Brothers Brick in 2019? Maybe one of your favourites made the top 10? Find out in our rundown of 2019’s most popular reviews.
- LEGO Ideas officially reveals 864-piece 21321 International Space Station – LEGO has just announced the final design of the fan-voted 21321 IDEAS International Space Station.
- LEGO wants you to choose one of the next Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series sets – Through January 30, you can submit your vote supporting one of three Star Wars spaceships. The winner will be turned into one of the next LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series sets.
- LEGO Ideas feels right at home in orbit with 21321 International Space Station – Less than a year after its announcement, LEGO is revealing the final version of this set today, and we’ve got our hands on a copy to bring you a full review.
- LEGO Creator Expert 10272 Old Trafford-Manchester United [Review] – Soccer fans (or football fans as they’re called everywhere else) will get a kick out of the newest Creator Expert set.
- Hands-on with LEGO BrickHeadz 40377 Donald Duck & 40378 Pluto & Goofy – What do we think of the latest Disney character additions to the LEGO BrickHeadz line-up?

TBB INSTRUCTIONS AND INTERVIEWS:

Building LEGO Masters: Exclusive interview with Brick Artist Nathan Sawaya – The Brothers Brick visited the LEGO Masters set and spoke with “brick artist in residence” Nathan Sawaya about building all the props for the show on such short deadlines.
Visiting LEGO Masters: Behind the scenes tour with Challenge Master Brent Benedetti – Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of LEGO Masters and see how the show organized 3.3 million LEGO bricks. Will you be watching?
Make your own adventures with the Razor Crest from The Mandalorian [Instructions] – Razor Crest is The Mandalorian’s mode of transport and adventures with The Child. Isn’t it time you built your very own with these instructions from @Hachiroku92?
Build your own Stadium Truck Alternate Model [Instructions] – Do you have the official Land Rover Defender Technic set and about two hours of spare time? Then you can build this Stadium Truck alternate model. The Land Rover’s LEGO Designer Milan Reindl will show you how!

OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

Alexa-powered Lego challenge winners include a game system and waffle iron, SyFy – Amazon and Lego have unveiled the winners of their Alexa-focused Mindstorms challenge, and they’re as clever and oddball as you’d hope.
Lego’s new studio wants to make ‘more poetic, artistic games’, The Verge – The small team at Light Brick is exploring the possibilities of play.
Toy Fair 2020: LEGO will “continue to evolve the construction toys category” with new launches this year, Toy News – Following what it has billed as a successful 2019, The LEGO Group is launching a new series of play innovations for the year ahead, as it looks to ‘continue to evolve the construction toys category.’

Visiting LEGO Masters: Behind the scenes tour with Challenge Master Brent Benedetti [News]

LEGO Masters arrives in the US in less than two weeks, and anticipation for the brick-building reality TV show is reaching a peak in the LEGO fan community. The Brothers Brick was invited to visit the LEGO Masters set when they were filming last month, and we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the studio.

Our day visiting LEGO Masters started early in the morning. Megan from Brickset and I headed to a non-descript studio located in a light-industrial area near Burbank, CA (apparently next to the building used for the exterior shots for the US television series The Office, we were told). Arriving at the studio by car, we provided our names to the security guard and were allowed onto the lot. The production staff excitedly greeted us and ushered us inside. After passing through a reception area, we stepped onto the massive set.

Click to read about and see photos of the LEGO Masters set

LEGO Ideas officially reveals 864-piece 21321 International Space Station [News]

LEGO has just announced the final design of the fan-voted 21321 IDEAS International Space Station. Catered for adult LEGO fans as a display piece with authentic ISS details including rotating joints and adjustable solar panels, the main build is accompanied by a buildable mini NASA space shuttle and cargo spacecraft. The 864-piece set will be available in LEGO stores and online on February 1st, 2020 retailing at US $69.99 | CAN $99.99 | UK £64.99. We’ve already got our hands on an early copy, so be sure to check out our review: 21321 LEGO Ideas International Space Station Review.

Click to see more images and the full details of the International Space Station