Post Event Write Up -- LEGO House® - Online Fan Event - AFOL To LEGO® Designer

As mentioned last week, I attended a LEGO House® online fan event on 26 March 2021. Having attended other events in the past, LEGO has used the Microsoft Teams platform. It’s not the best or my favorite, but it works I guess. We were greeted by the host, Astrid, who is a Senior Event and Tour Manager in the LEGO House® Sales and Marketing Department. She was hosting from the Red Experience Zone in the LEGO House®. From the looks of it, there were around 50-ish people in the meeting.

Astrid - Senior Event and Tour Manager in the LEGO House® Sales and Marketing Department

The moderator for the event was Are Heiseldal (sorry for the blurry screen shot). Are was scheduled to fly to Denmark for the event originally, but I think he did a great job moderating virtually. He definitely did his research ahead of time, had some great questions lined up, and then mixed in some of the fan questions. He was supported in the background by Jan Beyer, LEGO’s AFOL Community Integration Manager.

Are Heiseldal

The first AFOL to LEGO® Designer interview was with Justin Ramsden (originally from the UK). Justin had decided to stay at work and was in the LEGO® Innovation House. He had set up his background with the sets he helped design in the background. Justin went through his story on how he joined the LEGO® Group and some of the differences he had like a documentary being filmed on him while he applied (not sure if it is still online or not, but worth a watch if you can find it). I won’t repeat the whole story here, but Justin is very charismatic and definitely seems to enjoy interacting with the fan community and talking LEGO.

He discussed his first set which was the 2015 San Diego Comic Con set: Throne of Ultron. He mentioned how he didn’t have a copy and he had to go into the vault to have an example. Then Marcos Bessa posted a picture of his copy of the set. There might be a trade happening at some point…

Justin recommended building all that you can to become a better builder/designer if you are interested in joining LEGO. Looking at his resume, he has taken advantage of switching teams and building sets in different themes. He talked about how this gave him different perspectives that he was able to bring across the company to different themes. Pretty cool.

Lastly, someone asked about the shirt he was wearing. He said his Mom made it for him. She apparently was in the livestream with us and should have taken orders because a lot of folks would have paid up right then and there.

Justin Ramsden

Marcos Bessa was up next. He is one of the multiple Portuguese designers working at Billund. He was at home, but did have a few of his sets behind him along with one of his favorite sets from back in the day. Apparently a Portuguese comedian has coined him the “Cristiano Ronaldo of Lego.” If you don’t know who this is, do some internet searches about soccer players.

Marcos told the story about how he came to work at LEGO. I enjoyed the quip about how he was trying to save up for an iPhone, saw the #10182-1: Café Corner modular building, and picked it up instead of a phone. Probably a better investment and he was still able to get the phone later while it’s a lot harder to get a Café Corner.

He has been with the LEGO® Group for 10 years now and said that part of what he likes about the job is the free bricks. Can’t say I blame him there.

I was going to ask a question and someone else got to it first, but it was how you balance your hobby and design work. I enjoy LEGO, but in my spare time. Marcos’s work is LEGO so he mentioned that after eight hours, he’s ready for something else. He enjoys other hobbies when he’s not at work. Makes sense to me.

After each of the Designers were interviewed, they did small group breakout sessions. I was randomly assigned to Marcos and his group. Some folks got to ask some great questions. I enjoyed the setup and how they broke us up.

Marcos Bessa

Two of his MOCs were mentioned during the event. The first one is his very first MOC. The second is a modular building he designed. He mentioned how he’d really like to design a modular for LEGO and it’s one of the running things he has whenever he sees Jamie Berard. We’ll see. Maybe one day, he’ll introduce a new modular building to us.

Marcos Bessa - First MOC

Marcos Bessa - Modular Building MOC

The final interview was with Milan Reindl. Milan is on the Technic team and has been since joining the LEGO® Group. His back story is that he grew up in the former Czechoslovakia. He didn’t have any LEGO bricks or sets to build with, but some friends did and he enjoyed them. Once communism ended, his family took a trip to Germany and his parents bought him a few small sets. Since he had so few pieces, he learned how to build lots of things with small pieces.

Fast forward a bunch of years, Milan became a teacher and would build things and take them into school to show his students. He eventually joined LEGO and demonstrated how he took one of his sets and built 7 or 8 cool things with only the pieces from that set. It was very impressive to see.

He has a YouTube video online of a Technic glider he built that really flies. You can video his full channel here were he talks about a lot of Technic things.

It was also pointed out that he has friends who don’t like him building with their kids. Apparently the builds he makes are too good and then the kids expect their parents to put out builds of that quality level. I wonder if they hide the bricks when he shows up?

Milan Reindl

Milan got to design the brick version of the 2017 Technic 40th anniversary logo. They let him keep his brick build version. A screenshot of him with it is below. Here’s a video of it.

Milan Reindl - 40th Anniversary Technic Build

I won’t go through all of the discussions we had, but overall I had a great time. The event was around two hours long and while I had to pay ~$32 to attend, I think it was worth it. I learned a bunch, got to hear about working at LEGO, and got to interact with fellow fans from around the world to include Australia, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

At the end, everyone turned on their video cameras and we took a group screen shot. Can’t say I’ve ever done this before, but it was a cool idea considering we can’t be all together due to location and the pandemic.

Group shot

And one more… not sure how they did this, but here we all are in an auditorium…

Brick on!

Group Shot - Auditorium

LEGO House® - Online Fan Event - AFOL to LEGO® Designer

I attended and reported on the last LEGO House® Virtual Fan Day back in September 2020. There may have been one or two that I missed, but there is another virtual fan event happening this Friday, 26 March 2021. It is titled “My way from AFOL to LEGO® designer.” It will be held from 6 PM to 8 PM CET so a good time for me here in Germany, but not so great if you are working back in the US. Sadly the event is not free and it was limited to 100 people. I was lucky enough to get in at a cost of ~$32 (it was priced in DKK). It will be hosted by a Norwegian journalist and AFOL named Are Heiseldal.

The event will feature three designers: Marcos Bessa, Milan Reindl, and Justin Ramsden. Marcos has done a lot of Super Heroes sets, but more recently I built #75978-1: Diagon Alley that he designed. Milan has mainly designed for Technic. I have not built or reviewed any of his sets on this site. Justin Ramsden has designed for Super Heroes (#76057-1), Harry Potter (#71043-1), Ideas (#21306-1), Monkey King, and recently the Chinese Traditional Festivals (#80107-1).

Picture from legohouse.com

Left to Right - Marcos, Milan, Justin

I will do my best to take some good notes and maybe grab a screen shot or two for a future blog post. Maybe I’ll “see” you there?

Happy building!

BrickCon 2020 - My Experience

I posted about some of the swag I received and a bit on BrickCon 2020 here. This post will focus on the content. I attended a Brickworld Virtual back in May 2020 and that was a number of online rooms that yoiu could go into and out of at will. There were a few presentations throughout the day as well. BrickCon was a lot more than that. They had multiple sessions scheduled every hour, a Discord server running full time, Zoom rooms to hang out in, and lots of prizes throughout. All of the MOCs on display were on a private Flickr group page for viewing. While I would have preferred the opportunity to go in person, meet people, ask questions of MOC builders, and not be stuck behind my computer, the experience was definitely worth it in a COVID-19 context. Here’s a run through of some of the events I attended.

Tiago Catarino is a former LEGO Designer turned YouTuber from Portugal. You can visit his YouTube channel here. Now he posts small builds that you can do yourself with minimal pieces. He also has a few videos on what it was like to work at LEGO and why he quit (spoiler alert… it was not because he hated LEGO). Tiago had two sessions. The first was a Q&A for registered AFOLs only where he gave a short presentation and then people could ask him questions. The second was a build with Tiago session open to the public. I attended the registered AFOL session. Tiago shared some great info about working at LEGO, being a YouTuber, and some of his other experiences. Here’s a screen shot of him below.

The next one I attended was a public session where Stuart Harris presented to the public. If you don’t know him, he’s the lead designer for the LEGO House®. Stuart gave a presentation about how the LEGO House® was developed and built. Then he gave a description of each of the zones and what you can do there. Below are a few pictures from the presentation that I grabbed. The first is one of Stuart’s creations/Stuart working at the LEGO House®. The second is a brick built model of the Minifig Cafe.

Another one I attended was with registered AFOLs only and was a presentation by Gaute Munch (Lego Product Technology Director) and Flemming Jepsen (from the Powered Up team) on Powered UP. I am not an expert in this area by any means so a lot of the conversation was a bit over my cranium, but it was interesting to here. My experience has been motorizing the Crocodile Locomotive, but there is a lot that LEGO has in the works. Just after BrickCon, LEGO released a new version of the app which allows customization. They are working on a rechargeable battery box, new software, and a bunch more. Gaute and Flemming took some tough questions from the audience and handled them very well. I’m glad I participated in this one. The screen shot below is one of the slides with Gaute presenting.

Another event was a keynote where Andrew Becraft (The Brothers Brick Founder and Editor-in-Chief) interviewed Skip Kodak (Executive Vice President, Americas Market Group - LEGO). This was an interesting conversation covering a range of topics from sustainability to COVID-19 impacts for the company, to the adult focused products and lines. I’m glad I attended this one and thought it was great that LEGO offered up someone from upper management to participate.

Throughout the event, a number of AFOLs got on to share their MOCs. One of them was with Ben Smith who lives in the UK. He builds in the space theme and has some pretty impressive MOCs. You can see what he builds on his Flickr page. The screen shot below shows a classic space set, but he had a modern take on it and some other larger space crafts to show off. The benefits of having a virtual event is to get folks to participate in other countries to include people like Ben (and me!).

LEGO Designer Chris McVeigh gave a presentation and Q&A. If you aren’t familiar with Chris and his work, he designed the Brick Sketches™ and the latest Winter Village set the #10275-1: Elf Clubhouse. Chris shared his AFOL experience, how he was hired by LEGO, and then some details on designing the Winter Village set.

I sadly did not get to see this full presentation, but Graham Hancock gave a presentation on LEGO’s foray into catering to adult fans. If you’re not familiar with Graham, he run Brick Fanatics and is the deputy editor for Blocks Magazine. The part of the presentation I saw had details on the history of sets focused for adults. Some I remember and some I hadn’t heard of. And of course some that I wish I had.

I also attended a presentation and Q&A with Henrik Andersen. Henrik is a LEGO Designer who might be best known for his recent work on #75252-1: Imperial Star Destroyer. He’s been with the company for a while and showed some of the other sets he worked on an parts he developed. He went through the details of how they develop parts and showed what works and what doesn’t work. Most notably (for me anyway) I learned he was the developer of the cheese slope.

One last presentation I attended was with George Patelis. George lives in Greece and goes by PatGeo313 on his YouTube channel and Flickr gallery. He made a short video on some of his latest MOCs on YouTube here. Definitely check his work out as he has some impressive stuff.

That was a quick glimpse into my BrickCon 2020 experience. I had a lot of fun even if it wasn’t in person. I hope I can attend again next year and maybe some day get there in person.

Until then, happy building!

LEGO House® Virtual Fan Day 2020

This weekend marks the time when the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend is normally held in Denmark. The event was cancelled due to COVID-19, but the LEGO House® still decided to participate. In previous years they have closed the House to the public and opened it to Skaerbaek Fan Weekend attendees only. This year they held a virtual event with a few presentations from various employees. To mix things up, most of the employees presenting were not designers so it was interesting to hear about different parts of the company. Here’s a quick run through of the event with a few screen shots I took.

Quick admin… there were about 400 people logged in from across the world. I saw people check in from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It occurred between 1PM and 5PM in my local time zone (Central European Time) so great for me and a good excuse to take a day off from work. Sorry for those of you who had to get up early or stay up late. Participants were in receive only mode. You could type questions into chat and Jan Beyer moderated and picked the questions for the presenters to answer.

DISCLAIMER: These are from the notes I took during the session. I may have made mistakes or heard things wrong. So don’t go quoting me on anything without confirmation from the LEGO Group.

To start off, there was a welcome by the Managing Director of LEGO House, Jesper Vilstrup.

Jesper gave a quick welcome and updated us on the LEGO House® and impacts due to COVID-19. It was closed for about 100 days until it re-opened at reduced capacity. They have re-opened with a bunch of new rules and increased hand washing. Also, they swap out all of the bricks every day and put them in a 72 hour quarantine. I can’t imagine how long that takes.

Next up was Julia Goldin (calling in from London). She is the Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of the LEGO Group. She is pictured on the right in the screen shot below.

She gave an overview of what she does and talked about a few items before Q&A. The intro items were:

-LEGO is expanding offerings to adult fans and plans to continue the expansion
-70 or so projects in the portfolio geared towards adults (IDEAS and others)
-LEGO wants feedback from the fan community
-A quick overview of her personal use of LEGO
-A quick discussion on sustainability of LEGO to include removal of the plastic parts bags in 2021
-A focus on digital child safety
-A discussion on Diversity and Inclusion within the LEGO Company

Fan Q&A

-Will Bionicle return?
—It was phased out as it was not seen as part of the kid building experience, but it could return someday
-Any updates on the BrickLink acquisition?
—BrickLInk is getting new customers during COVID, adult fans are important to LEGO and she sees BrickLink as a way to support adults, using BrickLink to learn more (data mining?), LEGO does not want to change Bricklink
-Talk about the partnerships with Ikea, Levis, and Adidas
—Wanted an opportunity to show LEGO in a different way when two brands combine in new channels, looking for ways to expand brand awareness, don’t expect a lot of new partnerships beyond what has been seen, Ikea partnership was done as LEGO saw a need for buildable storage (not everyone has a giant room to store their massive collections)
-LEGO is open to releasing older themes
-LEGO is looking into releasing smaller sets geared towards adults at lower price points
-A quick discussion on the COVID-19 impacts

Next up was  Poul Schou. Poul is the Senior Vice President for product development in the LEGO Group and has been with the company for over 30 years.

Poul provided a quick history of his employment at LEGO to include traveling the world bringing LEGO to places that had never seen LEGO (to include a great story about bringing bricks to Papua New Guinea). He was involved in bringing LEGO to China in early 2000. He then worked in Denmark on marketing for a short period before switching to product development. He now has a team producing ~200- new products per year and he called them Product Group 1. They make products for younger kids (4+/Juniors), girls lines (Friends, Disney Princesses), Ninjago, City, Minifigures, and then IPs.

Then straight to fan Q&A:
-What’s the Asia strategy?
—China is LEGO’s fastest growing market and a discussion on the Monkey King line
-More on plant based pieces and the desire to expand their production
-What is the future of modular buildings with the new 18+ line?
—No plans now, but would like to have more modular type builds for families to build together
-Will LEGO continue to produce large numbers of new models?
—They are growing, but don’t want to go too fast/far
-What was his best LEGO moment?
—He mentioned the bringing bricks to children who had never seen them before and didn’t know what to do to them stories.
-What are some of the latest models?
—The Child, The Child Brickheadz, and a Ninjago model (I didn’t catch the name)
-Will shelf life decrease with more sets coming out?
—They would actually like to expand the shelf life
-Why re-release the two IDEAS sets (Ship in a Bottle and Saturn V)?
—It’s hard to predict product popularity and there was still demand even after the sets went to end of life
-What is the long term plan for LEGO apps?
—Need to determine how they will support them into the future
-A discussion on IPs
--Need to consider if kids like the IP, determine what LEGO can do with it, and if it fits within the brand
-A question about becoming a designer (been asked a lot so I won’t expand on the answer)
-A question on virtual designing (he wasn’t an expert there)
-How long does it take to design a set?
—Anywhere from 9 to 15 months to design a set
-How many people to design a set?
—It depends on the set, but there are around 400 designers and then 1,800 people who do marketing, packaging, and instruction development
-Why is LEGO successful?
—They’ve been able to make it a system and connect well with partners
-Any challenges with working form home?
—Designers have a hard time getting the pieces they need
-What are his favorite lines?
—Ninjago, Bionicle, and the new Nintendo line
-What are the long term plans for the Art line
—The Star Wars Sith set has done well. Expect more sets.
-Why are some sets phased out faster than others?
—They stick with what works. For example, Ninjago did better than Chima or Nexo Knights
-Could old sticker sheets be re-released?
—”That’s a good idea.”
-What is the design process?
—Talk to kids worldwide, get ideas, draw the ideas, show kids, build models, test with kids, do internal reviews
-How do you decide to do printed pieces versus stickers?
—Try to print more for younger kids and can get more authenticity with more stickers. They have more flexibility with fewer stickers.
-A discussion on LEGO animals
—Molded ones are meant for younger kids (Duplo) and brick built ones are for older kids and to expand creativity
-How many sets does each designer work on?
—Depends on the team and the product line. Ninjago team works on all sets, but they are the lead for one or two each year.
-Do they test sets with adults?
—Starting to test them with adults now. Small scale test. (how do I sign up for this?)

Next up was Stuart Harris who is the lead designer for the LEGO House®. He displayed some of the new fan designs they have on display in the Yellow Zone. I was too busy paying attention to the designs to take any screen shots. Sorry!

Okay… Next presentation was with Kim Yde Larsen, Nanna Mazanti Drejer Friborg and Thomas Folit. They are part of the BIX team or Building Instructions Experience team. Here are their minifig recreations from the slide show.

Their presentation was focused on the building instruction process starting with the history to where they are today. This isn’t an area we hear a lot about so it was interesting to hear their perspective. There is a lot to think about besides making sure you can make the set. Who will be making the set? Are they young/old, familiar with LEGO or not, is the set large or small? They discussed how they go through this all as a set is designed. Then we moved to the Q&A:

-When are they involved in the process?
—During the early stages of development all the way through pre-launch and then post launch if needed
-Please tell customer service if you find issues so they can fix them.
-What happens when errors are found in models?
—The goal is to find errors before the model is released which is why they get involved very early in the process.
-Would it be possible to add a number code for color blind people?
—This is definitely a possibility.
-They are aware of the concerns with the instruction issues with #10277-1 Crocodile Locomotive (dark pieces and a black background).
-Why is glossy papers used for instructions?
—It is readily available.
-What was the hardest set to make instructions for?
—It is not always complexity or a large adult set. Some of the sets designed for little kids can be harder because you have to make sure they can put it together
-The team has made changes post release of a set.
-How many people are on the instructions team?
—60

Here are the presenters for that section:

Kim

Nanna

Thomis

Next up Stephan Sander and Thomas Wesselski talked about Skaerbaek Fan Weekend and why it was cancelled.

Last presentation was Bjarke Schønwandt who is a quality director and works with Consumer-Perceived Quality at LEGO. I wasn’t sure what to expect on this one, but it was actually pretty interesting and I didn’t know LEGO did a lot of this stuff. I took a bunch of screen shots during this presentation so I’ll put a few up here. First, some info on Bjarke…

If I had to sum up what Bjarke does, the goal of him and his team is to make sure LEGO’s customers are happy. The product may meet LEGO’s standards, but if it doesn’t meet consumer standards, then it doesn’t work. Bjarke discussed how they measure consumer perceived quality. For example, they expect complaints to go up when sales increase and they expect more mistakes to happen with bigger sets.

He showed a chart with where LEGO sees its complaints. 86% come from missing pieces and 13% are faulty pieces. There rest in in a few smaller categories.

Missing pieces come from having the wrong element in the set, a customer losing the part, or missing minifigures. Bjarke noted that they see more Star Wars Storm Troopers and Ninjago figures going missing than City fire fighters. He made a quick quip that there is probably a reason for this.

Bjarke talked about systematic building mistakes. This is where people screw up the build and then have pieces “missing” later only to find out they followed the instructions wrong. I fully admit I have done this and so have you so just admit it.

Okay, I think we’re onto Q&A here…

-How often does LEGO make checks to parts during production?
—About once every 8 hours. It would be too hard to check every piece coming out of the factory.
-How often do they make changes to elements?
—Changes happen often. Some are for sustainability purposes.
-What can you say about the LEGO Technic Lamborghini issues (#42115-1)?
—I will do my best to summarize the discussion. It was pretty detailed and technical, but it made sense when he was done. There were a few issues.
—-One element was out of spec as the color pigments burned in the mold as it was in the mold too long. They haven’t fixed the issue, but they cheated by using a different machine to get the elements in spec.
—-The other issue is related to material suppliers. They have a specific tolerance that they need the colors to be in. Then the material team has a tolerance. The tolerances can be in different directions (for a green piece, more red, more blue, more yellow, etc.) and so the supplier and the materials team can both go in different directions while still meeting spec. However, LEGO found out this didn’t work on the Lamborghini with color differences between parts next to each other as Bjarke showed us.

Bjarke conveniently brought the Technic Lamborghini with him to the presentation

Bjarke explaining color tolerances

-What about the brown elements breaking?
—LEGO was aware of them too. They are working on fixing issues with suppliers and getting colors into the same quadrant of the color scale.
-A few examples of systematic building mistakes:

#1 - LEGO found a lot of people selecting the wrong piece at step #455 on the Technic Lamborghini (#42115-1). Then when they needed that piece at set #520, they didn’t have the correct piece. No one wants to disassemble at that point.

#2 - #75551-1: Minion has an error that many people make (including Bjarke) at step 21 and then find out they messed it up at step 79.

-What is perceived quality?
—If fans think it isn’t good, then it isn’t good.
-What other errors have you seen?
—The Ford Mustang (#10265-1) has a racing stripe that isn’t as straight as some fans want it to be.
-Why did you change the materials in the transparent bricks?
—To have more sustainable parts
-How do you get your white elements to stay white?
—Keep them out of the sun (he wasn’t sure what else to do).
-Why do some stickers crack after a while and some done?
—They don’t know.
-What are the hardest parts to make?
—The dark earth colors
-Why not just use one supplier so the colors are the same?
—Don’t want to use one supplier and then run supply chain risks if that supplier is disrupted
-How long did the Wall-E (#21303-1) fix take?
—1-2 weeks to rebuild, 1-2 weeks for instructions, production time, and then time to get it into the supply chain. It didn’t make sense to shut off a production run to do this fix and then re-start what was turned off.
-Please report issues to customer service. (I’m seeing a trend)
-Why don’t the instruction colors match the bricks you are using?
—They need to adjust the colors to make sure they can get the 3-D effect on the instructions.
-What are your biggest issues right now?
—#42115-1: Lamborghini Sian and parts sustainability

Whew! That was a lot. Some great information and very interesting. Definitely different from having designers talk which is what I’m used to seeing. I hope LEGO continues events like these and I hope my summary of the event was worthwhile for you to read if you couldn’t make the event.

Bye from Billund!

Can You Watch People Talk About LEGO® for a Few Hours?

Large gatherings of Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) are not happening in the COVID world where we need to remain physically distant from each other to not spread our germs. Some Recognized LEGO Fan Media (RLFM) channels have resorted to holding live streams. Many of them are multiple hours long. I don’t watch all of them, but I have check out a few. Mainly I have watched some of the discussions with LEGO® employees. Here are a few you may want to check out or scan through to find useful details.

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Beyond the Brick - Streamed 14 April 2020
Interview with Stuart Harris of the LEGO® House

Stuart leaves after two hours and I didn’t watch the last hour, but the first two hours were a good overview of the LEGO® House and what is there. It also goes through Stuart’s history as an employee and some of the builds he has done.

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Beyond the Brick - Streamed 12 May 2020
Interview with Alyssa Harrington of LEGO®’s AFOL Engagement Team

I didn’t know this part of the LEGO® Company existed, but I found this conversation interesting to see how the Company engages with AFOLs. She also explains how she was hired and talks about the LEGO Ambassador Network works. The site is definitely worth checking out. Be warned there are a lot of conversations about video games. I skipped a bunch as I’m not interested there.

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Beyond the Brick - Streamed 19 May 2020
Interview with JANGBRiCKS

If you’re interested in LEGO Fan YouTubers, this is a good discussion about running a channel and what the current landscape is like.

Lots of extraneous discussion about random topics so depending on your attention span, you may want to skip forward a bit.

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Boone Langston has a channel on YouTube.com called Boone Builds. If you don’t know Boone, he was one of the finalists on LEGO Master’s USA Season 1. He has some interviews of AFOLs as well, but I’m highlighting a few videos he has with LEGO® Company employees.

Boone Builds - Streamed 15 May 2020
Interview with LEGO® Company Designers Carl Merriam and Mike Psiaki

A video of the new (at the time) set highlighting #10273-1: Haunted House and reviewing some of the details of the set. Mike and Carl share their humor so you’ll have to deal with some of the banter as well as the LEGO discussions.

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Boone Builds - Streamed 22 May 2020
Interview with Jan Beyer Manager of LEGO® Fan Events

A great look at fan events around the world with a lot of behind the scenes pictures.

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So there are a few videos you may want to check out. Any others I should highlight? Let me know in the comments or you can email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Thanks and happy building!

Be Ready to Sign up for the LEGO® Inside Tour: 2020

If you are a huge fan of the brick, pay attention to this…. how would you like to have the opportunity to tour parts of the LEGO campus in Billund no one else gets to see? Do you want to meet designers? Do you want to spend 2.5 days at the home of LEGO seeing how the magic happens? Do you want to shop at the employee store? If you have answered yes to those questions, then the Inside Tour is for you!

Here are the details (get the full scoop at the LEGO® House site here):

-Sign ups start October 28, 10 am CET (5AM on the east coast of the US… Europe’s fall time change happens before it does in the US) and end November 1, 10 am CET (2019).

-Available tour dates are:
13-15 May 2020
10-12 June 2020
26-28 August 2020
9-11 September 2020

-Check out the site linked above for logistics details about meals and lodging. Keep in mind that your transportation to Billund is not covered.

-Cost for the tour is DKK 14,500 which at the exchange rate today is $2,155 and change (or ~2.6 #71592-1: Millennium Falcons).

-Based on signing up last year (and not getting picked), there is a short form that lets you put some basic info in and then select the dates you can attend. It didn’t provide you a spot to plead your case. The only other thing that was different was it asked if you were a member of a LUG or not.

-The tour is in English so if you’re using Google Translate to read this post, then it might not be the best option for you. The sign up form does ask where you are from and what your nationality is so maybe they try and balance where they select people from.

If you’re not sure about it or if it is worth attending, there are a number of great posts out there about folks who have done the tour. Do some searching online and you’ll hear from adults, teens, and adults who brought kids.

I will be applying again in the slight chance that I get picked. If I recall from last year there were only a limited number of slots per tour and a few thousand applied so we’ll see what happens.

Good luck and let me know if you get selected!

Set Review - #4000026-1: LEGO House Tree of Creativity

Here’s the final review of the LEGO® House sets. There was #21037: LEGO® House and #40366-1: LEGO® House Dinosaurs. Now there’s #4000026-1: LEGO® House Tree of Creativity. These three sets are only available at the LEGO® Brand Store in the LEGO® House in Billund, Denmark. This set was released in 2018. I couldn’t find the exact date and I’m not sure how long it will be out.

The set contains 837 pieces and is priced at 599 DKK. The day I went, the exchange rate made it $89.63 total. That’s $0.107 per piece so a bit on the high end in my opinion. Keep in mind that the price includes 25% Value Added Tax (think sales tax in the US) so if you buy it with the VAT form that you can take to the airport then it will be cheaper. I didn’t have that option since I was just driving back to Germany so I ate the tax.

Keep in mind when you go that there is a limit of three per family. As mentioned in other reviews, I didn’t try and play any games and have my NLS buy some too. I did have a car so it made bringing back the extra sets much easier than trying to get them on a plane or shipping them back to the US.

Onto the review…

The box is not a normal size that I recognize from other sets. Or maybe it is and I just can’t tell the difference. The front shows the set with the minifigure included nearby. The back gives some information on the LEGO House and the actual Tree of Creativity. I also included a picture from the side of the box of the LEGO® House logo and then some stats on the actual model.

The set comes with six parts bags that are not numbered and includes a piece separator. The instructions are not wrapped, but they were not jammed in the box. No stickers!

The build doesn’t have any natural break points where you open new bags or switch to a new instruction book so I just took pictures as I went. The build starts off with the base of the tree. The actual base is a 3 foot high or so barrier and the bottom is filled with various green parts. Obviously the trunk of the tree starts there too.

The tree is built around a square pattern with various pieces thrown in to mix up the shape and made it non-uniform. The middle of the trunk is filled with two Technic parts that hook in throughout the tree with pins. This occurs throughout the build as you’ll see and helps to make it more structurally sound. On the actual tree trunk are various designs. The set has the wooden duck toy built in similar to how the actual tree has the wooden duck built in.

Continuing on is the first branch with a castle on it to represent the castle theme. You can also see the Technic parts continuing their journey upwards.

Continuing on with the trunk rising up around the Technic parts. Another branch is added with a fire truck resting on it.

As the build continues, there is a branch with a train, a train station, and a building. The train is one of the larger mini-builds on top of a branch. A few of the branches are added on without any items on top. If you go to the actual Tree of Creativity, you can see that the LEGO® House builds new things across time to remain permanent or to just be part time additions. During my trip, there were some monkeys hanging out on the various branches.

Instruction #162… this includes a branch with a rocket on top. Up to #192 includes some branches with nothing on top and a branch with a bulldozer on it.

Topping off the build is a crane with a new part of the tree to attach. The tree is meant to be a story of the LEGO® Company’s journey and the crane shows how it will continue to grow. It will be interesting to see if over the years they add new branches and new sections.

This set comes with one minifigure. It’s a male minifigure with blond-ish colored hair in a LEGO® House shirt. The LEGO® Store there has other figures with this shirt, but they all appear to be key chains. So unless there is another way, this is your only option to get one like this. In my opinion, it would be nice to build your own figure with the shirt or if the set had multiple versions and you could pick which one you wanted based on the minifigure it had. That would probably be harder to produce so I’m sure the set would be more expensive it they did that.

A few extra items that I haven’t highlighted… on one side of the tree is a brick built wood pecker. Considering the scale, I think the designers did a good job capturing a bird.

Also, I included another shot so you can get a closer look at the train station, rocket, and bulldozer.

We’ve reached the end of the build. Overall, it’s a good set and captures the real model pretty accurately. The build uses some good techniques and there are some decent pieces in the set. In my opinion though, I would pick one of the other LEGO® House exclusive sets over this one if I was limited in luggage space or funds. The other 2 are better display pieces. This one doesn’t fit as much as it looks weird as a stand alone tree. The actual tree in the building fits the architecture right by the stairwell. It doesn’t look as thin because it is surrounded by the stairs and then approaches the top of the building. Additionally, it is a bit pricey for what you get. ~$90 for 837 pieces and the pieces aren’t all that big. As a collector, I’m glad I got it, but that’s really the only audience it applies to. What are your thoughts?

Set Review - #21037-1: LEGO® House - Architecture

Onto the second of the three LEGO® House exclusive sets I picked up while in Billund. This one is #21037-1: LEGO® House from the Architecture theme. It was released in 2017 and is still available today. The brief history behind this set is that #4000010-1: LEGO® House - Architecture available back in March 2014 was the first round. It was in all white and was released prior to the opening of the LEGO® House in Billund. This set was released after the LEGO® House opened.

This set has 774 pieces and retails for 449 DKK. I was at the LEGO® House for two days and I bought sets on each of the days (2 and then 1). I paid $67.19 and $67.27 when translated. I don’t think the US Dollar to Danish Kroner exchange rate fluctuates a great deal so my guess is you can expect to pay about the same amount. The sign at the store says you are limited to three sets per family. I bought three and didn’t try to scam the Brand Store there over by having my NLS buy some or buying without my VIP account.

Onto the review…

The box looks like a standard architecture set. The biggest difference is that this one is very colorful while most of the sets are usually full of grays, tans, and whites. It’s a nice change to have some color.

The contents are 6 parts bags, an instruction booklet, and four 6x12 dark gray plates. Like most architecture sets, the bags are not numbered. The instructions have a section about the LEGO® House, its development, information on the architecture firm, and some facts throughout the instructions.

Like most architecture sets, the bags aren’t numbered so there aren’t good break points for a review. I just picked a few points I thought to be useful to discuss the build.

The base of the building is completed at step 15. It’s just the dark gray plates with black plates underneath to hold them together. The edge is completed with black tiles to include one that is printed with the “LEGO® House” name on it.

Step 33 of the instructions completes the first layer of plates on the base. It is made up of light gray for the sidewalks and tan for the floor inside the LEGO® House. There are a few spots where there are no plates and then a few colored tiles for where the stepped portions of the house begin.

My next stopping point is the completion of the first floor or layer. The first floor includes some windows along with the yellow and blue steps on the two opposite ends of the building. The inside of the house includes a plant to represent one of the plants in the house and then the steps leading up into the house along with the tree of creativity. They don’t include all of the detail, but given the limited space, I can understand why.

Onto the second level… each of the sections fit in just so to create the various upper sections of the house. So far I’m impressed with the build and how it is arranged.

The top level with the masterpiece gallery is easily removable and does not attach with clutch to the other layers of the house. This feature is nice as you can view the “inside” of the house. The very top includes the 8 clear windows that look like the studs of a 2x4 brick.

Here’s the final build. I think they did a great job representing the LEGO® House given the scale of the architecture theme. I’m a big fan of this set and recommend picking it up if you are able to visit the LEGO® House. To be fair, I might be biased since I was actually there. I wonder if I would have the same opinions if I hadn’t actually been there.

Does anyone else have this one? What are your thoughts?

In the meantime, happy building!

LEGO® House: History Collection

The LEGO® House has some fun stairs that you can take up or down. I like how the walls look like they could be made of large size plastic bricks. If you go down, you go to the History Collection. In this post I hope to take you through my experience there. I took a lot of pictures, but still did not capture the whole thing. With 2 kiddos, I wasn’t able to stay and read everything, but I still had a good amount of time to see it all. So let’s go!

(Note: you can take an elevator too. This is especially good if you have a stroller or a little person who is slow on stairs.)

The History Collection is not as bright and colorful as the rest of the House. The walls are black as if you are underground. When you get downstairs, there is a glass covered area in the floor. The area is full of gray 2x4 bricks and some old brick molds. A sign explains how they used to put the old molds underneath new buildings so they couldn’t be used by a competitor. You can read the sign that explains it in the picture. We also thought it was fun that there was a brick built mole digging around in the basement.

From the room with the molds in the floor, you can see a brightly lit LEGO® logo. I took a few pictures so you can see it as you get up close. It’s pretty awesome.

And another mole hanging out…

The tour goes through a hallway in a square. You turn left and you start to learn about the very initial states of the LEGO® Company. It talks about the founding family and you can see some of the early non-plastic toys. It’s impressive that they still have some of the very old toys and first brick sets around.

As you continue to make your way around the History Collection, there are more modern bricks to include some sets or sets mixed in with MOCs.

#10184-1: Town Plan - This was the 50th anniversary set from LEGO®

The factories don’t look like this anymore.

Is this an official set?

The origins of the train line

I’m not sure if the train is an official set or a MOC.

As you continue on, you see more of the modern sets that we’re used to seeing. It was definitely a walk down memory lane to see some of the older items that I still have. And some of the things I always wanted as a kid… like the whole Classic Space line.

The Classic Space monorail

The origins of the minifigure

The castle theme and 9V town sets (I have the police car and fire engine and they still work)

Throughout the LEGO® House are benches. Many of the benches have parts to build with, minifigure parts, or in this picture, DUPLO®. My youngest kiddo enjoyed the History Collection because there were tons of cars, trains, and planes, but it was good to know we had another distraction if needed to occupy him in the “boring” museum portion.

After you finish walking around the square, you can enter into the space inside the square. This area has a collection of many of the old sets by time period. I failed to get a picture or write it down, but I think it is by decade (please correct me if I’m wrong). Definitely a walk down memory lane for me. “I have that one!” “I always wanted that one!” “Wow! I’ve never actually seen that one.”

Sorry for the reflections on the glass covering the windows in my pictures.

Some of the very first sets.

More castle and Classic Space in there.

Duplo®, Pirates, Blacktron, and more!

Here’s a shot of what the wall looks like with the various sets.

Classic space, early CITY/Town, Castle

Technic, Space Police, Pirates, and more!

Can they bring back Classic Space and Castle please?

Some Technic sets in the center of the room.

The center of the room had the Technic display that I showed and then these trains. Please re-release the Super Chief and the BNSF diesel!

Also in the center of the room was a computer screen where you could go through each of the sets from every year and add them to your digital collection. When you are finished, the collection is loaded into your file that is attached to the wrist band. We did not build our digital collection. I’m not sure I could even remember it all. A cool idea though.

If you are an AFOL, definitely make some time to check out the History Collection. I regret that I didn’t get to read everything about the company, but I was glad that I got to see what I did. It’s not the best place for kids. My 5-year old got bored pretty quick and wanted to go back upstairs to do all of the fun stuff.

It will be curious to see how the History Collection changes over the years. How will they add another decade of sets in?

My next post will be about the Star Wars™ 20th anniversary display which was located with the History Collection.

LEGO® House: The MINI CHEF Restaurant

If you plan to spend the whole day at the LEGO® House, you’re going to need to eat at some point. Bringing a lunch is an option or you can go out to one of the local eateries. The other option is to eat at one of the 3 locations within the LEGO® House itself. First off is BRICKACCINO. This is a quick cafe for grab and go food. They have beverages, smoothies, panninis, and some pre-made items ranging from baked goods to sandwiches. As you can see, the menu is brick built and the prices are in DKK so it is roughly 6.6 DKK to $1. So around $4.25 for an espresso. Is that any worse than Starbucks?

Then there is LE GORMET which is the classier, reservations required restaurant. It’s upstairs from the MINI CHEF and tucked away. I did not go there and I have not seen any reviews of the place. They offer a three course menu for 398 DKK (~$60) or a 6 course menu for 598 DKK (~$90).

Here’s BRICKACCINO and the brick built selection. Take note of the LEGO Movie reference with the $37 overpriced coffee. I’m not sure if you can actually order it or not.

Our goal was to hit the MINI CHEF restaurant on one of the days we were at the LEGO® House. We pulled our kiddos away from the Experience Zones and while they weren’t happy to go, they quickly changed their minds when they saw the place. I had watched a few reviews from the early days by Beyond the Brick and others and it seems like the draw is the experience, but not the food. So we went into it with that attitude. We went to the MINI CHEF right around noon and there was no line. We were seated right away which was a bonus for us.

The entrance to the restaurant.

The menu cover

Like the rest of the LEGO® House, the decorations are brick based. The light fixtures are covered in DUPLO® and the walls have some sets and MOCs on display.

DUPLO® light fixture

Sets on display

So here’s the rundown… we sat down and our server came over. She got down to my 5-year old’s level and gave this story about how the minifigures work in the kitchen to make the food and they only read brick so you have to translate the menu for them. She also made sure to say that kids get to use a special yellow piece while adults just got more food (although as an adult, there is nothing stopping you from using the yellow piece). She also brought my almost 2-year old some DUPLO® to play with which made his day because Mom and Dad never give him toys at the table before a meal.

Each table has a screen. You open your bag of bricks, build what you want, and then insert your brick tray into the screen for it to be scanned. There is some animation on the screen that shows you the minifigures figuring out what you want. You get to verify your order is right (it didn’t always scan right the first time) and then after you say it is good to go, you order drinks.

After you finalize your order, you watch a short animation where the minifigures get your order and they start to put it all together. Then you get to watch and wait.

The screen and system where you get to place your order. My kiddo’s order is on the screen.

A few of part of the restaurant.

Here is the menu. Adult meals are just over $25 and kids meals are just under $15. We had a good mix of just about everything and I can honestly say that it was all pretty good. It had a good taste and seemed well prepared. My kiddos ate it which was also a bonus.

The drinks weren’t bad. For those of you who are American who have never been to Europe, ordering water is not an option unless you want to pay for mineral water. In the States, we’re used to ordering a free glass of tap water. In Europe, if you want water, you pay for mineral water (sparkling or not). We’ve found it’s often cheaper to just order something else. I got hot chocolate!

We had 4 people, 2 adults, 2 kids. $25 + $25 + $15 +$15 + drinks… do you see where this is going? It was a pretty pricey meal…

Here’s a picture of the menu.

When your food is ready, your screen starts to play some animation. It shows the minifigures scrambling to get the food together and out the door on the conveyor belt. There is a slight delay and then you see your food come out in containers. It’s a rather slow travel, but it gets there.

Your food is pushed to you by Robert and Roberta or is it Robot and Robota… whatever. Either way, we got 4 containers and the robots pushed us the containers down each of the 4 rollers to you. We stacked them up and walked back to our tables.

In the meantime, the Robots do dances, high-five, and look around while waiting to push food out. They are fun to watch.

Your robot friends

The food was way better than I expected, the experience was pretty cool, the service was great, kids get an exclusive MINI CHEF minifigure (that’s what the special yellow piece is), and you’re going to spend a lot on lunch. My family went to the LEGO® House for two days. We only hit the restaurant on one of the days. The second day we brought lunch and ate in the Square to save some money. It was definitely something I’m glad we got to do once, but now that I’ve experienced it, I don’t think I’ll go back to spend the money on food. I’d rather save the money to buy bricks.

Any other thoughts on the MINI CHEF restaurant?