Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks
These two 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.
Next weekend (April 22-23) is Maker Faire, an event featuring “the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors,” put on by the publishers of MAKE Magazine. This event is kind of like a giant science fair for grownups, mixed with an art show and all kinds of stuff. I don’t really know what to expect but we’re planning to treat it pretty much the same way we do the train shows.
We have a space that’s 30 feet square, which will feature a train layout and some additional non-train LEGO exhibits such as David Wegmuller’s giant Technic crane.
I’ve been frantically busy “making” things for the Faire all weekend. But last night I seem to have caught a cold. The worst part is the difficulty sleeping. And I don’t have the strength to build much LEGO even though I am home sick from work.
Also I want to apologize for the dearth of posts lately. Holly and I went to Charleston, SC for a week last month and when we got back, I was quite busy with regular life and just didn’t get back into the swing of things in the blog. But I’m going to start posting more soon, I promise!!
The TransAmerica Pyramid 
is one of the most distinctive structures in the city of San Francisco. In January 2006 my LEGO club, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group chose “mini-scale San Francisco” as the theme for our display at the LEGO store in Pleasanton, CA. I built this model, along with a scene of Lombard Street, for that display.
More pictures of the model can be found on Flickr and on Brickshelf (once moderated).[tags]lego,pyramid,sanfrancisco,mymodels,microscale,transamerica[/tags]
This old-fashioned fire truck 
was built in July, 2004 for the display that my LEGO club, Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group & Train Club put on at a museum in Pleasanton, CA. Since the 4th of July was during that exhibit, we added a parade to the layout, and what’s a parade without an old-fashioned fire truck? So I built one.
More pictures of the model can be found on Flickr and on Brickshelf.
I spent most of the day today 
at the 2006 Cal-Stewart Spring Meet of the Train Collectors Association (TCA) at the Santa Clara Convention Center. My LEGO club, Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group & Train Club, had a big train layout on display all weekend (see my previous entry with pictures of the setup on Friday).
We had a 30×30 foot space, most of which was taken up by the layout, with a few tables offering LEGO parts and sets for sale by our members. My contributions to the layout included the Coast Guard base, San Ladrillo train station, and several smaller buildings and vehicles around the layout.
Pictures of the layout can be found on Flickr. Click the photo to see them.[tags]lego,baylug,bayltc,trainshow[/tags]
Friday evening, March 10, 
I was at the Santa Clara Convention Center helping set up(*) the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group & Train Club layout for the 2006 Cal-Stewart Spring Meet of the Train Collectors Association. It’s a combination conference and show, running all weekend. Saturday, March 11, it’s open only to conference attendees, but on Sunday it will be open to the public (for a small fee). Come on down and visit us! See the event information on the BayLUG site for details.
Pictures of the layout can be found on Flickr. Click the photo to see them.
(*) – not really. I was really late showing up and the other guys had already done the hard stuff. I just put a few buildings and cars down and took pictures….[tags]lego,baylug,bayltc,trainshow[/tags]
Stephen and Austin Nolen have produced an amazing video for the song “1985” by Bowling For Soup. Now I don’t know whether they got permission from the band to use the song, but I love what they came up with. It’s a great song, and the LEGO animations fit the music very well. It’ll take a while to download though, so start the download and then make yourself a nice lunch. Depending on your Internet connection you might want to get dinner started while you’re at it.
[tags]LEGO, Animation, Brickfilm, BowlingForSoup, 1985[/tags]
Have you ever tried building a scissor lift in [tag]LEGO[/tag]? I’m working on a project that calls for that kind of mechanism to lift it up, like those food service trucks at the airport. It is based on an “X” shaped arrangement, which, like the two parts of a scissors pivot at the middle. By bringing together the two bottom (or top) ends, the top is lifted into the air.
The approach I took was to use [tag]Technic[/tag] worm [tag]gears[/tag] (like a screw) with a rack gear on it. By turning the worm gears the rack gear should move along its length, which moves the two bottom ends together, elevating the top. The problem is that LEGO gears just aren’t up to the load this places on them, and the teeth skip. I motorized it, gearing down the motor to get more torque, but the gears would rather skip than lift the weight.
Has anyone out there successfully built this kind of [tag]scissor lift[/tag] mechanism in LEGO to lift a nontrivial weight? If so please comment below or email me any tips you may have. Thanks!
P.S.: Sorry for the gap in posts – I’ve been sick with a bad cold for a week or so…
With other members of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group, I helped install a new [tag]aquarium[/tag]-themed display at the Stoneridge Mall [tag]LEGO[/tag] store in [tag]Pleasanton[/tag], CA on Feb 20, 2006. My contributions to this display were two fish and some seaweed.
The fish that appear to be floating in air, and the seaweed that I created (on the left side of the “tank,” made out of LEGO palm frond pieces) are suspended by threads, at the other end of which are magnets that cling to the shelf above the display. The large octopus is suspended by threads too, but it’s too heavy for magnets so the threads are wrapped around the shelf supports.
See photos on Flickr or on Brickshelf.
This is another model that I built 3 years ago but only recently posted the pictures online.
This, along with the recently posted Road Bridge, was built for the BayLTC train layout in 2003.
The cliff module was designed to come apart into several sections for ease of transportation and storage. Each section connected to the next one using Technic pegs. At one end, I built a peninsula with a space for Russell Clark’s lighthouse. It had an opening, recessed by one plate’s thickness, to accomodate a 16×32 stud baseplate.
The launch ramp road piece, like the road pieces on the bridge, came from LEGO’s 6600 Highway Construction set. It had stairs leading down to a small dock.
The lifeguard tower and beachgoers were contributed to the layout by club member Mark Benz.
[tags]LEGO, cliff[/tags]