LEGO Book Needs You

Greetings LEGO builders! I'm working on a book about LEGO and I need your help!

I want to do a series of profiles on adult brickers and their interests. Now, I can't guarantee that everyone will make it in, but the more interesting your responses are, the better chance you'll be in there.

If you're interested, and are 18 or over, send the following to brickbook@yahoo.com:

1) Headshot

2) Your name, age and occupation.

3) Answer as many of the following questions as you'd like: What are you building? Favorite set? Favorite brick color? Favorite genre? What music do you listen to when building? When's your best building time?

4) If I left off a question you're dying to answer, feel free to include it.

Thanks very much!

Choose The Next LEGO Star Wars Scene

The LEGO Group and Toysrus.com want your opinion on LEGO Star Wars products for 2009. What epic scene from the movies would you like LEGOized?

Go to www.Toysrus.com/LegoStarWarsVote from May 10 at 12:01 am to May 18 at 11:59 pm to vote for one of three classic Star Wars scenes that you'd like to see transformed into a LEGO set. Results will be released in February 2009, and the product will be available only at Toys"R"Us stores nationwide and online at www.Toysrus.com in September 2009!

What would you like to see made into a LEGO set? Unfortunately we won't get to see which three scenes you get to vote on until the 10th. Personally, I'd really like to see a "LEGO Jabba's Palace" with a mess o' alien minifigs. (There have been some fan recreations, but I don't believe there is an official set.)

Also see: LEGO Star Wars: The Saga Continues

Photo photoshopped by Don Solo from images created by contributors to FBTB.net (cc)

LEGO Star Wars: The Saga Continues

There's something truly epic about LEGO's Star Wars sets. The movies themselves evoke a "larger than life" aura with titanic space ships and earth-shattering upheaval, and LEGO responds in kind with wonderful recreations. From the simple vehicles found in $10 sets to multi-thousand-piece megamodels, LEGO captures the big and little aspects of the movies. It doesn't hurt that the company has made a major commitment to the series, having licensed with Lucasfilm since 1999, with the agreement extending through 2011.

Of course, when one thinks of "titanic" and "LEGO Star Wars" one immediately thinks of the company's magnificent Ultimate Collector series such as the Millennium Falcon or independent builders' creations like Mark Kelso's amazing Invisible Hand. However, as I mentioned, a set doesn't have to be gigantic to be fun.

One of this year's offerings, the AT-AP Podwalker (pictured above) typifies the truism that even a relatively small LEGO set can be fun to build. The AT-AP is a walker crewed by two clone troopers, and packs three cannon and three legs. The center leg folds up under the belly for rapid loping and pops down (presumably) for stability during heavy cannon fire. As usual, LEGO pays attention to details that casual observers may never even notice. The weapons rack inside the body, or the the flip-out panels allowing you to see the interior.

Look for more cool Star Wars models from LEGO this year, ranging from the humble 81-piece Imperial Dropship to the colossal thousand-piece Republic Gunship, due out this August.

GeekDad Review: The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor's Guide

In some respects, the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT set's seemingly limitless potential serves to intimidate beginning builders -- the question looms, where to start? That's why books like The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor's Guide (No Starch) are so important. They supply newbies with the how-to they need to get started, and provide a variety of simple and challenging projects. With this help, builders get the confidence they need to start creating original projects.

The Inventor's Guide, written by David J. Perdue, begins with a ten whole chapters of background information, with how-tos on such topics as building sturdy structures, configuring gears, and the NXT programming language NXT-G. This latter section, which actually consists of three chapters, shows the author's strength with programming. Perdue, a MIS student at Liberty University clearly knows what he's doing at the keyboard. I was particularly impressed by the author's suggestions for first time users. NXT can be intimidating, and having material on as basic a topic as unpacking tips could prove very helpful to raw newbies. Of course these informational chapters can be skipped over if all you want to do is make the robots! chapters can be skipped over if all you want to do is make the robots!

Speaking of which, it's not until Chapter 11 that Perdue presents the robots that make up the "juicy part" of the book. The Zippy-Bot starts off the selection. Quick and simple to build, it serves as a platform for a number of subsequent bots. For example, the Bumper-Bot and Claw-Bot add capabilities to the basic bot. This gradual enhancement demonstrates the importance of building basic models and expanding upon them to learn the system. "The goal is to encourage and equip readers to begin creating their very own inventions," Perdue said. "I often advise new users to take sample models and modify them into different creations."

Then he busts out the more complicated robots. The Tag-Bot plays flashlight tag using its light sensors to detect when it's "tagged." The Guard-Bot is a six-legged robot that detects movement and responds. But my favorite robot of the six is the Golf-Bot, that can pinpoint an object in the room, and launch a "golf ball" (actually the NXT-standard ping-pong ball) at the target.

With a very solid how-tos, an awesome programming section as well as cool robots, the Inventor's Guide has a lot to offer both brand-new users as well as experienced builders. Best of all, the models described in the book use parts from a single LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT starter set, so you don't have to be a power user get started building.

Geeky Toys Do Well at TOTY Awards

Congrats to all the winners of the 2008 TOTY awards, which salute the best toys of the year. 2007's winners were fairly mundane -- TMX Elmo but no LEGO? Srsly? But 2008's recipients possess mad geeky cred. Here are some of the winners:

Toy of the Year: Spinmaster Air Hogs Havoc Heli. Remote control dueling choppers!

Activity Toy of the Year: LEGO City. Reviewed here in the past, City fulfills the LEGO's vast potential as perfectly as any series they've put out. Richly deserved!

Game of the Year: Techno Source Rubik's Revolution. An electronic game with the classic Rubik's Cube form factor.

Specialty Toy of the Year: Elenco Snap Circuits. Learn electronic theory with snap-together circuits! It warms my heart that the DIY craze has extended so far that a kit like this could win an award.

LEGO Mindstorms Automated Microscope

More and more we see instances where people use LEGO for serious projects, not merely for the amusement factor, but because it offers an awesome customizable framework for experiments.

Check out this automated microscope prototyped by a guy named Jamie Robinson, a PhD student from the University of Southampton. The USB microscope is controlled via a LEGO framework that moves the microscope and focuses automatically by raising and lowered the sample to be scanned. Additionally, it has the ability to methodically scan a larger sample by dividing it into grids.

"LEGO provides us with a familiar 'physical sandbox' which can be used to demonstrate various technologies," Robinson and his cohorts said in their super-dry abstract. "[it] allows for the rapid development of mechanical solutions that may take weeks to produce using traditional manufacturing processes. The use of LEGO Mindstorms provides us with a convenient, robust, programmable controller."

Via Hack A Day

Geekdad Builds LEGO USS Harry S Truman

LEGO Star Destroyer -- HA! Malle Hawking beats it hands down. It's a 200,000-brick, 350-pound aircraft carrier -- the USS Harry S Truman -- complete with electrical lights as well as moving elevators and radar dishes.



As all of us geekdads can appreciate, building this model was not without difficulties on the homefront. Hawking, a German father of two and (at least before this masterwork) neophyte bricker spent over $20,000 on parts and it took the better part of a year. But despite "lots of arguments at home" he somehow succeeded and showed the Truman all over Europe. The brick de resistance was to be an appearance at Brickworld '07 with transport provided by the US Navy, but unfortunately the arrangement fell through.