I gave my Brick Geometry presentation yet again at Bricks by the Bay this year, and here’s the slides.
Tag: #lego
Anger by Angus MacLane
Angus MacLane, who works at Pixar, recently posted pics of his excellent model of the Anger character from the new Disney-Pixar movie Inside Out. I had the pleasure of watching the movie last night and enjoyed it quite a lot. (Living here in the San Francisco bay area it was an extra treat seeing Pixar’s version of SF, which was a bit grittier than I’d expect but captured the essence of it quite well.)
Maker Faire Bay Area 2015
Earlier this month, BayLUG (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) participated once again in the annual Maker Faire Bay Area, in San Mateo, CA. This is the 10th annual Maker Faire and the 10th that we particpated in (though I personally was out of town for last year’s show). We had a 75′ by 15′ space featuring a train layout, Great Ball Contraption, robotics demonstrations, sculptures and mosaics, WWII ships, and a kids’ play area.
Easter Bunny
Spring is here and with it come two ages-old symbols of fertility – the rabbit and the egg. But since Easter comes in the springtime, these symbols are part of the Christian tradition of Easter. Either way, they’re cute and so I decided to make a LEGO bunny and some eggs.
Desktop LEGO: Easter Bunny and Trees
I won this bulk bricks box (#6177 Builders of Tomorrow) at the annual BayLUG raffle, and took it to work, where I built a couple things: Easter Bunny with two eggs, and a couple trees (not to scale).
Reverse Engineering Contest IV
My solutions to the challenges in the Reverse Engineering Contest IV group.
Sheep
The February BayLUG meeting had an “animals” contest theme, so I put this together the night before. Like the Xmas Ornaments I posted about a couple months ago, it’s basically an elongated Lowell sphere, with head and legs attached and an ice cream tail.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, the day when just about everyone in the U.S. claims to be at least a little bit Irish, which means wearing green clothing and often imbibing copious amounts of beer with green food coloring added, especially when it falls on a weekend. (There’s very little to do with saints involved.) And more to the point, images of leprechauns.
Pie for Pi Day
In the American way of writing dates at least, today is 3/14/15 which is of course, Ï€ (pi), that irrational mathematical constant we all love to memorize the digits of (or at least the geekier of us do). In honor of this special day I have created two new models…
Improved LEGO Calendar
If you’ve built the LEGO Brick Calendar 853195, you might have discovered that it’s a real pain to rearrange it each month. So I’ve created my own version, using the parts from that set plus others from my collection, to create a better version.
Advent 2014
The time has come for my annual tradition of blogging each day of LEGO’s Advent calendars. This year again we have three calendars, for Friends, Star Wars, and City. I selected winners afterwards, rating the best and worst models across all three calendars. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2014 edition.
Book Review: Steampunk LEGO by Guy Himber
There is a new book coming out about the intersection of two of the most creative hobbies I know: LEGO and Steampunk. The book “Steampunk LEGO” by Guy Himber, a.k.a. V&A Steamworks covers a wide range of LEGO creations in the Steampunk genre.
BayLTC at Great Train Expo Pleasanton 2014
The Bay Area LEGO Train Club exhibit at the Great Train Expo in Pleasanton, California, November 22-23, 2014. See www.baylug.org for more information about the club.
Octan Gas Station
My LEGO gas station is now on display at the LEGO store in Pleasanton, California at the Stoneridge Mall. I built it in 2012 and first showed it at Bricks by the Bay, but never posted a blog entry about it until now.
The Frustrating World of LEGO Trains
The world of LEGO trains can be rather frustrating for the adult hobbyist. Here’s a quick primer for those who are interested in getting into this part of the LEGO hobby. (This is adapted from a comment I made on Facebook in response to someone who was just getting into LEGO trains in 2014.)
Brickpile YouTube Channel – Brickworld 2011 Videos
I’ve started a new YouTube channel for Bill Ward’s Brickpile. I’ll be adding videos from LEGO events, and maybe even some original content, tours of my MOCs, etc. So far I’ve just published two videos, which form a 2-part walk-through of Brickworld from 2011:
BrickCon 2014
As I’ve done every year since 2008, I went to this year’s BrickCon LEGO convention in Seattle. But this year my trip to BrickCon was a part of an extended vacation which included my trip to the LEGO Fan Weekend 2014, Skærbæk Denmark.
LEGO Fan Weekend 2014, Skærbæk Denmark
As I mentioned in my last post, I attended the 10th and final LEGO Fan Weekend in Skærbæk, Denmark, on September 26-28. I say “final” because it is the last time that it is being run by the LEGO company, but the local LEGO fans will be taking over running it as of next year, so the event will continue. However it was my first time there and I had a great time!
Set Review: 21009 Exo-Suit
In 1978, LEGO introduced the first Classic Space sets. I was 7 years old and totally thrilled. Now LEGO has returned at long last to that theme with the new 21109 Exo-Suit set from LEGO IDEAS.
“LEGO didn’t make those specialized parts when I was a kid”
Have you ever been talking about LEGO with someone who said “LEGO didn’t make those specialized parts when I was a kid”? It happens all the time at shows. Whenever we have a BayLUG exhibit at a model train show or museum or Maker Faire, or on the public day at Bricks by the Bay or other conventions, there are always adults coming through who look at the clever uses of parts in our MOCs and make a comment like this.
Set review: 21108 Ghostbusters
One of the most exciting sets from LEGO of late is the 21108 “ECTO-1” car from the movie Ghostbusters. This is the first LEGO IDEAS set that I’ve purchased (21109 Exo-Suit, which I’m even more excited about, is being shipped to me as I write this).
Bricks by the Bay 2014
Our annual LEGO convention here in the bay area, Bricks by the Bay, just happened! I was so busy organizing it that I’m afraid I never got around to posting a blurb on my blog about it – hope you heard about it through other means and were there! It was a huge event, expanding to add a second ballroom, and adding an extra day (Thursday) for a new workshop program. We almost doubled last year’s attendance on the public day (about 4500 vs 2500 last year) though our convention attendance was down.