Bill Ward's Brickpile » Bill

Going to BrickCon

Bill — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:15:36 +0000

I’ve just submitted my registration fees for BrickCon, the LEGO convention in Seattle. It’s held the first weekend in October – starting September 30 and going through the weekend on October 3. I hope to see you there! Related posts:Home from BrickFair, thinking about BrickConBrickCon 2009Train show this weekend, then off to Seattle for [...] Related posts:

Brick Show now open

Bill — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:02:18 +0000

This was the opening weekend for the the Brick Show in San Leandro, CA at the Bay Area Family Church, organized by Johannes van Galen and featuring BayLUG/BayLTC. The show is ongoing through July 25 so come on out and check it out!

The show features a large train layout and various other displays in all themes of LEGO. Admission is $5 each for adults (age 16+) and $3 for kids ages 3-15. Kids under 3 are free.

I took a bunch of pictures around the display today. Click on the image to see them:

You can also view the pictures as a slide show on Flickr.

Seven-way radial symmetry technique

Bill — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:32:06 +0000

I just stumbled across a way to build a 7-way radial symmetry in LEGO.

A technique for building 7-way radial symmetry in LEGO. The blue 2×2 plates are connected to each other using plate hinges in a ring, and when I built that I noticed the ring looked like the right diameter to go around a 4×4 round piece. The hinges actually protrude a little into the center, but by sandwiching the two 4×4 rounds together and filling the space inside with a round 2×2 plate and seven (leaving one stud open) 1×1 round plates, you can make it all fit nicely. And since the 4×4 rounds and 2×2 round plate have axle holes, it can easily be connected to any Technic mechanism.

If you stick an axle in the middle it twirls like a top – it’s very well balanced.

LDraw code after the break:

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BayLUG at Maker Faire 2010

Bill — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:28:20 +0000

Here are the pictures from the Bay Area LEGO Users Group & Train Club’s exhibit at Maker Faire 2010 Bay Area in San Mateo, CA.

We had a 40′ by 50′ space just like last year, but this time we set aside about half of it as a play area for the little ones. We dumped out loose LEGO parts on the floor (including a DUPLO area for the really little ones) and spread them out on some tables as well, so that fairegoers could build whatever they wanted. We then had some tables set aside to display these MOCs (My Own Creations), and had volunteers who would take pictures of the models and put them up on a computer. I brought my video projector and we had a continuous slideshow running all weekend with pictures of these MOCs.

Besides the play area, we had the usual train layout, and a row of tables for other themes such as space and sculptures.

You can see all my BayLUG pictures from Maker Faire in the BayLUG at Maker Faire 2010 photoset (slideshow), or see Maker Faire 2010 for all my Maker Faire photos, including both LEGO and non-LEGO displays.

Bricks by the Bay Photos

Bill — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:02:43 +0000

My Bricks by the Bay Pictures are available on Flickr if you want to take a look at some of the great models on display and the crowds on the public day. The convention was held Friday-Sunday, April 9-11, 2010 in Fremont. We had such great media coverage that throngs of people flocked to the hotel to see the LEGO models on Sunday, April 11. People waited for hours in a line that snaked out the lobby and through the parking garage and we had to turn people away once we realized the line was so long that people at the end might not get in before closing time. It was a huge success and we’re looking forward to having an even bigger and better convention in 2012.

Click the image to see the pictures or view them as a slideshow.

Goodbye, nnenn

Bill — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:34:24 +0000

I was stunned to learn today of the passing of Nate “nnenn” Nielsen in an automobile accident. Keith of the Brothers Brick has posted an excellent eulogy which I encourage you to read along with the many comments from members of the online community included in the post.

It’s relatively rare that we learn of the death of a LEGO hobbyist, but whenever it happens I always wonder what would happen to my collection of bricks after I’m gone? Estate planning is always a touchy subject, but I would encourage everyone to give it some thought, as I will be doing.

And even if you’re not a space builder, consider building a Vic Viper for the Missing Man Fly-In at BrickWorld in Chicago in June or BrickCon in October. Keith is collecting contributions for a group display honoring nnenn’s work.

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2010/04/13/farewell-to-a-legend-mourning-the-passing-of-nate-nnenn-nielsen/

BBTB: Some good, some bad, some ugly… but mostly great

Bill — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:08:43 +0000

So, that was what it’s like to run a LEGO convention.

I’m sitting in my hotel room, having just finished up the cleanup after the Bricks by the Bay LEGO convention. It was an amazing experience! The convention itself was so much fun and great to see so many of my ideas coming to life and actually working. We had nine themes, each with its own coordinator and judging categories, keynote speech by LEGO’s EVP-Marketing Mads Nipper, contests and games, and lots of door prizes. And though there were a couple times when I got really stressed out trying to make sure everything went off without a hitch, for the most part it was a seamless experience.

The public day though, was a bit of a debacle. We had such great publicity that the turnout was tremendous. I was interviewed for television several times, and the people came out in droves. People stood in line for hours in the cold and rain and the ballroom was packed elbow-to-elbow so much that we had to stop letting people get in line at 1:30. We had a few irate people after that, but most people understood that even if they got to the head of the line, they wouldn’t be able to stay long since we had to close at 4.

For the most part though, it went pretty well. We had a lot of positive comments and those who did get in seemed to have a great time. I just have to remember to not let a few bad apples spoil the barrel.

I’ll post my pictures online soon but right now I think I just want to rest and recover…

I LEGO N.Y.

Bill — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:00:49 +0000

I LEGO N.Y. by Christoph Niemann is a book that was released on March 1, 2010. It’s a series of photographs featuring mini NYC vignettes, created entirely out of LEGO pieces! It originated as a blog post on NYTIMES.com. As far as I know, Niemann isn’t known as an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO, the term used by the adult LEGO hobbyist community).

The book is a board book, printed on thick cardboard pages like a book for children who might be inclined to eat the pages. There are photos of cute little micro-models of LEGO parts representing aspects of New York culture and life, built usually with just a handful of basic LEGO parts. It’s certainly not a primer on advanced LEGO building techniques, but instead goes for a very minimalist approach. Each photo has a handwritten caption saying what it is, and that’s where a lot of the humor often comes from.

There’s no sense of story or continuity; each individual item would stand alone quite well. In fact this might have been better as a desktop calendar or comic strip format rather than a book.

I’m not a New Yorker, so perhaps I would have appreciated this more if I were. But while I felt a lot of the little models in the book were very clever, and in some cases hilarious, a number of them just didn’t do much for me. I think it’s enjoyable for anyone who likes LEGO, especially if you’re a New Yorker or a fan of New York, but I’m not sure it’s worth the $14.95 ($10.17 on Amazon). I’m not sure it’s something you’d want to read over and over, which is another reason I think a desktop calendar would have been a better format for this. Anyway, I’m donating my copy to Bricks by the Bay, to be given out as a door prize. Maybe you’ll win it!

(Disclaimer: I was sent a free review copy of the book, and the Amazon link in this review is an affiliate link.)

Washing LEGO

Bill — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:10:34 +0000

This is how I wash LEGO parts… how do you do it?

I’ve tried a few approaches. The laundry washing machine (in a mesh bag) worked fairly well, but I think a few bits got loose and got in the drain so I stopped doing that. The dishwasher (mesh bag in the top rack) also works OK, but I think it gets too hot in there – I had some warped bricks from the heat. Handwashing seems the safest, to ensure I don’t lose any parts down the drain or have them melted. If the water is cool enough to not damage my hands, it’s cool enough to not damage the bricks.

I always wash used bricks when I get them, and also any model that has been on display for any length of time tends to gather dust. I’m very allergic to dust, and I live with someone who’s very allergic to animal dander, so I need to keep my collection clean.

Anyway, here’s the four step process I use to wash bricks. Please post in the comments if you’ve found a better way or have any war stories about dirty bricks….

1. Soak in soapy water. I use All Free/Clear laundry soap – I figure if it’s good for synthetic fabrics it should be good for plastic bricks.

2. Transfer to mesh bag and rinse in bathtub. I had to do this in three batches, I had so many dirty bricks.

3. Use laundry basket, lined with towel, to carry to living room.

4. Dump out on towels on living room floor, with fan blowing on them. Luckily I live in coastal California, so the humidity is low and they actually get dry this way. I’ll stir them periodically, but they’ll be dry enough to sort and put away in a day or two.

Anyone want to come over and help me sort? I’ll give you free pizza!

BayLTC at TCA 2010

Bill — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:33:03 +0000

Last weekend I, along with other members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club, had a display at the Northern California Train Collectors Association Cal-Stewart Spring Meet in Santa Clara, CA. This is one of our favorite locations to do a train show – the hall is beautiful, and the crowds are manageable enough that we don’t have to put up our “sneeze guard” plastic barriers on the layout. It was open to the public only on Sunday for four hours. Pictures from the show can be seen on Flickr (or view as a slideshow). Enjoy!

How best to share building instructions for my creations?

Bill — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:55:37 +0000

Every once in a while I get a request to share building instructions for my models. I am willing to do so, but haven’t quite figured out the best way. I was wondering if people might want to comment and make some suggestions?

Some possibilities for formats are are:

LDraw files
PDF of instructions generated using LDraw and LDpub
Printed instructions in black & white or color

The ugly side of the equation comes when I contemplate compensation. Do I sell them or just give them away? I think it depends on how much work I have to put into them. I won’t go through the trouble of creating printed instructions for free, but I might be willing to share the LDraw files for free (Creative Commons licensed). The question is, how much would people be willing to pay, and is that enough to justify the work it would take me to prepare nice looking instructions?

BayLUG meeting at Dave Porter’s house

Bill — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:51:19 +0000

On January 24, Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group (BayLUG) had our annual meeting at Dave Porter’s house in Woodside, CA. Dave always sets up a very impressive layout in his loft featuring a huge collection of LEGO sets and his own custom creations, with running trains. He has been inviting the club up to his house every January for the past few years to share his layout and give us a chance to show off what we’ve been up to. Marcello de Cicco brought his Japanese Navy ships to show off, and Brian Thiemer and his wife brought their newest MOC, a baby, to the meeting!

We also had a presentation about Bricks by the Bay, and BayLUG agreed to loan some money to the nonprofit org. that is putting on the convention to help with start-up costs. If you haven’t signed up yet to attend the convention (April 9-11, 2010, in Fremont, CA) please do so soon! Early bird pricing ends February 23.

The photos from the meeting have been online for a while now (slideshow) but I have been neglecting to post about it here.

Reasonably Lazy

Bill — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:04:48 +0000

Readers of the “Brick House” comic at Reasonably Clever will have noticed that the characters are now wandering around the author’s home in Detroit. Does this mean Christopher Doyle finally got too lazy to build new sets? ;-)

LEGO Nutcracker

Bill — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:16:12 +0000

My latest LEGO model, just in time for Christmas, is the Nutcracker, a classic Christmas icon. In fact, it was built on Christmas Eve!

Inspired by the ballet by Alexandre Dumas père (an adaptation of the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E. T. A. Hoffmann), set to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and staged by Marius Petipa. My wife and I saw the San Francisco Ballet version of this last week, and I’ve been wanting to make a LEGO nutcracker ever since. I was going to make a big one, about two feet tall, but haven’t got around to it yet… in the meantime I really like the way this little guy came out.

The mechanism functions pretty well; by lifting his coattails his mouth opens, just like real wooden nutcrackers. Of course, being the size that he is, you can’t crack much of a nut with it, which is probably just as well since it would most likely fall apart in your hands if you tried – LEGO studs’ clutch power is no match for your average nut.

Click on any of the images for a bigger view, or go to the Flickr photo set (slideshow)

Merry Christmas!

2009 Advent Calendars

Bill — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:22:44 +0000

Like last year, LEGO came up with two advent calendars, only one of which was sold in the U.S. The 7687 City advent calendar was sold everywhere, but the 6299 Pirates calendar was only available in Europe. (If you’re not familiar with advent calendars, they basically consist of 24 different gifts, one to be opened on each day of Advent, the traditional Christian season that precedes Christmas, or in other words December 1-24. These days, it’s secularized – fine by me, since I’m not religious – but the name has stuck.)

Last year, LEGO accidentally shipped a few sets of that year’s specialty calendar, which had a Castle theme, to the U.S. Shop-At-Home warehouse, and since the fans were complaining so loudly about it not being available in this country they were convinced to make them available through a special mail-order setup. But we didn’t have any such luck this year with the Pirates calendar, so unless you had a friend in Europe willing to ship it to you, there was no way to get it.

Well, my friend Holger Matthes in Germany was willing to do this favor for me, and I was hoping to get it in time for December 1st so I could post each day’s set like I did last year (each of those words is a link to a different day’s calendar from last year; days 1-7 and 24 are shown, but I bet you can find the rest). But alas, the package took a long time getting here (not Holger’s fault; he shipped it as soon as I gave him the details – but DHL took its sweet time in delivering it. Next time I’ll pay extra for airmail/express, or just order sooner. Though hopefully LEGO will have learned its lesson and won’t require me to jump through such hoops…)

If you want to see more clever coverage of the Advent calendars than I can provide, check out Chris Doyle’s Reasonably Clever blog where he’s included each day’s calendar prizes into the BRiCK House web comic.

Anyway, I didn’t get the Pirates calendar until December 18th, so I put photos on Flickr of the first 19 days the next day and have updated it today with the rest. You can see the City and Pirates sets for each day in my 2009 Advent Calendars set (or view as a slideshow).

I was surprised to see that both calendars had the days in the same quasi-random order. It made it easy to build them side-by-side; once I found that day’s door in one calendar, the other calendar had the same number in the same position. It did seem to me that all the doors were printed upside-down; the flap of the box was in the way if you tried to open the doors with the printing facing right-side-up. Last year, the direction of the printing was opposite on the two boxes, if I recall correctly.

BayLUG Museum Show Open through January 17

Bill — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:27:26 +0000

This weekend, the Bay Area LEGO Users Group opened our annual “Living LEGO-cy” exhibit at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA. We’ll be open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day) through Sunday, January 17. Admission is $2 (free for BayLUG and MoAH members and kids under 2), which is split 50/50 between the club and the museum.

Come on down and check it out soon before the publicity spreads and we start getting huge crowds! Last year we had 1500 people on the last weekend, with people waiting for several hours in the rain in a line around the block to get in!! We have our first TV interviews this Friday morning for a Spanish language station…

BayLTC at San Jose Train Show, Sep 2009

Bill — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:09:37 +0000

Oops, I forgot to upload these pictures earlier! We had a great time displaying at the Great Train Expo in San Jose in September, and the following weekend I went to Seattle for BrickCon, and somehow uploading the pictures from the train slow slipped my mind. Well, here they are! Click the photo for the set page on Flickr or view as a slideshow.

BayLTC at Pleasanton train show

Bill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:35:19 +0000

This past weekend, the Bay Area LEGO Train Club took part in the Great Train Expo in Pleasanton, CA. We had a large train and town display – the largest we’ve ever done, in terms of square footage of table space, using all 28 club tables plus 3 more that Bruce made for himself. My pictures for the event can be seen on Flickr (slideshow).

BrickCon 2009

Bill — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:39:26 +0000

Last weekend (October 1-4) the BrickCon LEGO convention was held in Seattle, Washington. I drove up to the convention and had a wonderful time!

As it turned out, my friend Donia who I met dancing in Santa Cruz was moving to Seattle that weekend, so I was able to combine helping her move with attending the convention. It also got me a place to crash so I could save the cost of a hotel room. I drove her car to Seattle, while she followed in a van she borrowed from a friend of hers. After the convention, I drove the van back home. On my way north, I stopped in Portland for the night Thursday night, and stayed at the apartment of another friend I knew from dancing. While I was there I went to the Waltz Eclectic and had a great time! In the morning I did a little Goodwill shopping and had lunch with yet another dancing friend before heading to Seattle.

I got to the convention Friday in the early afternoon and unpacked my LEGO models. I brought the Scrambler, various cars and trucks and RV’s, a few train models, and my DC-3 airplane. The Scrambler and DC-3 were motorized, so in keeping with the theme of the event, “Bricks in Motion,” I thought it was especially important to bring those.

Friday night we had the opening ceremonies, where the new 10210 Imperial Flagship was revealed. There was much oohing and aahing. Afterward we all went to the LEGO store in Bellevue where we were able to get discounted LEGO sets – 50% off “scratch & dent” sets (prize tickets were used to determine order for selecting up to 4 items) and 20% off everything in the store. It was quite crazy, as it always is at these events, but a lot of fun too. I think I restrained myself pretty well, all things considered, but I still spent a lot of money.

Saturday was the first day that the exhibit was open to the public. We had about 4500 people go through looking at all the LEGO models on display. Most of the day I spent with my nose in the computer, avoiding the crowds. I didn’t go around and take pictures at all Friday or Saturday, though. A few people had to leave Saturday night, so I missed a few models, but Sunday (even more people came on Sunday; over 4700!) I made up for it in terms of picture-taking. I managed to go around to all the tables and take pictures Sunday, mostly during the public hours. Also, the friends I was staying with came by Sunday and I was able to see the exhibit through their eyes which was a lot of fun.

Sunday was Donia’s birthday, so we went out for sushi and chocolate. We were going to go to a swing dance featuring Gordon Webster but didn’t manage to get around to it. (But it’s OK because he played at the Friday Night Blues in San Francisco this past Friday, and I was able to go to that – the music was amazing!) But back to the BrickCon trip… On the way home I stopped in Portland for the day, and met with a colleague from Oracle who was based there. I went to Random Waltz in Portland that night (If you like dancing and ever find yourself in Portland on a Thursday or Monday night, you gotta check out those waltzes. The dance community there is very welcoming and friendly, and I had a great time at both of them!), stayed the night in a hotel paid for by the company, and then went home the next day. I got home around 2am Wednesday morning.

My pictures from BrickCon can be seen on Flickr (or view as slideshow). Warning: there are over 400 photos so it may take a while to see them all!

Train show this weekend, then off to Seattle for BrickCon

Bill — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:55:06 +0000

This coming weekend, I’ll join members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (a subgroup of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group) at the Great Train Expo in San Jose. We’ll put out a large train layout, about 25×25 feet, with lots of trains, a city, and the usual stuff. Come on down and say hi. It’s at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds in San Jose. Admission is $7 for adults (good for both days) and kids under 12 get in free.

And then, I’ll be driving up to Seattle next week for BrickCon! A friend of mine happens to be moving to Seattle for the first of October, so I’ll be borrowing/ferrying her car up, while she follows up in a van she’s borrowed from a friend of hers, which I’m driving back home in. Sounds complicated – wish me luck! Anyway I’ll be coming up with an assortment of MOCs, though probably not as much as I took to Portland for BrickFest this spring – I’m carrying some of her stuff up, and anyway I ought to be able to see out the rear window.