Category: BayLUG

Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group – www.baylug.org

Vintage Vehicles & Family Festival

My LEGO club, BayLUG at the Vintage Vehicles festival the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group had an exhibit at the Vintage Vehicles and Family Festival in Palo Alto on August 13, 2006.

The event was a benefit for the Museum of American Heritage, held in a park along El Camino Real, just across the street from the Stanford Shopping Center. Mostly, it consisted of interesting cars on display and occasionally being driven around. While I never left the BayLUG display area, I saw and heard about several of the things there, including a working Stanley Steamer (steam-powered car from the early 20th century)!

In our area, we had three spaces, with canopies covering them. The LEGO models on display were in the middle space, with for-sale items on the two sides. One of the sides was devoted entirely to “Uncle Dan,” our club’s professional LEGO vendor. The other side featured items for sale by various members.

In the middle, we had some vintage Technic vehicles on display thanks to David Wegmuller, several pirate ships by Brian Thamer, and I brought my DC-3 airplane, a few cars & trucks, and my RV’s. We also had the contest entries on display. The theme of the contest was “vintage vehicles” and my entry in the contest was a vignette of “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. I’ll be displaying it, along with a few other poetry vignettes that Holly and I have been working on, at BrickFest in a couple weeks in Washington, D.C.

Click the image to view all my photos of this event on Flickr.
[tags]lego,baylug,vintagevehicles,paloalto[/tags]

BayLUG Museum Show Wrap-Up

Last weekend we (members of BayLUG, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) tore down our museum display, which had been on display at the Museum on Main Street in Pleasanton from June 18 to July 30, and before that in Danville at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley from June 6-17.

LEGO Museum DisplayUsually when we have a club show like this, I post pictures that I take on my Flickr account and blog about it here. But alas, I forgot to bring my camera!!! However, another club member, Russell Clark, brought his and took some pics and posted them on Brickshelf.

My participation in this exhibit was somewhat limited due to schedule conflicts, but some of my buildings were on display including the Blackburn Hotel (black and tan hotel) and a couple of other downtown buildings, some houses, and the San Ladrillo train station.
[tags]lego,baylug,museum,pleasanton,danville,trains,town[/tags]

BayLUG Space Meeting June 18, 2006

On June 18, the Space contingent of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group had its first Space-only meeting.

We met on a Sunday evening at the Round Table Pizza parlor in Mountain View. They have a nice back room that you can reserve for free if you call ahead, which we’ve used for various members-only events in the past. Besides bringing our latest Space models to show off, we also had a contest and a parts draft.

My winning 'top greeble' contest entry
My winning “top greeble” contest entry

The contest was for “best greeble” and there were two categories: top greeble and bottom greeble. But what is a greeble? When they were building the models for use in the Star Wars movies, the modelers used the term “greeble” for the little bits of detail used to break up the otherwise smooth skin of the spacecraft. Read more about it on Wikipedia. Members brought examples of greebles on both the top and the bottom of their models (or looking another way, studs-up vs. studs-down). I won in the “top greeble” category!

Parts laid out for drafting
Parts laid out for drafting

The parts draft was an opportunity for us to leverage our buying power to get large numbers of interesting parts. A parts draft is where each person brings a particular LEGO set and then we sort the contents of the boxes into piles, and take turns drawing from the piles. We used Set 4881 “Robo Platoon” since it could be obtained for $5 at the local LEGO store (it sold out before the meeting was held though, so some members couldn’t get a copy), and had a lot of great parts. We limited it to 2 copies of the set per person, to keep things fair. We sorted the parts out into baggies and literally drew straws – Pizza Hut drinking straws cut to various lengths – to determine the order for selecting. Even though everyone got at least one unwanted bag (toward the end the choices were pretty limited), I think everyone was happy with what they got for their $5 (or $10 for those who brought two boxes).

The meeting date for our next Space meeting hasn’t been set yet, but it will probably be later in the summer. We did select a contest theme though – build a spaceship without using any grey (light grey or dark, old or new).[tags]lego,space,baylug,meeting,partsdraft,greeble,greebles,contest[/tags]

BayLUG Display at Valley Fair Mall

On Sunday, May 28, we (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) installed our first-ever display at the LEGO Store in the Valley Fair Mall, Santa Clara, CA. BayLUG Display at Valley Fair Mall Our display, changed out about once a month, was previously at the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton (such as the Microscale San Francisco in January and the Aquarium in February), but that LEGO store was closed in May and we were given permission to have our display in Santa Clara instead.

The theme for this display was “micro-scale space.” Several of the contest entries at the meeting on Saturday are featured along with a few others that were built just for this display. Participating members include Russell, Bruce, Charles, Adrienne, Jim, Justin, and myself.

We used several methods of displaying the flying models: some are taped to the back wall, some hang from strings attached to magnets, which are stuck to the underside of the shelf above, others hang from strings that are taped to said shelf, and still others are attached by wire which is wrapped around the shelf bracket above. Last time (the Aquarium) we used magnets and strings to suspend models and many of them fell down, but that was probably due to the construction in the shop next door. When this exhibit is over we’ll see which method(s) worked best.

My contribution to this display was the monorail you can see in the foreground, which commutes between an office building and a micro moonbase compatible station. The track continues off to the left out of the scene. When the display is over I’ll post an entry highlighting just that model, with photos showing how it was done, as I have done with entries from earlier store displays (TransAmerica Pyramid, Lombard Street, and Fish). I also provided the moon crater baseplates, which date back to the early 1980’s Classic Space LEGO era.

View all the pictures on Flickr or on Brickshelf (once moderated).[tags]lego,baylug,space,microscale,legostore[/tags]

BayLUG Meeting, May 27 2006

This past Saturday, BayLUG Meeting, May 27 2006 we had a Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group meeting at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. The theme for the contest was “micro scale space” with two contests, one for micro moonbase models and another for micro scale spacecraft. The term “micro scale” refers to any model built to a model where instead of using LEGO minifigs, the size of a human is taken to be about the height of a LEGO brick, or smaller.[tags]lego,baylug,space,microscale[/tags]

Lombard Street, San Francisco

Along with the TransAmerica Pyramid Lombard St. in LEGO, this was built for the display that my LEGO club, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group, had at the LEGO store in Pleasanton, CA. In January 2006 we used “mini-scale San Francisco” as the theme for our display.

More pictures of the model can be found on Flickr and on Brickshelf (once moderated).[tags]lego,lombardstreet,sanfrancisco,mymodels,microscale[/tags]

BayLUG at Maker Faire

Maker Faire BayLUG at Maker Faire sure was a lot of fun! We (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) had a great time showing off our LEGO train layout to the public and other Makers at the event.

I uploaded my pictures of the LEGO layout as well as other things from Maker Faire up on my Flickr account.

One of the highlights was when I got interviewed by Blaed Spence about the club on the Yahoo! Answers stage.

I don’t know if it’s going to be an annual event or what, but I sure hope they do another Maker Faire event again soon![tags]lego,makerfaire,baylug,bayltc[/tags]

Halfway through Maker Faire

Wow, this has been a great show! It’s quite different from the train shows we (BayLTC) usually do. The Maker Faire crowd is a very diverse group of artists, geeks, and craftspeople. Plus, a lot of families with kids which is just like what we’re used to. One of my favorite things about the LEGO hobby is when little kids are staring through the “sneeze guards” at our layout with their eyes and mouths open, and just about the only thing they can say is “wooooaaahhh.” That’s fun.

Unlike the train shows we have a lot more non-train stuff at this show. David brought in his big crane (it’s about 12 feet tall, entirely made of unglued LEGO bricks, mostly Technic), and an assortment of other Technic creations including pneumatic walkers and an inclined cog railway. I also brought in the only sculpture I currently have assembled, my Maneki Neko (Japanese good luck cat) statue.

I haven’t had a chance to take many pictures, but we shot an hour of video, including an interview of me at the Yahoo Answers stage which was a lot of fun. Hopefully I can edit that down to a reasonable size and make a little video of the Faire. I am planning to take a lot of stills tomorrow, and will post those on Flickr in the next few days.

If you come by the BayLUG layout at Maker Faire today (Sunday, April 23) please stop by and say hi!

Fish

These two fish Fish were built as part of a display that my LEGO club, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group, maintains at the Stoneridge Mall LEGO store in Pleasanton, CA. On February 20, 2006 we installed an “aquarium” theme there, which lasted for about a month. Read more about the installation and see more pics.

More pictures of the model can be found on Flickr.