The Best Quarantine Activity - Building with LEGO Bricks

I don’t really follow professional sports anymore, but I enjoy seeing when a big time sports player decides to pick up some bricks. Recently, a player for the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers posted some videos of himself on TikTok. A reporter caught it and it’s making the rounds on the web. I found an article here on yahoo.com. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll find LEGO Speed Champions set #75895-1: Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 and NBA player temporarily joining the LEGO fan media with a speed build of the set.

Not sure if it’s just a one time deal for self promotion or if we have a fellow AFOL on our hands, but glad to see it. Keep building sir!

Set Review - Porsche 911 GT3 RS - #42056 - Technic - Part 5

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

I finished!  WOOHOO!  Let me tell you, it was a great build.  It took me about 3 weeks too.  Some days I put more time in then others and some days I wasn't able to build at all.  I'm glad to have a space where I can leave things out right now.  Onto the finale!

Here's the box for #4, the construction before the build starts, and the start of the instruction booklet.  

Box 4 comes with 4 parts bags.

The build starts with the driver's side in the front with the bumper, turn signals, headlights, body around the wheel, and door.  

Finalizing the door is next to include the driver's side mirror and the door handle.

Next up is the rear of the car.  You complete the engine cover and distinctive tail fin.  I show one picture with the trunk open and one with it closed.

To the left is the build at step 847.  It's pretty much done.  I'm not sure what the flexible, rubber like pieces are called, but they are added in to help create some of the curves.  You can see a bunch by the hood, around the windshield, and then running to the back.  

After you finish the back, you keep rotating the car and move around to complete the passenger side door, wheel cover, and headlight.  

The next step is to add the rims and wheels.  The wheels come in a separate box.  They are inside the box and the rims are on the top of the box.

Here are some final pictures...

At the back of the instruction booklet, it says you get get a free gift by entering your vehicle code at LEGO.com/technic.  Well that's not true.  You need to go to http://www.lego.com/en-us/technic/codebreaker.  If you're wondering what it is, you get a digital certificate that says you have a set and then a bunch of high resolution photos that can be used as wallpaper for your phone or computer (or printed I guess).  They are pretty sharp and hey, it's something else that you get for buying the set.  

Also if you go to the LEGO.com/technic web site, they have a bunch of promo videos along with a video about them packaging the set in one of their factories.  Again, nothing fancy, but interesting to see where your set came from.  

Final words... if you've read this far and through all 5 parts, then thank you.  Please leave feedback or email me with your thoughts... should I make these much shorter and to the point or is it better to see all of the details?  Anyways, back to the set...  If you can't tell, I think this set is awesome!  The build was incredible, the final set design is sleek, and to be honest, I have never build a LEGO® set like this.  I'm really impressed with how this turned out from the start with packaging and design to the finish in having the final product.  Well done LEGO®!!!!!

Set Review - Porsche 911 GT3 RS - #42056 - Technic - Part 4

View Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 5

Before I start this one, just a quick note.  For those of you who follow the blog, I recently moved from NM to FL.  My FL home is slightly bigger and my NLS agreed to designate some space for building activities.  I purchased 2 metal shelves for storage and placed a wood board on top for building.  Now I have a standing desk where I can build at.  Also you'll note that some pictures are at night with a light on and some are during the day.  I don't have a light box yet.  I'm working on it.  So I apologize up front that the pictures aren't all the same.

Box 3 of this set is assembling more of the body to include the rear, the hood and the roof.  This one starts in the instruction booklet at #532.  Before we start, here is box 3 with a picture of the hood on the box and in the instructions.  I also included the build at the end of box 2.

Next up are the contents.  It only has 4 bags of parts and it uses some of the parts from the bag included in box 1.

Some pictures of the build...  First off is some work on the back of the vehicle.

Next up is more work on the back.  The break light and turn signals are there along with the bumper and a GT3RS sticker.

The top of the car is shown with the back here.  

Another view of the back just so you can see more detail.  This one is of the passenger side in the back. 

Here's a view from the front so you can see the hood.  Still need a lot more detail here, but I think that'll all be in the next box.

A top shot of the whole set at the end of box 3.

Back to building!!!!!

Set Review - Porsche 911 GT3 RS - #42056 - Technic - Part 3

View Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4 - Part 5

If you can't tell, I'm taking my time putting this set together.  To be fair, if I sat down to crank it out, it would take a day or two non-stop.  So let's get right to it...

Box 2 is the body of the car.  The instruction book talks about how during the building of an actual 911 GT3 RS, they have a stage where the "drivetrain is connected to the body of the car."  This section starts at instruction number 324.

Box 2 contains 9 parts bags which are shown here.  

Here's the build at instruction 349.  This is the body at the front of the car.

Here is instruction step number 403 with the front together and then the start of the driver's side.

Here's #454.  Front and sides are done and working on the back.  You can see some of the red pins that are not pressed in all the way throughout the model.  While building I was wondering what they were for, but they ended up being the way to attached the body to the drivetrain.  There were a few steps where all you had to do was just push in red pins.  

#483... almost done with this section.

Here is the final of this section with the body attached to the drive train.  The seats and roll bar are in place now.  

Just another shot from the front.  Okay, enough already... time to get back to building more.  Happy building!

Set Review - Porsche 911 GT3 RS - #42056 - Technic - Part 2

Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

In case you missed it, I purchased the LEGO® Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS (#42056).  In my last post, I showed the awesome packaging design.  Now it's time to get into the build.  

Box 1 is the largest parts box in the set.  It contains 11 parts bags.  One of them is some of the orange outer covering pieces to the car that isn't used in the instructions for box one (so if you purchased one of these, don't open that bag right away).  This set doesn't include a piece separator like many of the brick based sets do, but if you're like me, you have a bunch of extras to use if required.  Also, the instruction booklet gives a brief explanation of what you'll be building along with a picture of the engine on the box.

The picture above is all of the open parts packs.  To be honest I haven't built a Technic set in probably over 20 years.  Even then the last one was much smaller.  This one is monstrous and it was an adjustment for me to not be looking for bricks or plates.  Instead it was looking for pins, axles, or how many pin holes a part has.  I'm not saying it was a bad thing... it was just something I'm not used to when building.

Here it is at step 92.  For those of you keeping track, box 1 has 323 steps.  You can see the start of the transmission, the floor of the seating area and lots of gears.  

Here's instruction #203 (above).  Whew!  I'm starting to work on the front end to include where the front wheels go as well as the steering mechanics.  If you're really sharp you can pick out the building error that I made and didn't catch until the end (whoops!).  Also, they may be hard to pick out in this picture, but there are some stickers in this set.  There is one on what will be the dashboard and the Porsche logo is on the steering wheel.  I'm not a fan of stickers, but these seems to fit in okay.  The stickers aren't huge and are pretty easy to apply.

The steering column is in process here.  If you've built the set, you can see where my mistake came in.  

Not too much to point out in this picture other than if you can see where there passenger sits, there is a white 1x4 tile.  Each set has its own printed identification tag on it.  I had heard about this prior to getting the set and I assumed it was a sticker, but was shocked to see it was a printed tile.  Definitely an awesome touch to the set!

All for attachments for the wheels are in along with the axles for the wheels.  

Finally we get to the end of box one and 323 steps later.  It's been a great build so far.  I didn't keep track, but I probably spent about 8 hours on the build (not all at once)  As mentioned, I'm not as familiar with Technic builds so it's been a real challenge for me.  I have made a number of mistakes by either building too fast or mistaking where a part was supposed to go.  I had a number of instances occur where I had to figure out how to tear it apart to make the fix without tearing the entire set apart from scratch.  

My opinion so far... Wow!  I'm impressed to see the number of details and the functionality.  The steering column, shocks on the wheels, transmission, engine with pistons... it's all pretty impressive.  I'm excited to get into the next box and to make this set become a final reality.  Stay tuned for more.  

Set Review - Porsche 911 GT3 RS - #42056 - Technic - Part 1

Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Dear LEGO® Company,
     I saw a number of blog postings online about the Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS.  I was intrigued and then after seeing the set designer video I think I was sold.  But the $299.99 price scared me away some.  I wasn't sure that I was ready to pay that much for a set.  After seeing it at one of your stores, I was sold.  Thankfully I had a bunch of VIP points and got a nice discount.

Opening this set was pretty exciting.  After seeing the care that was taken to package it up I took the plunge and carefully opened the box.  The Porsche set was smartly placed inside the box with extra padding on the side to make sure it didn't shift around during shipping.  The top of the box looks very dignified.  The sleek picture of the car, the Porsche logo and then some of the standard LEGO® set info like that it contains 2,704 pieces.  Let me tell you, my NLS is a communications designer and even she was impressed.  Trust me, that means a lot coming from her.   

After opening the box, once again I was blown away.  It wasn't plastic bags thrown into a box with an instruction booklet packed in.  Your designers really took the time to place together a high class product.  Numbered boxes, an instruction booklet that contains history of the actual vehicle and the LEGO® vehicle design, and the impressive layout of the rims in the box.  All very well done!

I opened the large box that FedEx dropped off and found another box as well as set 40220 - London Bus.  The other box and packaging material smashed the London Bus set up quite a bit.  Please train your team better on packaging.  The second box impressed me.  Given the price of the set, seeing the separate packaging and warning to not use a razor to dive into the box showed that you understand folks pay a lot for this set.

The details on the box for this set are also incredible.  I won't spoil it for others with tons of pictures, but the sides of the box have the different sides of the vehicle.  The inside of the box top has a timeline of Porsche designs.  In my non-designer opinion, this packaging rivals Apple's product packaging.  Who did you hire to do this work?

The contents are like no other set I have built.  The elements are in numbered containers with pictures of the set on them.  They look like mini-sets on their own.  There are stickers again which I am not a fan of, but at least it is not a ton of them. The 856 steps in the instruction booklet that looks nicer than my manual to my car (granted I don't drive a Porsche... maybe those are nicer).  The rims are displayed in the box they come in and then the wheels are inside the box with the rims on the outside.  All I can say is that I am super excited to get building on this set.  It's been nothing but amazing so far and I haven't even opened any bags of parts.  Well done LEGO®!!!!

Bricks for Bricks August 2016 Update

Just a quick update to let everyone know where I'm yet.  As I've posted previously, the store closed in order for me to move from NM to FL.  Have I moved?  Yes.  Unfortunately I had to shut down my NM business and I need to start a new business in FL.  Part one of the process is that my main employer has to agree to my business venture.  They want to make sure there is no conflict of interest between what I'm doing and my main job (there isn't, but the approval process is taking a while).  After that is done, I need to work with FL to start the business up again.  If anyone has ever done this, you'll know that it's not easy.  The government doesn't make it easy to set up a business.  There are multiple agencies you need to contact to get various approvals.  There are tax documents, approvals to use your doing business as name, registering with your county, etc.  I apologize to anyone who has an interest in purchasing something from the store, but has to wait.  A few items have been favorited on my Brick Classifieds store... don't worry it will open up again.  Thanks for your patience!  If there is something you are interested in, please contact me and I can take it down and hold it until the store is open again.  

There are a few items I'd like to buy personally that haven't been easy.  The Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS (#42056) is on my list, but it seems to always be out of stock.  Over the weekend I saw it available briefly, but I failed to make the purchase right away.  I have a number of VIP points that will help to cut down on the price so that will be a bonus.  Now I just need to actually place the order.  Also, Series 16 Collectible Minifigures are out.  They are sold out as well.  

Is there anything else I should post on the blog or that I should add to the store when it opens up?  Post in the comments or send me an email with your thoughts.  

UPDATE: 15 hours after I wrote this post, I checked LEGO® Shop at Home and the Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS (#42056) was listed as in stock.  I dumped all of the VIP points that I have been saving for quite some time on it to get a sweet discount.  The order has been placed and I'm looking forward to the shipment arriving and writing up a set review for it.  SWEET!!!!  My NLS gets questions from friends about her tolerance for the excessive amount of LEGO® in the house.  The usual response is that it could be wrose and I coudl be into sport cars or something more expensive.  What happens when I buy a sport car made of LEGO®?

Store Review - LEGO® Brand Store - Tysons Corner Center - McLean, VA

I was in the Washington DC area this past weekend with my family and with some downtime decided to stop at a nearby mall (mainly for the air conditioning on a hot day).  As it turns out this mall had one of my favorite stores in it.  The LEGO® brand store in the Tysons Corner Center happened to be open while we were there so of course I hadto check it out.  In walking around the mall it seemed that the bags you saw people carrying most were either Victoria's Secret or yellow with a red 2x4 brick on it.  We followed the bags and ended up at the store.  It was busy.  Lots of kids all over the place building in the various free build areas and running around excited to see all the sets.  A store worker was near the entrance to greet people.  I'm not sure they appointed the right person as this worker was rather quiet and didn't give a smile.  We got "have you been to a LEGO® store before?" and "your kid's outfit is cute."  Great.  Whatever.  I wasn't there to chat with the employees.

The store seemed to be pretty well stocked with all of the different themes.  I didn't inspect each and every one, but I didn't see holes on the shelves either.  One of the items on display in the front of the store was the new Creator Expert - Big Ben #10253.    

As my NLS (non-LEGO® Spouse) commented, it looked beautiful.  I've seen the pictures and designer video, but seeing it up close and personal was pretty cool.  They did an amazing job with the design.  Here's the box on the shelf.

Another set that I finally got to see in person was the LEGO® Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS (#42056).  First off, it looks incredible and very sleek!  Secondly, it is definitely a lot bigger than I expected.  The picture I took is pretty bad because it's behind glass so you get a reflection and some of the paint on the window, but it's still an impressive model.  The set was on the shelf, but the box was listed as "for display only."  I didn't pick it up to see if it was just the box or the actual set.  My guess is that if you wanted it you had to request it from the workers.  I didn't ask to see if they had them in stock or if you had to order them.

Other things to note about the store... Collectible Minifigures Series 16 releases on 1 August 2016 (I believe), but they were on sale at the store.  I saw at least one AFOL trying to feel through the bags to get the ones he was looking for.  Also, it was a good mix of people buying different items.  Lots of families with kids walking out with smaller bags including Angry Birds sets and Friends.  We also saw someone walk out with a Tower Bridge (#10214).

Did I make a purchase?  Yes!  My NLS did let me or maybe I pressed ahead without asking before she could say no.  Either way, I am a big fan of the Pick-a-Brick wall in the back of every LEGO® brand store that I have been in.  They have 2 size cups that you can pick from and fill as you want.  I picked the larger cup that cost $16.95 in Virginia after tax.  They had a range of parts in different colors and sizes.  I tend to stick to the smaller pieces so you can fit more in and I pick the colors that are not as prevalent.  I have yet to open my container, but I was impressed that the store worker used packaging tape to make sure my container didn't explode so that was good (I'm sure it's from experience and having to clean up messes in the store).  My cup is below:

My favorite by far is the sand green parts that were available.  They had 1x1 bricks and 1x2 plates.  That's not a common color that I tend to see often so I was glad to grab a few.

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Update (August 9 2016):
2 pictures below of the bricks I picked up from the Pick-a-Brick Wall.  I didn't merge them together, but hopefully you can see where the pictures match up.  You'll notice I went for most of the smaller pieces to try and fit more pieces into the container.  In the end I counted 753 pieces from the container.  With the Virginia tax the final came out to be about $0.02 per piece.  I can't complain about that.

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My favorite by far is the sand green parts that were available.  They had 1x1 bricks and 1x2 plates.  That's not a common color that I tend to see often so I was glad to grab a few.

I called it a review so I should give my opinion.  Should you go to this store?  Or any LEGO® brand store?  The selection is great and the additional benefits are useful such as the Pick-a-Brick wall and minifigure creation station.  Plus you get store workers who understand LEGO® and can help you get sets you don't have if they aren't in stock.  They also have some of the harder to find sets that aren't typically in your average retail store.  Finally you can get and use VIP points for your purchases.  The downsides... you don't get the discounts that you can find at places like Target, Walmart, or Amazon.com.  Everything is at the full retail price.  So should you go, I recommend going if you're looking for a harder to find set or price is not your main driver.  The Pick-a-Brick wall is useful if you stack the cup right too.  It's a fairly decent way to get pieces.  Once I open up the cup I purchased, I'll give an update to this post with the number of pieces I got and the different types.  

Do I wish I had a LEGO® brand store closer?  Yes!  Maybe it's better that I don't when it comes to my credit card bill.  What are your thoughts of the LEGO® brand stores?