With the exception of Notre Dame, LEGO has shied away from depicting places of worship in official sets, leaving AFOLs to provide religious buildings for minifig believers. Church mocs are quite common, as evidenced by our extensive archive, and lately we’ve been seeing a lot more mosques as well, but synagogues are rarely seen in brick. Builder Matthew Sklar provides a rare look inside a LEGO synagogue from the medieval era, based on the Talmudic Academies of circa 10th Century Babylonia. The Torah ark, framed in blue tiles, is beautifully constructed, but it’s the stained glass windows that shine brightest – fitting as Matthew created this model for the Colossal Castle competition’s stained glass category, as well as Brickscalibur’s Arabian Knights theme. The post Talmudic Academy in LEGO celebrates stained glass and tradition appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) isn’t the usual venue for LEGO to break big news – techies love displaying LEGO, but the bricks themselves aren’t your typical cutting-edge gadgets. That’s about to change with the announcement of the Smart Play system. Smart Bricks communicate with Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags that integrate sensors and spatial awareness into your builds, thanks to microchips smaller than a single stud. You can read about LEGO’s design process for the Smart Brick here. As rumored, the new system debuts with the Star Wars theme with three all-in-one sets coming this March. Each of these will include a Smart Brick, charger, and at least one Smart Minifigure and Yag. The all-in-one sets include: 75421 Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter (69,99 EUR / 69,99 USD / 59,99 GBP), 75423 Luke’s Red Five X-wing (89,99 EUR / 99,99 USD / 79,99 GBP), and 75427 Throne Room Duel & A-wing...

Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 recently arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and Sakiya Watanabe (N.A.B.E_mocs) has already marked the occasion with a new build featuring one of our favorite enemies from these games. The Dino Piranha is a piranha plant variation that resembles Petey Piranha (first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine), but the difference is that these guys hatch from eggs and have dinosaur features – because of course they do. The Super Mario Galaxy games were revolutionary for the franchise and took every enemy, world, and gameplay element to the next level, and Sakiya has done the same with this build. The 2×2 round brick tube (part 65473) has proven to be the most essential piece for Super Mario builds, and is predominantly featured on sets like The Mighty Bowser, the Spiny Shell, and the Piranha Plant. Sakiya used the same part here in different colors to capture the...

We don’t talk about new LEGO sets much at BrickNerd—there are lots of other great sites that do that. However to help us keep the quality up and ads down, we need your help. If you are going to purchase any new LEGO sets and want to help out BrickNerd simultaneously, we ask that you use our affiliate link for LEGO.com. It is a great way to support community-focused journalism without costing you more than you already spend on LEGO. You can support BrickNerd at the same time you get your Stranger Things Creel House, midi-scale Star Wars ships and AT-AT, new Botanicals, Technic rocket, Speed Champions DeLorean, new minifigures, and even the new Shopping Street modular! Even if you only get a keychain using our link, we appreciate the help. You can see all the new sets available at LEGO using the following links: US | CAN | UK |...

BrickNerd returned five years ago with the intention of celebrating creativity, amplifying builder voices, and creating a home for thoughtful, in-depth coverage of the LEGO hobby. As we head into 2026, the growth and engagement of this community continue to shape not just what BrickNerd publishes, but where it goes next. As 2025 wraps up, it feels like the right time to pause and look back. Below, we’re sharing some of the numbers that shaped the year, a handful of standout articles, and a few New Year’s resolutions guiding BrickNerd as we move into 2026. Reflecting on BrickNerd in 2025 Looking back on 2025, it’s clear that BrickNerd continued to do what it does best by telling meaningful stories from across the LEGO community while staying grounded in the people and creativity that make the hobby special. Over the course of the year, we published hundreds of articles spanning interviews, event...