Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks
This weekend, BayLTC is exhibiting at the Train Collectors’ Association Cal-Stewart Spring Meet at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara. 
We have a 25’x25′ train layout with four loops of trains and a monorail. The exhibit is open to the public today from 10am to 2pm.
I took some pictures of the layout this morning which you can view on Flickr (or view as a slideshow)[tags]bayltc,lego,tca[/tags]
I forgot my camera, but Bruce took pictures which you can see on his Brickshelf Gallery.
We used a theme of “winter sports” for this one, based on a snowscape built by club member Anne, with some skiers and snowboarders and trees contributed by various members. Since it was fairly low to the ground, we added a couple of snowboarders hanging in mid-air above the slope (suspended on string).
The display will be up for about six weeks at the LEGO store in Valley Fair Mall, Santa Clara, CA.[tags]lego,baylug[/tags]
It would appear that LEGO is working on a massively multiplayer online game! At least, according to this blog entry from kotaku.com, LEGO is working with NetDevil to produce a new online game where kids can interact using virtual LEGO bricks. And if you don’t believe the blogs, try checking out the official press release from NetDevil or LEGO official Web sites…[tag]lego,game,netdevil[/tag]
I know it was posted a while ago but I wanted to blog about this mainly so I could find it easily to copy some of these ideas shamelessly… Last August Janey “Red Brick” blogged about these amazing minifig-scaled furniture ideas which is really just a bunch of Brickshelf links to some amazing stuff.
Speaking of furniture, that’s part of the problem why I haven’t built anything in a while. The room where my LEGO collection is kept is unusable because it’s been co-opted as storage for all the clutter around the house. I need to do a purge and/or run to the storage locker so I can dig my LEGO out and get building again….[tags]lego,blog,janey,redbrick,furniture,brickshelf[/tags]
Didier Enjary of FreeLUG (French LEGO users group) has compiled a great guide to advanced LEGO construction techniques. It explains in great detail the geometry of LEGO bricks, and how to fit them together to achieve some great effects. The focus is mainly on SNOT (Studs Not On Top) construction, and how to achieve various offsets of fractional brick widths. There are some very inspiring ideas which can improve anyone’s LEGO skills.
You can access the document (it’s a PDF file to be downloaded) on the FreeLUG site and/or read the thread on LUGNET.[tags]lego,snot,lugnet,freelug[/tags]
Lately I’ve been getting into board games, card games, etc. And it got me thinking. LEGO would be a great medium for games.
I’m not talking about regular games that just happen to use LEGO as pieces… There’s Brikwars but I don’t think that’s really LEGO-specific enough. And there are various LEGO-produced games, such as chess and such, which are neat but not really innovative at all.
No, I’m thinking about a game where you have to build some structure out of LEGO while your opponent tries to stop you while building their own. I remember once I came across rules for such a game but don’t know what I did with it.
Does anyone know of any such games? If not, how about creating one?[tags]lego,games,boardgames,strategy[/tags]
Each year for the past couple of years BayLUG has put on an exhibit at the Museum of American History in Palo Alto, CA. 
This year was no exception. The exhibit ran from December 16 through January 14. I didn’t actively participate in this show, though, as I was busy with holiday madness and illness. But the show went on without me, and I managed to go there last Thursday, when the museum played host to a reception for the local Yale alumni club. While I was there I took some pictures using my new phone (I got a Treo 700P recently) and I just now posted them on Flickr.
You can click the photo to the right to view the photoset or see the pictures as a slide show.[tags]lego,baylug,bayltc,moah,trains,paloalto[/tags]
In BayLUG‘s recent exhibit at MoAH, Bruce Chamberlain set up a display of minifigs protesting to save the 9V trains line. Here’s a pic:
If you want your voice to be heard, visit the Save 9V Trains site and register your opinion![tags]lego,trains,9v,save 9v trains[/tags]
Sorry for the long gap in posting. Like many people, I find my life gets all turned around and upside-down at some point in mid-December each year, only to finally sort itself out sometime in January. Between holiday activities and sickness, I just haven’t had a chance to blog in weeks. But I’ll try to do a better job in the new year.
I haven’t built anything original in way too long. Right now the room where the LEGO is kept (which is supposed to be an office) has turned into a kind of closet where everything in the house that was otherwise in the way has been crammed. And the chair I used to use for building broke, and needs to be replaced. But hopefully I’ll dig myself a big enough hole among the mess to start work again soon. This was a good Christmas for LEGO though.
I bought myself a Mindstorms NXT kit, which surprisingly, I find intimidating. I’ve been programming computers since I was 10 and obviously working with LEGO even longer, but somehow combining the two is a challenge. I built the basic robot according to the directions, and now I need to start experimenting with the programming side. I’ve always taken the attitude with new LEGO sets that you have to build it once according to LEGO’s instructions, and only after you’ve done that is it OK to design one’s own creations using that set. I’m going to apply that same rule to Mindstorms, and though I’d like to experiment with programming using NQC or BrickOS or whatever alternative environment works with the NXT, I think I should play with the software it comes with for a while first to get the hang of the basics. What do you think?
I also got some LEGO sets from my mom. Every year she asks me what to get me for my birthday and Christmas, and every time I answer the same. Luckily she usually believes me, as you may have seen when my birthday came through in August. She got me 4895 Motion Power (which she also got me for my birthday, but that’s OK because it’s just more good parts for my collection) and 4896 Roaring Roadsters (which I had also recently purchased for myself, but again, twice the goodness!). Both excellent sets, and gifts that I totally appreciate!!
Oh, and I also took apart the Garden Gnome and washed the bricks. I also made an MLCAD version, in case I want to bulid it again (or maybe even sell it as a kit? I keep toying with that idea).
I was thinking I need something new and dramatic to bring into work and put on my desk. Maybe something Space. Any suggestions?
I came across this article (thanks to BayLUG member David Simmons, via email) detailing how one family has coped with the stresses the LEGO hobby places on storage and work space in their home – buy a trailer and move the collection out there! That’s one way to solve the problem. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go measure the slab in our back yard…