Bill Ward's Brickpile

BayLUG at Maker Faire 2008, Day 1

Bill — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:34:37 +0000

For the third year, the Bay Area LEGO Users Group (BayLUG) is taking part in Maker Faire.

We have a 25-foot square train layout and several additional tables, including a large Technic crane and excavator. The show is open until 6pm today (Saturday, May 3) and tomorrow (Sunday, May 4). Hope to see you here!

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

Technorati Tags: lego, baylug, makerfaire

April 2008 BayLUG Meeting

Bill — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:28:29 +0000

We had another meeting of the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group (BayLUG) today at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto.

Members of BayLUG descended on the museum’s meeting room for a day of buying and selling parts, schmoozing, and displaying our latest models.

For the meeting contest, which had a Disney theme, I brought a pair of Mickey Mouse ears I had made out of LEGO. I won the contest in the adult category! (Of course, I was the only entry in the adult category, which takes a little bit of the fun out of it…) Unfortunately in the excitement I failed to take a picture of the contest entries…. I’ll post about the mouse ears separately.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

Technorati Tags: lego, baylug

Yuri’s Night 2008

Bill — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:11:44 +0000

The Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group (BayLUG) took part in Yuri’s Night Bay Area at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, on April 12 2008.

The event was a cross between an airshow, a rave, and a mini Maker Faire (which we will be taking part in next month). We had a display of some of our LEGO models, mostly following a space or futuristic theme, as well as a play area where adults and kids alike could crawl around and build stuff. I brought my DC-3 and the “Fast Flyers” jet.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

Technorati Tags: lego, yurisnight, baylug, nasaames, moffett

January 2008 BayLUG meeting

Bill — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:55:29 +0000

I’ve fallen a bit behind blogging about recent BayLUG meetings, though I did post the pictures online. Here we have pics of the meeting in January at Dave Porter’s house in Woodside. We also had a meeting in Palo Alto on February 24, but I missed that one as I was out of town that weekend. Our next meeting is this coming Sunday, April 20, at MoAH in Palo Alto, and it’s open to the public so come by and say hi!

Club member Dave Porter has a house in the mountains where he puts up a display every year for the holidays featuring a very detailed train layout with lots of great scenery. And every January for the past few years, the club is invited up to view the layout and have a big meeting at his house. It’s always a lot of fun.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

Technorati Tags: lego, baylug

MoAH Exhibit 2008-01-05

Bill — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:41:05 +0000

Exhibit of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA.

Every year BayLUG puts on a “Living LEGO-cy” exhibit at the museum during the Holidays. We put it up in early December and take it down in early January. Families crowd the room to stare at our creations every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during this period. It’s a lot of fun, but it can be a lot of work. I took these pictures on the last day of the latest exhibit, on January 5, 2008, just before we tore it all down and took it all home.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

Technorati Tags: lego, baylug, moah

Interview: Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer

Bill — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:57:45 +0000

There’s a very interesting Interview on BoingBoing with Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer.

I grew up on some of these sets! I started collecting Space LEGO sets in the late 1970’s when I was a little kid, and spent most of my spare time building and rebuilding classic LEGO spaceships and bases.

Technorati Tags: lego, space, classicspace, interview, boingboing

Windows Flickr Live Photos Pro

Bill — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:27:42 +0000

I saw this picture on the MICROSOFT: KEEP YOUR EVlL GRUBBY HANDS OFF OF OUR FLICKR group on Flickr.

Welcome to Flickr!

Originally uploaded by twisted intellect ❧

With Microsoft’s recent announcement of an offer to buy Yahoo! many Flickr users, including myself, are terrified about what will happen to our beloved photo-sharing site.

So I’ve started thinking about where I’ll host my photos in the future. I’m loathe to return to Brickshelf, with its decades-outdated user interface and absentee owner. Perhaps Picasa (Google) can fill the bill? Or maybe photobucket? Anyone have other suggestions?

Technorati Tags: flickr, microsoft, yahoo

LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities

Bill — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:44:46 +0000

Today, LEGO celebrates 50 years!

LEGO Braiding Machine

Bill — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:44:33 +0000

Thomas Johnson has done it again. The creator of the LEGO knitting machine has a new masterpiece, a braiding machine built using LEGO Technic pieces which creates a three-stranded braid. You can see photos and a really cool video (nice music, too) of the machine in action.

I’d show you a thumbnail, but the Web site doesn’t seem to make that possible. Anyway, watch the video. It’s mesmerizing.

Technorati Tags: lego, braider, braiding, machine, technic

My Track Geometry page translated to Italian

Bill — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:45:31 +0000

My Track Layout Geometry page has been translated into Italian!

A few days ago I received an email from Alex Cordero of ITLUG (Italian LEGO® Users Group) saying that they were interested in translating the page into Italian. He just contacted me to let me know that it was done; you can view the finished page on the ITLUG Web site.

This is the first time something I’ve written has been translated into another language, and I’m very flattered and pleased that it was deemed worthy for this treatment.

I don’t speak a word of Italian - though I do have some Spanish - so I don’t know how accurate the translation is, but I hope that it proves useful to Italian-speaking LEGO fans everywhere!

Technorati Tags: lego, brickpile, translation, italian