Tag Archives: Science

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 30, 2017 [News]

We’ve featured some pretty big news here at The Brothers Brick this week, along with our usual fare of LEGO models, reviews, and more. In case you’ve missed any of it, here’s your weekly Brick Report for the last week of May 2017.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: LEGO news this week was dominated by back-to-back announcements of two upcoming LEGO sets.

LEGO unveils largest Ideas set yet: 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V [News] – One of the most popular set announcements ever featured here on TBB, this upcoming LEGO set will include 1,969 pieces, retail for $119.99, and hit store shelves on June 1st.
New LEGO Creator Expert set 10257 Carousel announced [News] – Somewhat overshadowed by the Saturn V reveal a day later, this set will be available on June 1st as well, with $199.99 for 2,670 pieces.
LEGO Star Wars Rebels 75170 The Phantom II + TBB chats with Thrawn author Timothy Zahn [Review] – TBB talked to Grand Admiral Thrawn creator Timothy Zahn and got his first impressions of the new minifigure.
BrickCon 2017 registration is now open [News] – Registration for TBB’s “home convention” is now open. Join us the first weekend in October here in Seattle for a friendly, casual party with 500 of our closest friends.
Build your own LEGO Citroën DS and then drive your minifig self through the Vézère Valley [Instructions] – Drive around the French countryside in this adorable early 1970’s Citroën DS you can build with bricks in your own collection.
Make your own LEGO magic folding cube with just a few pieces [Instructions] – Are you one of those people who thinks best when they’re fidgeting or fiddling with something in their hands? Then follow these instructions to make your own little folding cube.

OTHER LEGO NEWS: The new Saturn V set is a hard act to follow, and the rest of the web was buzzing with that news this week as well. We’re also starting to see rumors and leaks of summer LEGO sets for products that weren’t unveiled at Toy Fair in February, but we’ll hold off covering those until we have more reliable, higher-quality information — our readers rely on us for trustworthy LEGO news, and we’ll bring that to you as soon as we have it.

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 2, 2017 [News]

The Brothers Brick gives you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our Weekly Brick Report for the first week of April 2017.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: This week we have news about two things to look forward to and one thing to get your calculator out for.

First look at the LEGO Ideas Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket coming in June – Here is the first look at the Saturn V LEGO Ideas set in all it’s black and white glory.
The LEGO Movie’s Unikitty is getting her own TV show on Cartoon Network – Will Unikitty get her own TV show on Cartoon Network? Only time will tell.
First set from the new Wonder Woman movie revealed – Generally spoiler free, this set reveals big bad guy Ares and the cool new Wonder Woman minifig.
LEGO is a worse investment than gold – Read our investigative report on the true value of LEGO vs. gold, based on super scientific, really really serious facts and stuff.

TBB INTERVIEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: You can build your own scientist or smash a MOC. It is your choice. Click a story below to choose your own adventure.

Instructions to build LEGO Stephen Hawking – TBB’s own Iain Heath shares how he made the famous Stephen Hawking LEGO model which helped launch him into the stratosphere.
A conversation with Canadian Iron Builder, Tim Schwalfenberg – Could you smash one of your beloved LEGO creations? Because Tim does! Find out why.

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

A working LEGO Red Keep from Game of Thrones‘ Opening, Gizmodo – Claus-Marc Hahn might be a bigger fan the opening credits to Game of Thrones than the show itself!
Flybrix Review: This LEGO drone makes failure fantastically fun, Popular Mechanics – How long can your LEGO drone maintain flight? Popular Mechanics runs the tests.
Sports anchor gets creative and uses Lego bricks to show NCAA highlights, USA Today – What do you do when your news station doesn’t have rights to air March Madness highlights? Recreate them in LEGO, of course!

LEGO is a worse investment than gold [News]

Contrary to popular belief, LEGO bricks are not a better investment than gold, based on findings from a new study we’ve conducted. The study analyzed each substance without bias to test the popular notion that the world’s best-selling toy is a better investment plan than stocks, bonds or precious metals.

Gold imitation bricks, available from Amazon.

Continue reading →

The Standard Model [Instructions]

As promised last week, in celebration of the venerable LEGO Stephen Hawking’s 10th birthday here are complete instructions for constructing your very own miniature cosmologist. Click here for embiggened version. Black hole not included.

Massive LEGO McWane Science Center

Residents of Birmingham, Alabama will surely recognize this creation by Wesley Higgins. It’s the McWane Science Center, a real-life building in Birmingham that’s been transformed into a place where minifig families can spend an afternoon learning about science.

The focal point of this LEGO creation is the Science Center’s iconic mosaic-like rotunda. But Wesley’s version includes the entire building including furnished interiors and even a parking garage. Wesley says it took 12 months to complete the LEGO McWane Science Center and he spent a lot of time working on it while simultaneously watching television with his family.

If you happen to be in the Birmingham area, you can see Wesley’s creation in real life! It’s currently on display at the McWane Science Center and there’s even a contest to guess the total number of bricks in the creation. Pretty neat, right?

Women of NASA is the next LEGO Ideas model [News]

Announced today, the Women of NASA project by Maia Weinstock is the next set in the Ideas line. This project was selected from a group of 11 other ideas that had gathered 10,000 supporters between the months of May and September 2016. Pricing and availability for the Women of NASA set are not yet available.

Build your own Antarctic LC-130 Hercules designed by Ralph Savelsberg with a kit from Brickmania [News]

Did you see the LEGO LC-130 Hercules we sent to Antartica at the end of last year? Did you want your own rocket-powered ski-plane? Over the last couple of months, TBB’s own Ralph Savelsberg worked with Dan Siskind and his team at Brickmania to turn Ralph’s model of this iconic aircraft into a custom LEGO kit you can buy.

Ralph is awesome, Brickmania is awesome, science is awesome, airplanes are awesome — we couldn’t be happier that one of our team’s designs is being turned into a Brickmania kit!

Learn more about this unique LEGO kit

Dutch students present prototype satellite design built from LEGO to the European Space Agency

Students at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, including LEGO builder Rinse, had an opportunity to present a prototype satellite design to the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. With a LEGO builder among them, the student team used bricks as their design medium for constructing their 3D prototype. The LEGO model has a hexagonal shape, and the solar arrays don’t require any additional support to remain extended horizontally.

I once built an 11th century Romanesque castle from LEGO for a university humanities course. How have you used LEGO in your own higher education?

The explosion heard ’round the world

The volcanic eruption in 1883 that destroyed most of the island of Krakatoa was so violent that instruments recorded the blast wave traveling around and around the world several times. Scientists estimate that anybody within 10 miles would have been deafened immediately. Emil Lidé captures this catastrophic natural disaster in LEGO with a beautiful microscale diorama. A bright blue sea and tropical jungle encircle the doomed peak, while flames erupt from the top of the mountain.

Emil demonstrated his mastery of miniature LEGO landscaping with the LEGO tree instructions we featured a few months ago, and these even tinier trees look fantastic.

LEGO Hercules travels to the South Pole [Interview]

It is not an everyday occurrence for me to get an email from the South Pole. Several months ago, however, I was contacted by Ethan Rudnitsky, who was spending the winter at the US Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, and who asked me for instructions to build a model of an LC-130 Hercules. This is the aircraft used to fly people to and from the station and Ethan wanted to put the model on display in the station. TBB used the opportunity to find out more about LEGO fans at the South Pole in an interview and agreed to supply the instructions, stickers, and the parts to build the Hercules.

Ethan and I had yet to work out how to get the model there. Enter Martin Rongen, a physicist and LEGO fan, like myself, who contacted me from Germany having seen my LC-130 prototype. He was due to travel to the Pole around Christmas (summer in Antarctica) and wondered whether I was willing to share instructions so that he could take the LEGO model with him. How about that? Problem solved! We could ship the whole lot to Germany.

Click here to read the full interview

GOES-16 is all science, no fiction

I love a flashy futuristic spaceship as much as the next guy, but there’s something special about Ryan Howerter‘s modern weather satellite. Ryan has done a ridiculously accurate job of recreating the NASA / NOAA research satellite in LEGO, down to the last maneuvering thruster. I love the idea that every little detail on this model is some real piece of equipment measuring or transmitting up in space right now, and I’m especially impressed with the lens cover held open with a link of track.

At home in space on a spinning Stanford torus

The Stanford torus was a design concept for a permanent space habitat for 10,000 residents proposed at Stanford University during the summer of 1975. Though not the only idea for a ring-shaped space station that would provide gravity to inhabitants, it’s one of the designs that received significant research from NASA. MSP! has created a microscale LEGO version, complete with buildings and landscaping on the ring’s interior. Mounted on an unobtrusive stand, this would look fantastic on any astronaut’s desk.