Tag Archives: Contests

Contests and build challenges are often a great way to get creative juices flowing. Check out our coverage of new contests here, and congratulate the winners of contests that have finished.

Announcing the Speeder Bike Contest ’16 [News]

It’s shaping up to be a busy month for contests this February with TBB’s Space Chefs, LUGNuts 100th challenge, and of course the annual FebROVERary challenge. And now there’s one more addition to the collective building pot:

It’s been four years since the last Speeder Bike Contest, which I remember well …mainly because I didn’t have time to take part, and was going to do the next one. It took 4 years, but Cole Blaq and _zenn are back, and I’m not missing my chance this time.

The three builds pictured above are the actual prizes for this contest (plus polybags). The first prize winner gets Cole Blaq’s amazing custom chromed speeder, shown below. Check out the Speeder Bike Group for full details. And since it is competing with so many other contests, the organizers have extended the deadline an extra day, to February 29th.

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Clickety–clack, clickety-clack... Choo Choo!

Current Iron Builder competitor Tim Schwalfenberg is chugging through the competition, having already completed seven builds. His most recent creation is this delightful microscale train scene. That pin connector looks great as a tank car. But I wonder what that tiny village needs two full tanks of. Gasoline? Milk? Mountain Dew Code Red? Tim’s packed a lot of detail into this small build — my favorites, other than the train itself, include the railroad crossing sign and that glorious gorge-spanning bridge.

A wheely big planetary rover

It’s time to leave January and its Droneuary shenanigans behind and move onto the fun of FebROVERy. First out of the garage is Jonas‘ (aka Legopard) Planetary Rover – a tricycle on steroids. Not only does this rover fit the monthly build challenge, but it transpires that Jonas is also taking part in Iron Builder 4.0 – Round 8 against Tim Schwalfenberg.

The wheels on this rover are great but the inside of the tires are really special thanks to the transparent red grilles. The seed part is the Technic metallic pin connector, and it forms the unusual wheel attachment in this particular entry. I also love the comfy looking leather covered driving seat in the cockpit, who doesn’t want 360° vision when out exploring?

Jonas has been featured regularly on TBB, in 2016 thus far we have bogged his Flying Erwin, Tree House and Morgan 3-wheeler.

LUGNuts 100th challenge

For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the last eight years, LUGNuts is the Flickr group for LEGO car enthusiasts, founded by Lino Martins and Nathan Proudlove, with Tim Inman, the impossibly prolific Peter Blackert and yours truly serving as moderators. Ever since it was founded, the group has organised a monthly build challenge centred on a particular type of car or car-related sub culture. Normally these challenges are just for the fun of it and they’ve inspired many cars blogged here on TBB. This month is extra special, however, because it’s the 100th challenge!

To mark this occasion we’ve turned the challenge into a competition, with whoppers of prizes. The third place winner gets the Technic 42050 Drag Racer, second place gets the Technic 42039 24 Hours LeMans Race Car and for the first place winner, we pull out all the stops with the Technic 42030 Remote-Controlled Volvo L350F Wheel Loader. These prizes are sponsored by The Brothers Brick, one of the biggest Bricklink stores in the US, Constructibles, and the LUGNuts Admins and moderators. Furthermore, the three winners will also receive autographed editions of The Art of LEGO Scale Modeling, courtesy of Dennis Glaasker, Dennis Bosman, and No Starch Press. Thanks to Dennis Glaasker and his equally creative daughter Stacey for making the poster.

To compete, join the discussion, pick a number, get assigned one of the individual challenges from our top-secret list of wacky cool cars and start building.

Announcing the Brothers Brick contest: SPACE CHEFS

This February, we’re turning up the heat with a culinary clash of cosmic proportions. Here come the Space Chefs! You have one month to cook up an amazing Space Chefs creation. Whip up something crazy! Show the universe you won’t be beaten!

There are PRIZES, including LEGO sets, and a copy of the quite fantastic LEGO Space: Building The Future book, kindly donated by the authors Pete Reid and Tim Goddard. Head over to the Space Chefs group on Flickr and check out the categories, rules and prize details.

Droneuary highlights

~~January~~ Droneuary is almost over and that means the special building month for all things drone is almost over too. There have been a myriad of stellar creations in this year’s challenge, but here are a few of my favorites:

The first is Olympus Mons from TBB’s own Simon Liu.

I just love the dramatic monochromatic feel this build exudes. It’s also interesting to note the religious undercurrent that Droneuary is known for. In this case the scene features Zeus instead of the usual “Dronezus”.

Next we have Markus Rollbühler and his trio of uniquely-colored Drones.

There’s nothing like some rare and hard-to-find colors to get out of the comfort zone, but Markus makes it look surprisingly easy to build in dark turquoise, light aqua and bright light orange.

Finally we have the perennial Tyler Clites and his U.N. vs. Spetsnaz Drones.

The cold war didn’t end. Or did it? Tyler utilizes his mastery of character and figure posing here to full effect. You can almost feel the mist as the Russian drone sneaks up on his target.

LEGO Brickstory 2016 contest now open [News]

Croatian LEGO fansite Kockice.hr has announced their annual Brickstory contest, and they’re throwing it open to everyone. The four themes this year are Greatest Inventions, Ancient Civilizations, The History of Art, and One Moment in Time. Those are pretty broad categories, and they’re looking for a lot of different interpretations. There are also some nice prizes on the line, with 9 total winners.

Slayn & Korpil A/SF-02 B-wing assault starfighter

Our friends over at FBTB are hosting a “Star Wars Evolved” contest inspired by the upgraded T-70 X-wings in The Force Awakens. The premise of the contest asks the question, “What would other Star Wars vehicles look like 30 years later?” xiei22 answers the question for the B-wing with this chunky blue and white beauty.

I’m a sucker for schematics, so here’s a nice graphic explaining the enhancements. The original B-wing packed the punch of a capital ship, so the extra guns and rotating turrets are a particularly lethal upgrade.

(The builder doesn’t specify the model number for his B-wing, but I’ve taken the liberty of incrementing it, just like the Incom T-65 X-wing became the T-70.)

Si-BORED Industries new drone creates a BUZZ of excitement

Now the festivities are over, the presents opened, and the New Year welcomed in, we can turn our focus to Droneuary. During the month of ~~January~~ Droneuary, there is a definite surge in the production of new drones within the LEGO community. These Wichtigtuer Beinenstick (lit. “busy-body beehive”) drones by our very own Simon Liu are busy with a hive task.

Simon’s winged, honey-logistic drones were developed in response to comments on the original Wichtigtuer drone, which launched a couple of days ago. The original pectacular drones came armed with an ingenious brick-built weapon, complete with ironsight. Clearly the winged drone had to drop some lower body weight to achieve the miracle of flight.

TBB’s Pimp Rey’s Speeder contest winners [News]

With only DAYS to go until the new Star Wars movie opens in theaters (got your ticket yet? I have mine!), Rey is ready for opening night and can arrive in style with her fancy pimped out speeder thanks to all you builders.

With over 210 entries, I think Pimp Rey’s Speeder might be the most successful contest in my memory at The Brothers Brick. And while we could only choose three, there were some really amazing entries. I encourage everyone to grab a snack and look through all the wonderful entries. There were many many clever, funny, and just well-executed entries, but only one speeder can be crowned the winner of TBB’s Pimp Rey’s Speeder contest, as chosen by TBB contributors.

In first place is Jonas (Legopard) and his Rey’s Transformer:

Which of course, actually transforms:

Jonas wins:

Fan Expo – Mini Tatooine Set

Millennium Falcon 75105

Rey’s Speeder 75099

Click to see all of the contest winners!

I love the voodoo that you do

Iron Builder contestant Jimmy Fortel continues to make clever use of the contest’s minifig sword seed part, this time in a desparate attempt to cripple his Kiwi opponent through supernatural means! Although I doubt his chances, as folks in New Zealand have a certain tolerance for needles.

TBB cover photo: December 2015

The highly anticipated new Star Wars movie opens in just two weeks – as if anyone actually needs reminding of that any more. So what better excuse to whip you all into a frenzy, dear readers, than by having a Star Wars themed TBB cover photo all month! And this previously featured AT-AT habitat by markus19840420 seemed like the perfect choice:

Wanna have your creation used as a TBB cover photo? Then submit it today! And you can keep up with the Brothers Brick by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter. And for occasional extra goodies, you can also follow us on Flickr or subscribe to us on YouTube.

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