The 2011 MocAthalon is here! It is an annual competition held on MOCpages where teams of 5 builders make creations from 30 categories. Last year’s MocAthalon brought out 450 entries from 18 teams, which is no small feat. Check out this article by Keith Goldman that nicely recaps the spirit of this contest. Here are the rules and info on how to get involved.
Warning! This post is not about LEGO bricks but about the community on flickr. If you have no interest in the flickr LEGO community then please just ignore it.
I went to visit one of my LEGO flickr groups the other day (Jan 29) only to find the above message. I’d got through a couple of minutes of before so I was a little bit suspicious. Inspection of my group list showed that LEGO 16+ had vanished from there too. Apparently it had spontaneously disappeared.
As the creator and an administrator of the group I was first in line to hear about it if something had gone wrong. I’d heard nothing. Over the following six days I’ve pieced together what happened. In LEGO 16+ we had a thread for leaks. All discussion in the group was only available to members of the list and one of those members had reported this thread to TLG. They had taken their usual action (lawyerly email) to flickr and Yahoo! (who are directly responsible for these issues) had decided to simply delete the entire group. Not the thread, not the links but the entire group.
I’ll note that I didn’t hear this from flickr but had to piece it together myself (with help). Immediately upon discovering the issue I contacted flickr about it. They finally got back to me today (six days later) with the following:
Hello gambort,
Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.
In joining Flickr, our members agree to abide by the Yahoo!
Terms of Service and the Flickr Community Guidelines:http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
http://www.flickr.com/terms.gneYour group was brought to our attention through Report
Abuse. Upon review, we determined that your content and/or
behavior was in violation and your account was terminated.Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to reply to this email.Regards,
Flickr staff
which is extremely helpful. Having heard various horror stories about Yahoo!’s attitude to its users I’d already anticipated this response and was, sadly, not surprised. Incidentally the guidelines basically says that if Yahoo! don’t like what you do they can do what they like. This is standard but most sites choose to explain things.
So what has this got to do with you?
Well firstly if you were interested in what went on in LEGO 16+ you might want to know what happened to it. It’s gone but we’ve moved to AFOL 16+. NB. you must be 16 or over to join this group and it does contain bad language, bad taste and other things some people don’t like.
Secondly, if you run or actively participate in a flickr group you should be very wary of this. If you allow or actively encourage leaks there is a chance the entire group could be deleted. It’s totally unreasonable but Yahoo! have a reputation for behaving in just this way. You might also want to be careful reporting people.
Consider it a lesson learnt the hard way by me so you don’t have to. Yahoo! do not care about you, your group, or anything you have done. Make sure you have a backup in place for any vital discussion and try to back up your flickr photostream.
EDIT: I realise my original post doesn’t make my issue entirely clear here. The loss of LEGO 16+ was a minor irritation as it wasn’t really a resource so much as a discussion forum. It had been replaced by a functional equivalent within hours. The loss of some of my other groups (eg. LEGO Techniques) would be far more tragic and I’ll be making sure it’s unlikely (certainty is impossible given Yahoo!s arbitrariness) to keep it off the radar. I recommend others do the same. Yahoo! do not care.
UPDATE (April 18, 2011): LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean sets are out now.
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After numerous leaks across the internet, pictures of upcoming LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean sets are officially revealed on MTV. There are photos of 8 sets including Queen Anne’s Revenge, Aqua de Vida, Cannibal Escape, Captain’s Cabin, Isla de Muerta, London Escape, The Mill, and Whitecap Bay. Be sure to check them out by clicking through the gallery.
Meanwhile, a short trailer for the related video game is also out.
Via FBTB
As I mentioned in my last post I spent last weekend (14th to 16th) enjoying myself at Brickvention 2011. This year is was significantly larger than last year with 140 AFOLs attended and 8000 people through the door on public day. In order to deal with an increasing number of attendees (last year there were 3000 through the door) the event had moved to a bigger venue but with a three-fold increase in attendance it simply wasn’t enough. Sadly many people had to wait two hours to get in and some were turned away at the end of the day. The event seems to be approaching the size of some of the smaller European and US fests.
But I suspect our readers aren’t too interested in statistics compared to pictures. After giving attendees a weekend to get their pictures up there are now a bunch of photos up on flickr (check the BV pool and BV 2011 pool or appropriate tags).
My absolute favourites were the steampunk ship Hyperion (top) by Darren Reid and the Sydney club’s Western display (bottom). Much to my chagrin I spent most of the public days building and didn’t get to see many of the smaller models but I did get a quick moment to wander around and check out the bigger models so can also recommend Ross Crawford‘s crane (right), Kevin Hall‘s Drachenberg castle, Ryan McNaught‘s The Love Boat (left) and Hogwart’s school (left) by David Scalone. But there was numerous other great models around the place.
I certainly look forward to Brickvention 2012 whenever and wherever it may be. If you’re in the region this event just gets bigger and better each year so do come along. And many, many, many thanks to the organisers. They put in a lot of effort and ran a very tight ship.
David Cook has posted timelapse photos of the start of public day
Registration is now open for Brickworld 2011! As usual, Brickworld will take place in the third weekend of June in Chicago. It is a four and a half day event featuring a private convention and public expo at the Westin Chicago North Shore. Because of the continuous swelling of participants and visitors each year, Brickworld will now start on Wednesday night, making it one of the most-attended and longest and Lego conventions all around.
The metaphor I use to describe Brickworld is a powerhouse. It’s a very dynamic convention with so much to take in at once. With four display rooms, seeing all the creations in detail is between difficult and impossible. Likewise, we’re closing in on 1,000 registered attendees, so there’s always many new people to meet and old friends to catch up with if you’re returning. Meanwhile, don’t forget that you still have until the end of January to design this year’s event kit.
Fans of the southern states rejoice: a new LEGO convention presented by TexLUG called Brick Fiesta is taking place in Texas this summer. This is a standard 4-day AFOL convention with a weekend public expo. Registration is now open and you can check out the details on the Brick Fiesta website.
Home of LEGO Star Wars Days for the last several years, it’s only natural that LEGOLAND California should get a section of Miniland dedicated to Star Wars. That’s finally happening this March, as announced this morning. From Bricks to Bothans was there today covering the press event, and has all the details and photos, including the ever-awesome Mr. Gary McIntire (with Miniland tauntaun and Han Solo).
Read the full coverage and press release on FBTB.
From the “Wait, what?” department, LEGO has just re-released the 2004 set 10152 Maersk Sealand Container Ship as the 2011 set 10155 Maersk Container Ship.
The new version has two more pieces and the sticker/decal says “Maersk Line” instead of “Maersk Sealand,” but the set appears to be otherwise identical. 10155 Maersk Container Ship costs $120 (compare to the original at $75 seven years ago) and is available from the LEGO Shop online now.
For LEGO fans in and around Hong Kong Brick Adventure 2011 is coming very soon to City University. See below for the press release and thanks to John Ho (IcedPlusCoffee) for sending it to me.
Bricks Adventure 2011 is coming to Town
LEGO have been bringing people in the city up with fun and creativity in constructing their own characters, houses, castles, and even city. Bricks Adventure is a city-wide bricks showcase of the year, presented by the War & Adventure Games Society of City University of Hong Kong (CityU), jointly organized by Legend Bricks. Bricks Adventure now comes to its second annual exhibition and will bring you to a miniature of virtual and reality world, showing the varieties of bricks and great imagination of creators.
The main theme of this year Bricks Adventure is “CITY”, different Japanese-style architecture will all come into view. Beside, theme such as “PIRATE” is the first show in the Hong Kong. All minifigures of pirates are in proportion.
Date: 12th – 21st January 2011
Time: 10:30am – 8:30pm (Opening: 12th January 2011, Time: 11am to 5:30pm)
Venue: Multi-Purpose-Room A&B,
4/F, Amenities Building,
City University of Hong Kong,
Kowloon Tong, Hong KongWe think, we build and we share. Bricks Adventure is sharing thoughts and ideas while exchanging more of them through tours and other interactions. Educational and group tours guided by creators of Bricks Adventure 2011 will give you a glance of LEGO creation. Reservation needs to be made on a first-come-first-serve basis. Groups from kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, institutions, organizations are all welcomed to register for guided tours.
Bricks Adventure 2011 and guided tours are free to all. We look forward to seeing you in Bricks Adventure 2011.
For more details, please visit Bricks Adventure 2011 official website, Flickr Page or Facebook Page.
For enquires and reservation, please contact: (852)61082889 (Elaine Yim), (852)60191189 (John Ho)
Email: elaine@legendbricks.com
Creations for Charity took place in the past two months where LEGO fans sold their creations to raise money to donate LEGO to children in need. Here are a few words on the organization and the results of this year’s fundraiser.
The beginning
Creations for Charity began with the idea of giving LEGO to underprivileged children for the holidays. It started with a proposal by Don Wilson to keep a record of LEGO donations made by a group of fans. This inspired me to create a fundraiser where fans use their talent with LEGO to raise money. Although it seemed ridiculous to ask people to give up their personal creations, we got an overwhelming response and raised over $2,000 in 2009. We used the money to purchase and donate almost $3,000 worth of LEGO.
One year later
Drawing on previous experiences, I aimed to raise $3,000 this year. To my amazement, we reached this goal in record time with still a month left before the deadline. We progressed at an average of $1,500 a week from late October to early December, ending on $9,035. We not only surpassed last year’s record, we more than quadrupled it. After buying more than $14,500 worth of LEGO, we still had money left for a $723 check to top off our donation to Toys for Tots.
Good will is contagious
We had the good fortune of having over 60 contributors donate over 150 creations ranging from large-scale creations to custom minifigures. Our highest contributor racked up over $900 through sales of his custom minifigs, and several others donated creations that brought in over $500. People helped in other ways such as by spreading the word about our event. We benefited from mentions by some prominent non-LEGO sites such as Slashgear, Gizmodo, and even Toys for Tots. Others like Sean Kenney invested his time in assembling 60 keychain gifts; Ansgar from Chromebricks donated the gold-plated bricks that adorned them; and Linus Bohman designed an effective splash page for the fundraiser. The Brothers Brick chipped in a lot of money cover the cost of the raffle prizes and the expensive keychains. We even had three builders who donated their contest prizes to the cause. We’re really grateful to have the help of many in making this event successful. You can see all our participants and records here.
Why we do it
Creations for Charity costs both time and money for its participants, so why are we doing it? Consider this: the builders feel good about raising money through their talents, the buyers can own an original creation while helping charity, and the kids receive tons of LEGO. While I can’t speak for everyone, for many of us it’s all too good to pass up.
The big donation
On the day of our donation drop-off, I drove a truckload of LEGO across the metroplex to the Dallas / Fort Worth Toys for Tots distribution warehouse. The marines and volunteers were at work processing toys like Santa’s elves. They wasted no time hauling in the 567 LEGO sets. I stood and watched as half a dozen marines lifted boxes and bags out of the truck. Before I knew it I was already on the highway going home, and that’s when it dawned on me that thousands of dollars worth of LEGO and the fruits of many people’s work had passed out of my hands in just minutes. (Indeed it’s hard for a LEGO fan to give up so much of what he loves). But at the same time, I thought about the countless hours of joy that we will have given the children, and that made everything worth it.
The future
We envision Creations for Charity to continue and grow as an annual event. Starting next year there will be a team of coordinators running the fundraiser. With more help, we plan to expand the distribution of our LEGO donations to cover more cities in the US and possibly other parts of the world. Our contributors reside in a dozen countries, and we want our future donations to reflect that diversity. Next year we look forward to welcoming more participants and to make Creations for Charity a tradition for many LEGO fans.
Last words
Thank you for making Creations for Charity an inspiring success. It reflects the generosity of LEGO fans and spreads our hobby among both children and adults. By now many people will have our creations on display in their homes, and many more children will have a cool LEGO set this Christmas. Happy holidays and we hope you’ll join us for Creations for Charity in 2011!
Brickworld is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2011, and this year you have the opportunity to design the convention’s event kit. This is a rare chance to have hundreds of people own a creation designed by you, and you don’t even have to be an attendee to submit a design. Check out more details on the Brickworld website.
Though this is for US & Canada only at the moment, nearly all of the first quarter 2011 LEGO sets are now available from the LEGO Shop online. As if that’s not enough of a temptation, you can still order in time for Christmas.
We here at The Brothers Brick are irrationally excited about what looks to be the silliest — and most awesome — of the 2011 themes. Fraukinder and mannkinder, I give you NinjaGo!
The premise appears to be that several brightly colored ninjas take on an army of undead in single combat using a technique called “spinjutsu”.
Seriously, how awesome is that? And don’t miss the ear-worm that is the NinjaGo theme song.
The 2011 LEGO City police sets feature a new dog, backpack, and crowbar.
And of course, the 2011 LEGO Star Wars sets are also now available — not least of which the ever-popular battle packs.
Though I have yet to see a single episode of The Clone Wars, I’m intrigued by this non-gray Bounty Hunter Assault Gunship:
Finally, 10217 Diagon Alley will be shipping on January 1st, and is currently available for pre-order:
