$8.95in the US

Issue 38 • February 2016

Building LEGO MINILAND cars

by Stephan Sander

Feeling the Need for Speed!

Instructions AND MORE!

Also: Car Builders

Andrea Lattanzio and Marcus Paul

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The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages!

Issue 38 • February 2016

Contents From the Editor ...................................................2

News A LEGO TARDIS on Bondi Beach? ...............3The Force Awakens at Hong Kong Times Square ....................................................4The LEGO House: A BIG Project ...................6

People Builder Spotlight: Marcus Paul ....................................................10Builder Spotlight: Jordan Schwartz ..........................................14 Builder Spotlight: Andrea Lattanzio .........................................17Spotlight: Paul J. Boratko’s Shuriken .........................20

Building Building Distinctive Cars .............................22Building a Mistress of a Supercar ............30Color Your Life ..................................................38You Can Build It: MINI Batmobile ..............................................44BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Red Choo Choo ............................................47 You Can Build It: MINI A-Team Van ..........................................49MINDSTORMS 101: Giving Your Bot a Voice .............................54 Minifigure Customization 101: Some Say He Looks a Lot Taller on TV and Not Made of Plastic.. All We Know is He’s Called the Stig ...............................................58

Community Event Report: Skaerbaek Fan Weekend ..........................60LEGO Fans Help Refugee Kids! .................67Event Report: Japan BrickFest .............................................68Japan BrickFest Brick Master Building Competition ................................72Community Ads ..............................................78Last Word ............................................................79AFOLs ...................................................................80

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News

The Force Awakens at Hong Kong Times Square!

Article by Joe MenoPhotos by Jared Chan and Hong Kong Times Square

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News

The LEGO House:

A BIG Project!

In 2014, the LEGO Group announced the plans and construction of a new experience center to celebrate the company’s history and heritage. Christened the LEGO House, this facility will have hands-on/minds-on activities showcasing the almost infinite possibilities of LEGO building and play.

Design of LEGO House is being spearheaded by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), an internationally known architecture firm that is working on many projects, including reworking and modernizing the Smithsonian Institution complex in Washington, DC. Compared to the Smithsonian, LEGO House is much smaller, but has the same mission: preserving and celebrating a community, in this case, the LEGO community.

BrickJournal got an opportunity to talk to Bjarke Ingels at the opening of BIG’s display “HOT to COLD” in the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. There, he told how he and his firm got the LEGO House Project.

Designing the LEGO House As Ingels recalls, “I came and I spoke at the LEGO Idea Day in 2010 and afterwards I went on a drive around the city. The vision for the city is to become the Capital of Children, which inspired our design for LEGO House.”

At that point, the idea was still pretty broad. Ingels explained, “The LEGO house was planned to be some kind of expansion of the LEGO Idea House they have right now, on a much bigger scale. The plan was to build it where the city hall was, as the city hall was moving and merging with another city municipality, so suddenly there was street space.”

Finally, in 2013, the LEGO Group reached out to us and asked us to come to Billund and present some of our reference, and then they asked us to spend six weeks on trying to address what we would see as the challenges of making a LEGO House on that location.”

At this time Ingels began working on the project: “I rallied the troops and put one of our best young project leaders on the project, a guy who actually just became a partner of BIG: Bryan Yang, one of my former students from Harvard. I told the team that if BIG had been founded with the purpose of building a single building, then it would be this building. We really had to win this project. So we went completely nuts and did all kinds of work and we took all our work and all our sketch models—all that we have done and thought, put it in the back of a van and we drove to Billund and we filled conference space with stuff.

Article and Photography by Joe Meno and the LEGO GroupArt provided by BIGRenders by Adam Rollins

A rendering of the completed LEGO House.

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“The LEGO Group had asked several other architects to make a proposal, but I had a feeling that ours went well. What happened right after that, was that the company invited us to come to Billund for a two-day workshop where we would present our thinking to them and then we would get feedback.

“Some specific things came out of the workshop, including the idea of creating a cloud of interconnected galleries, almost like interconnected LEGO bricks, and also a central gallery that we called the Keystone Gallery, with 8 skylights, 2 x 4 with the same iconic proportions of a LEGO brick. BIG took those suggestions and incorporated them into the design.

“You try to understand the traditional typology or the local vernacular and then you depart from that typology by doing something to it by adapting it to a certain situation, and you put new life into it.”

Construction of LEGO House will be completed in 2017. With that, BIG will have created a place that touches on the past, present, and future of the company by celebrating the LEGO Group. It will be, for the community and the company, the ultimate LEGO creation, or as the community would call it: the ultimate MOC.

A form study of the building, seen at the National History Museum in Washington DC.

A rendering of the roof terraces, showing how color will be used to visually tie in galleries.

Bjarke Ingels at the 2010 LEGO Idea Conference.

“ I am very passionate about play and how children learn through playing with LEGO bricks. This is essentially the

LEGO idea and what the LEGO House is all about. I look forward to seeing the long time dream of having

one place where anyone can experience the LEGO idea

come true.”

—Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, LEGO Group Owner

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People

Builder Spotlight:

Marcus PaulArticle by Joe Meno Photography by Marcus Paul

Marcus Paul (known as er0l online) is a 48-year-old freelance journalist and copy editor who is one of many LEGO builders that is an expert on cars. Though he may not say it, his automobiles have a level of detail that is hard to maintain in a minifigure scale. His models caught my attention when I saw his Aston Martin DB5, otherwise known as one of James Bond’s cars. Marcus has done a couple more of the Bond cars, but also has some classic roadsters. Outside of cars, he also built a yacht that is definitely eye-catching. I asked him a few questions about his building and models for BrickJournal.

BrickJournal: When did you start LEGO Building? I restarted my LEGO building in 2011 after an unusually long Dark Age. Some years ago I had given away all of my childhood LEGO to relatives; I didn’t know anything about the actual LEGO at that time and couldn’t imagine that there was such a great worldwide community of adults building with LEGO. My first encounter with “modern” LEGO was an iPad stand built out of LEGO which I saw on the Internet. I wanted to do that, too, so I bought a set and built an iPad stand (which looked horrible) out of a Technic jeep. I was hooked. My first MOCs were Technic builds—hardly anybody knows them, and that‘s better, I guess … ;-) It wasn’t until I saw those nice 7-stud wide minifig scale cars by a great builder named danthaman11 some months later, that I understood this was the real thing for me.

What are your favorite themes? My favorite theme is City, of course, or let’s call it contem-porary LEGO in minifig scale. Within this range I’m inter-ested in practically everything, including trains, and I have a weak spot for the monorail, one of the best things TLG ever did (in my opinion). Regarding sets, I like the modular buildings, and I also like the Friends line. Both themes have widened our possibilities as Town related builders very much. However, I’d rather buy a set regardless of the theme when it has nice parts at a decent price. I’m not much of a LEGO collector compared to building.

What got you interested in the James Bond cars? Building movie cars is a common thing among minifig scale

Paul’s DB5 from Goldfinger.

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People

Builder Spotlight:

Jordan SchwartzArticle by Joe MenoPhotography by Jordan Schwartz

Jordan Schwartz has been building for almost a decade, and it’s taken him to the top of the AFOL scene to working for LEGO (he did design work for the Palace Cinema Expert Creator set). He’s slowed down, though, and at 23 lives in Providence RI and attends college where he studies creative writing. He still builds, and has now turned his attention to classic cars. Jordan was happy to talk to BrickJournal about his time at LEGO and his more current builds.

BrickJournal: How did you get an internship with LEGO? Jordan Schwartz: I heard that the company was looking for new designers when I was at BrickWorld in Chicago back in 2010, and my friends encouraged me to apply. I had just graduated high school at the time and was slated to begin at an art college in Boston, but I thought I’d apply just for fun. I was thoroughly surprised when the company got in touch and invited me to a workshop in Billund! That was a great experience in itself (it was my first time visiting Europe), and I would’ve been happy just for that experience. But a week into my first semester, they called me up again and of-fered the internship. It was a unique arrangement since they were looking for full-time designers; I was only eighteen at the time, hence the offer. I was treated like all the other de-signers, and had virtually the same responsibilities, but my contract was temporary! This turned out to be a great thing for my superiors and myself since I ended up deciding to return to the states in order to pursue my education.

How was working at the company? It was tremendously fun: get paid to build with LEGO bricks? It’s as unique a job as it sounds. It gave me an au-thentic taste of what working in the design industry is like. I must confess that adapting to Billund after coming from Rhode Island was difficult. Combine the slow-paced life

1936 Cord.

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Builder Spotlight:

Andrea Lattanzio

Back at BrickJournal #35, we got to see a LEGO-built diorama of a Vespa garage from builder Andrea Lattanzio. Known online as Norton74, he restores classic motorcycles and bicycles, so a garage with scooters was a good subject to build for him. Since then, he has gone on to build other vehicles, including hot rods! BrickJournal got to talk to him about his car models.

Article by Joe MenoPhotography by Andrea Lattanzio

What got you interested in hot rods? Recently I discovered the Kustom Kulture reading Italian magazines about this subject. I loved this underground culture which includes car design, pinstriping, hot rods, muscle cars, and custom vehicles in general. Kustom Kul-ture is the essence of creative and of the DIY (do it your-self) way of life.

I also discovered “Rat Fink” mascot and Eddy Roth (and other show car designers like Tom Daniel who designed the yellow Beer Wagon) which are icons in your country, but quite unknown in Italy. I was looking for something strange and unconventional to build and the hot rods and Seventies show cars were perfect for this. I especially love the early Kustom Kulture (from Fifties to Seventies).

Your hot rods are the classic era cars along with your VWs—why not build modern era cars? I don’t like modern era cars; it seems to me they have the same shapes and design. Even in my real life I drive a 26-year-old Mercedes Benz station wagon, an old Vespa, and a 1980 BMW motorcycle.

I think car design reached its apex in the Seventies and from that era on, the style has slowly declined.

According to your previous article, you did the Vespa garage after you built the VW garage, so did you build the VW stuff first, then Vespa, then hot rods? Yes, that’s right. And before garages, Vespas, and Hot Rods, I built big European trucks (from 2006).

People

Andrea with his Hot Rods and VWs.

Andrea’s Hot Rod Garage.

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People

Spotlight: Paul J. Boratko’s

Article by Paul J. Boratko

What happens when a car building expert decides to try his hand at transforming vehicles? If you’re Paul Boratko, builder of Technic supercars, you’ll end up with something spectacular! Here, he talks about building the Shuriken.

I had always wanted to do a car model based on the ’80s televi-sion cartoon M.A.S.K. which featured various vehicle models such as cars, trucks, and helicopters that had the ability to transform into an entirely different vehicle. A helicopter could become a jet, a ’60s style muscle car could become a tank, or an oil tanker truck could become a rolling command base.

Inspired by the “Enforcers versus Bandits” Eurobricks Technic Challenge last summer, I had decided to build a model for my-self that would be true to the contest rules. The “Good Guy” Enforcer models must be black and white while the Bandit “Bad Guy” models could be any other color except for black and white. I took full advantage of a new Technic part, the fric-tion pin with pinhole that was only available in black, along with an old part that I’ve had in my inventory for years but could never find a use for: the round curved fin pin connector.

Since I specialize in car models, it was a given that I would be doing a car. Gull-wing doors made the most sense to turn this rolling street machine into a vehicle of flight. I incorporated a knob in the rear end that when turned counter-clockwise, works a mechanism that folds all four wheels downwards while opening both gull-wing doors, simultaneously revealing two flick fire missiles on each door.

Rear overview of the Shuriken.Forward overview of the Shuriken.

Inspirational parts of the Shuriken.

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Building

Building Distinctive Cars

Several accomplished or, dare I say, famous builders have told me that the one thing they cannot quite wrap their heads around is building cars. I also know plenty of people who will happily confess that, when building a City display, they use cars from LEGO sets, because building cars of their own is too hard. I have been building LEGO cars for pretty much as long as I can remember and I think it is not really all that difficult, as long as you keep a few things in mind. I will share a few tips and tricks and will illustrate them using a Pontiac Bonneville and some of the other distinctive cars that I have built recently.

Finding InspirationThe first step is finding a suitable car to build. This is far from trivial, because not every car will work as a LEGO model. For me, the inspiration can come from a lot of different sources. Often I find something I like on the Internet. I am an active member of LUGNuts, which is an online group for LEGO car builders and the subject of BrickJournal #21. Our monthly themed build challenges have regularly prompted me to find something interesting.

I also have a collection of books on classic cars. I picked up Quentin Wilson’s Cool Cars many years ago in the UK and, while on a holiday in the US, I bought Cars of 1965. I also have a book called Ultimate American Cars. Many of the cars that I have built are from these three books. Earlier this year, whilst visiting a car show, I came across the 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. This just happens to be one of the coolest cars in my Cars of 1965 book. It is big and sleek and, even though the weather was overcast, its metallic blue paint seemed to sparkle. I decided there and then that I wanted to build one.

Article by Ralph Savelsberg

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Building

Building a Mistress of a Supercar!

The LEGO brand has a very diverse offering, ranging from the Duplo (or even Primo) to the UCS sets. But until the appearance of the UCS sets, the older age group was serviced with the LEGO Technic brand. And within that brand the ultimate challenge, the pinnacle of engineering, the top of the bill is the LEGO Technic supercar.

Since the introduction of LEGO Technic in 1977, eight supercars have been released with various functions. There is not a well-defined definition of what a supercar has to offer in terms of features (and not all LEGO supercars offer all features), but it should have at least most of the following:

• Big wheels (at least 9 studs diameter) and therefore be a big model (~60 studs long) • (independent) suspension on all wheels • Steerable front wheels • ‘Fake’ engine (where the pistons actually work, but does not provide power to the engine itself) • Gearbox (nowadays with at least 6 gear ratios) • Something special (Gull wing doors, AWD, pop-up headlights, or modular build, for example)

When I joined The LEGO Group in 1998 (yes, that is right, I was a LEGO Technic designer in the previous century), the fifth supercar, the Super Street Sensation, was in the last phase of its development. It was a true supercar, with independent suspension, a 5+R gearbox, a modular chassis design and reconfigurable bodywork. I had the privilege of designing two other sets before I left the company.

In that same period LEGO Technic went through its most drastic change since its start in 1977. We started to abandon the studs. At first only the bodywork became studless, but by 2003, the internal chassis had also become studless.

This revolutionized the way of building with LEGO Technic. Instead of the traditional stacking of bricks, it now became possible to design in every direction. You could say it was SNOT galore in the Technic brand, only without the S.

In this article I would like to describe how I designed my latest studless supercar, the Mistress, and compare that to the way I designed the studful Power Puller when I still worked at LEGO.

Article by Jeroen Ottens

Jeroen Otten’s Mistress.

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Starting the Model Every design starts with inspiration. For the Power Puller it was the idea that we should offer a Racer theme. We searched for pictures and photos and even went to a Power Puller contest to get inspiration. For the Mistress, I drew inspiration from other MOCs and modern supercars like the Lamborghini and Ferrari.

Once I had an image in my head, I started to think about the functions. For the Power Puller that was clear from the beginning: It had to have big wheels (the biggest ever released by LEGO), configurable engines, a sled that could be pulled along, it should be motorized, and it should tilt upwards when it had pulled the sled a certain distance.

For the Mistress, I wanted to have as many supercar functions as possible. I wanted to have four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, scissor doors, a 5+R gearbox, a gearbox to switch between two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive with differential and four-wheel drive with locked differential, and finally a sleek (and as closed as possible) body.

So far the design process was pretty similar, but now the paths started to diverge, partly due to the difference between studful and studless building. For the Power Puller, we (I worked together with Markus Kossman on this model) started to build crude versions of tractors and sleds. Every time we ran into trouble we put the model aside and started anew. As you can imagine, our workplace got cluttered fast with piles of unfinished prototypes.

For the Mistress, however, I started digitally (with LEGO Digital Designer—LDD). The most complex part of studless building is the interlocking nature of it. Since there are no studs to connect pieces to each other, you have to rely on pins and axles to connect pieces. Furthermore, a lot of parts have the ability to connect in perpendicular directions. For the strength and rigidity of the model it is important to make designs that lock themselves in all directions so that they do not fall apart when pressure is applied. The consequence of that is that it is not too easy to take them apart again. That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem if you could simply start anew whenever you ran into trouble, but unlike at LEGO I don’t have an infinite amount of pieces at my disposal at home. But LDD does have an infinite amount of bricks. So here are my first digital iterations on the front and rear axle set-up:

This is the digital version of the first pile of prototypes. The actual number of prototypes is considerably larger than the few displayed here. Each one has gone through its own set of iterations to come to this point. I think it is a safe bet that I designed over a hundred suspension set-ups for this car...

Jeroen’s Technic set.

Prototype axle set-ups.

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Building

Color Your Life!Article and Photography by Stephan Sander

If you are a longtime reader of the fabulous BrickJournal, you might have noticed that there is already an article about Miniland-scale cars. To be precise, it was the Spring issue of 2008. Since then a lot of things have changed, but my love for cars in this scale hasn’t changed at all, and there are no signs that it will in the future.

The Miniland scale is still used within all the LEGOLand Parks, but for some reason not at the LEGO Discovery Centers. This is quite understandable as space is very limited in big cities where the Discovery Centers are located. I guess the Miniland scale of 1:20 was the best balance between use of space and recognizabil-ity for the creators of LEGOLand. The visitors would hardly see what the models were supposed to be if they had built in Minifig scale of 1:42. It’s also a good bal-ance between the number of elements used and the number of details for AFOLs to build cars. Obviously the bigger the model, the more detail it will need.

The Miniland style might be seen as a bit basic. The surface looks rasterized, because for the LEGOLand models the designers use mainly plates and tiles and no big transparent elements to build the windows. This means the look (especially of the windows) always has that shattered touch. But even with this basic look you might need a single special element to include one more detail to make the model simply perfect. The basic colors offer you the widest range of elements, of course.

The actual Bricklink color guide says that the LEGO Company produced 78 differ-ent colors throughout the years (transparent, chrome and all the other special ones are not included in this count). Black, white and red are the clear rulers of the list, because the largest variety of different elements were made in these colors, which is good news for all Ferrari fans! Good news to me then; over the past 10 years I’ve built nearly 100 cars and 14 of them are different Ferrari models. It’s pretty much the same with white and black. Both colors suit many cars very well and you’ve got such a wide choice of elements to use. These basic colors are the perfect start if you don’t want to worry about having enough choices on hand.

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The model that led to Matt Hocker’s Batcave in BrickJournal #36 was his Batmobile, so it ended up here to be with some more cars! His Batcave is still on the LEGO Ideas website, so you can still vote on it! The scale of the car lets you use a few parts to make an iconic vehicle. If you don’t have any chrome wheels, you can substitute light gray wheels instead.

Have fun!

You Can Build It MINI Model

Design and Instructions by Matthew Hocker

Qty Color Part Description 4 Black 2540.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Handle 1 Black 3022.dat Plate 2 x 2 1 Black 10247.dat Plate 2 x 2 with Hole and Complete Underside Rib 2 Black 4600.dat Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders 1 Black 3020.dat Plate 2 x 4 1 Black 47458.dat Slope Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 2/3 with Fin without Studs 1 Black 30602.dat Slope Brick Curved Top 2 x 2 x 1 1 Black 41855.dat Slope Brick Round 2 x 2 x 2/3 1 Black 3700.dat Technic Brick 1 x 2 with Hole 1 Black 3070b.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 4 Black 3139.dat Tyre 4/ 80 x 8 Single Smooth Type 1 2 Blue 4274.dat Technic Pin 1/2

Qty Color Part Description 1 Trans Clear 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 2 Trans Clear 54200.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 1 Trans Neon Orange 64647.dat Minifig Plume/ Flame Triple 4 Yellow 4624.dat Wheel Rim 6.4 x 8 6 Black 87747.dat Bar 0.5L with Curved Blade 2L 1 Black 41854.dat Car Mudguard 2 x 4 Swept Back 1 Black 59900.dat Cone 1 x 1 with Stop 2 Black 2654.dat Dish 2 x 2 1 Black 4740.dat Dish 2 x 2 Inverted 1 Black 85975.dat Minifig Hat Fez 2 Black 61252.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (Thick C-Clip) 4 Black 4081b.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Light Type 2 3 Black 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 1 Black 15573.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud

Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)

MINI Batmobile

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Qty Part Color Description 1 3023.dat Trans Clear Plate 1 x 2 2 2921.dat Red Brick 1 x 1 with Handle 2 4070.dat Red Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight 1 30165.dat Red Brick 2 x 2 with Curved Top and 2 Studs on Top 1 3023.dat Red Plate 1 x 2 1 60478.dat Red Plate 1 x 2 with Handle on End 2 3022.dat Red Plate 2 x 2 1 3020.dat Red Plate 2 x 4 1 85984.dat Red Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 1 2555.dat Red Tile 1 x 1 with Clip 1 3069b.dat Red Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 1 3942c.dat Dark Bluish Gray Cone 2 x 2 x 2 with Hollow Stud Open 1 3300.dat Dark Bluish Gray Slope Brick 33 2 x 2 Double 2 30374.dat Black Bar 4L Light Sabre Blade 1 4073.dat Black Plate 1 x 1 Round 2 60470b.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 with 2 Clips Horizontal (Thick C-Clips) 1 32028.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail 1 3048.dat Black Slope Brick 45 1 x 2 Triple 1 3022.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 2 1 2817.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 2 with Holes 2 4600.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders 1 3176.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 3 x 2 with Hole 2 3673.dat Light Bluish Gray Technic Pin 4 4624.dat Light Bluish Gray Wheel Rim 6.4 x 8 2 56902.dat Light Bluish Gray Wheel Rim 8 x 18 with Deep Center Groove

Tommy Williamson is no stranger to BrickJournal, having been featured previously for his Jack Sparrow miniland scale figure. Since then, he has gone farther into building, making some remarkable Star Trek props and other models. He’s now doing a column for BrickJournal: DIY Fan Art. Here, Tommy

takes a little time out from his busy schedule at BrickNerd.com to make a model of his choosing for the magazine.

Parts List (Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)

Red Choo ChooDesign and Instructions by Tommy Williamson

About this issue’s model:The genesis of this model is also a handy lesson, namely to remember to tinker. This hot rod of a train came to be because one evening I was just playing with table scraps and fun connections, tinkering. When I connected the two 2x2 plates with axles I noticed they had good clearance and still rolled. That got me wondering if the dimensions would work for a larger wheel back behind. I was pleased and surprised to see that it would, and it sort of looked like a set of train wheels. A little while later, and with a little channeling of Big Daddy Roth, the Little Red Choo Choo was born—hope you like it.

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Hello everybody! I’m very glad to again join BrickJournal! With the magazine being themed to cars this time, we also want to build something out of this fascinating field. When you think about iconic cars seen on television, the A-Team’s van is—among many others, of course—a quite memorable one. It’s big, dark, and has a catchy red stripe across the sides. Together we will build this van on the next pages.

While the van itself can be shaped out quite easily, it’s that red stripe that is really tricky to build without using stickers. In this model, we are just using bricks. What we can learn from the following instructions is how to use the relatively new 1x2 tiles with grille in normal orientation and upside-down to generate a diagonal stripe made with bricks. It’s a very useful approach which can be adopted for many other building ideas you certainly have.

The resulting red stripe is a bit wider than on the original real-life model, but we attribute this to the artistic freedom. The A-Team’s van should be a nice addition to your personal collection of remarkable movie cars! I wish happy building to you, and see you next time!

You Can Build It MINI Model

Design and Instructions by Christopher Deck

You can view Christopher’s webpage by going to www.deckdesigns.de or scanning this QR code!

MINI A-Team Van

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Record Your Voice There are several parts to the Sound Editor, the most important being the ‘Record’ button. Make sure there

is a recording device attached to your computer. I use the microphone built into my webcam.

Press the ‘Record’ button and in your best voice/accent/character, say your phrase. Press the stop button when you’re finished.

Building

MINDSTORMS 101:

GivingYour Bot a Voice!Article and art by Damien Kee

The sounds that are built into the EV3 system are numerous and awesome. Someone obviously spent a lot of time choosing, recording, cleaning them up and I’m really thankful—truly I am! However, in the 127 preloaded sounds that come with the EV3-G software, nowhere could I find the phrase “Number 5, is ALIVE!” (For those who don’t get the reference, Google it. It is a classic piece of robot cinema history!) Now while I’m saddened that the EV3 software developers chose not to include this phrase (along with “The chances of survival are 725… to 1”) I do understand that there are limits to what is possible. So how do we get around this?

Open the EV3 Sound Editor The EV3-G software has a built-in sound recorder/editor so that you can create your own sound files. You can access it via the Tools menu at the top

of the Programming Canvas.

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Dr Damien Kee has been working with robotics in education for over 10 years, teaching thousands of Students and hundreds of Teachers from all over the world. He is the author of the popular “Classroom Activities for the Busy Teacher” series of robotics teacher resource books.

You can find more information at www.damienkee.com or contact him directly at damien@damienkee.com. Or you can scan the QR code at the left!

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Building

Some Say He Looks a Lot Taller on TV and Not Made of Plastic... All We Know is He’s Called the Stig!

Article by Jared K. Burks

Minifig Customization 101

Given that this issue is all about cars, I thought it appropriate to tackle a car-based custom figure. Choosing the Stig was simple, yet oh so complex. If we get a good look at the Stig, there isn’t much to his outfit. It is a set of racing whites, gloves, and a helmet. Yet there are very subtle differences from episode to episode and likely from driver to driver that portrayed the Stig. So this column will feature some details we haven’t talked about: research!

You must know your subject if you are going to create a custom figure that really resembles the figure you are after. It is therefore very important to extensively research the character or person you are attempting to create in custom minifigure form. If we look at characters from a film franchise, Star Wars for example, they are constantly changing small details. Just search Han’s Blaster and see how many conflicting pieces of information are out there. Or for simplicity, watch Jamie & Adam Tested: Adam’s Savage’s One Day Builds: Han Solo’s DK-44 Blaster (https://youtu.be/4sCReGjfZ_AA). Creating a custom figure is just as detailed and the process of research is just as critical, even if you are creating a custom figure of your own making instead of basing it off of a character from TV, film, or real life. These custom figures will have clothing, weapons or gear, and other parts and pieces that will be inspired by actual items. Looking at those items will help create the details in your custom figure.

Okay, back to the Stig. Some say he’s not the Stig. But he is the Stig’s Danish plastic cousin. Because we are creating the Stig’s Danish plastic cousin, we have to be careful to capture the critical details without overdoing the design, as we don’t want the figure looking out of place with the awesome cars LEGO has recently given us in the Speed Champions theme, especially as the Stig has driven many of these cars in the show Top Gear.

Where do we begin to research the Stig? Luckily we live in the age of the Internet and Google is everyone’s friend, or at least they want to know as much about you as possible,

We’re looking for the next bright LEGO® idea…

ideas.lego.com

Discover proposals for new LEGO® sets created by fans just like you! Upload your own idea, or support your favorites. Give feedback and share ideas with your friends so

they get noticed. The more active you are the more chance you have of seeing great ideas become awe-some LEGO products.

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129088_Bricks_Magazine_8.375x10.875.indd 1 13/04/15 08.46

Events

Article and Photography by Stephan Sander

from a small gathering to one of the major meetings for AFOLs in Europe. However, the tenth LEGO Fan Weekend would be the last one ever to happen, and many thought it marked the end of an era... until another event was created to take its place.

on the past, present and future of Fan Weekend.

Enchanted Forest by César Soares and Hugo Santos.

BRICKJOURNAL #38 COOL CARS & HOT RODS! Tips and examples from interna-tional LEGO car builders, including German builder StephanSander, Jordanian Firas Abu-Jaber, and Italian Andrea Lattanzio!Plus JARED K. BURKS on minifigure customizing, step-by-step“You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons byDAMIEN KEE, and more!

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_78&products_id=1227

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW,CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS

ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!