This week is Engineers’ Week, and as part of that celebration, today we are going to dive into planetary gear trains! Ring and Planets in a pencil sharpener These gear trains have some unique features that may make interesting additions to your builds. Planetary Gear Trains (from now on PGTs) are used in lots of things: cars, helicopters, airplanes, wind turbines, electric drills, and manual pencil sharpeners to make a shortlist. A big advantages is that they have coaxial input/output shafts, can often take up less space than other transmissions, have less torque loss, and better distributes the load among the gears. In our LEGO PGTs, we likely won’t see much space-saving, but we should get the rest of those advantages. So let’s get nerdy and explore planetary gear trains in LEGO! The Basics [If math scares you, skip to the next section where we start talking about LEGO!] PGTs have...

Tower Chess by Ferbrick1 is the latest project to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas. The build features a chess board that can be folded around the tower with the pieces stored inside. The project joins Spirited Away, Appa the Sky Bison, from Avatar the Last Airbender, Venus Flytrap, Minerals Display, Dreamworks’ Shrek’s Swamp 2, Hello Kitty and Friends – 50 Years, Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch, Medieval Tournament, Among Us: The Skeld, Cherry Blossom Ikebana, Roman Forum, The Wizard of Oz 85th Film Anniversary, Interstellar, Working Suspension Railway, Metallica M72 World Tour, Suitcase Express!, Outer Wilds, Medieval inn by the Gatehouse, Clockwork Solar System, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and My Neighbor Totoro as the ones to reach the First 2024 Review Stage. The post LEGO Ideas Tower Chess Achieves 10,000 Supporters appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

Introduction One of the best attributes of LEGO trains is the fact that they move! The laws of physics tell us that in order to move, we need energy; in particular, electrical energy. However, before we get into the obvious use of electrical energy to move our trains, it should be mentioned that many of us likely started our LEGO train journey with “push-along” energy from our arms. I remember receiving my first LEGO train set at age three. It was not battery-powered, but self-powered! For most children, this is how we start our play experiences. We are not burdened with having to know how electrical circuits work, how things like motors and switches, etc. need to be connected, or the basics of operation. We simply put our trains on the track and pushed them along (also making sound effects of course!) Eventually, we recognize that having our trains move themselves...

March is just around the corner and it will be a pretty big month in terms of LEGO releases as it is the third largest of the year. As of right now, there are about 50 new items on the LEGO Shop that will be available from pretty much a majority of the LEGO themes including the highly anticipated Animal Crossing. As for any gift with purchase sets go, LEGO hasn’t officially announced anything yet although we’ve seen plenty of GWP items such as the Flower Shop (40680) and the LEGO Ninjago Micro Ninjago City (40703) although they haven’t said when they will be released. We’ll just have to wait until the end of this month to see what will be dropping overseas first to see what we’ll be getting. As a Rakuten/Linkshare Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Animal Crossing • Julian’s Birthday Party (77046) – $14.99• Bunnie’s Outdoor Activities...

Since I returned to the hobby over a decade ago, Bricks by the Bay has been hosting their annual LEGO conventions and have been doing so until last year where it was cancelled due to reasons unknown and was looking forward to holding one this year. They have recently announced that Bricks by the Bay has been cancelled again for 2024 and will be on indefinite hiatus. Again there was so more information besides that but will update when they decide to return in the future. Dear Bricks by the Bay Builders, Vendors and Visitors, There will not be a Bricks by the Bay in 2024, and the convention is on indefinite hiatus. If and when the convention resumes, we will send out an update at that time. Thank you kindly for all the wonderful times! We hope to see you in the future! Sincerely,The Bricks by the Bay Board of...

LEGO is doing a new licensed merchandise survey and you can have a say on what you would like to see in future products. The survey is US/UK centered but you can fill it out if you’re in other countries as well but keep in mind it’ll ask about the items in the US dollar and British pound. It asks how you feel from a variety of mockup product offerings from hoodies, t-shirts, up-scaled LEGO items, travel mugs, backpacks, and more that you can check out and see if you would like to buy something like that and where you would buy it at. The items you see are not the final product but could be something you would see in the near future. We are excited to invite you to participate in a 15-minute survey about our licensed merchandise product offerings. At the LEGO® Group, we are constantly striving to...

LEGO has revealed a new series of gift with purchase sets based on various stores with the first one being the Flower Store (40680). It has 338 pieces and it has the feel of the Houses of the World sets from last year. If it’s like the previous sets, it’ll most likely require a $250 purchase to get it. There’s no word yet on when it’ll be available. Enjoy a rewarding building project assembling the details of the first in a collection of 4 model LEGO® stores. This LEGO Flower Store (40680) collectible toy has lots of details to delight adult and teen builders aged 12 and up. Discover architectural features and, of course, lots of flowers, on the front of the building. Then turn it around to reveal the interior. Here you’ll find the florist’s store downstairs with a cozy apartment above, which includes a bedroom and living area. The...

Today we hear from guest contributor and military-history builder, João Eínon. He takes us through his own LEGO journey as well as a tour of a fan event in Portugal. Hi! My name is João Eínon, I'm 35 years old and I'm from Portugal. LEGO has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. One thing that I'm very proud of is the fact that I never really liked to build the sets in the boxes; instead, I always wanted to build my own things. Believe it or not, when I was very young, I used to make Churches and Cathedrals all the time! But then my aunt gave me an F-16 model Kit (when I was nine years old), and everything changed for me. I very rapidly noticed that I hated painting and building model kits... so instead I decided to use LEGO! Twice the...

Ayrton Senna is one of the most decorated drivers in Formula One history and the team at McLaren had one of the best runs from the late 80’s/early 90’s. LEGO is paying tribute to Senna by releasing the LEGO Icons McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna (10330) which releases on March 1. The set has 693 pieces and will retail for $79.99. Minifigure The set does include a minifigure of Ayrton Senna and he’s dressed in the red racing suit. The front of the suit has printing of various sponsors including Shell, Honda, and Banco Nacional. He has a double-sided head showing a determined look on one side and a smiling expression on the other. He can either use the brown hair or his signature yellow helmet. He has a trophy as an accessory. Build The build of McLaren is fairly straight-forward by building the chassis as well as the engine block...

The humble LEGO sausage element (33078) has been around since 1998. But is there still untapped yumminess there despite being so long-lived? Personally, it’s one of my favorite oddball parts with a wide variety of uses. Yet, I don’t think I ever actually used it as a sausage, hot dog, or other tubular meat stick of your choosing. I find it so much more interesting. At its heart, it’s really just a bar that’s curved. It has all the connection possibilities of a bar but with the added functionality of having a more organic curved shape. It’s almost perfectly versatile, with one exception that does get in the way that I’ll get to later. And it’s had an explosion of colors in the last five years in particular, with nine colors currently available on LEGO’s Pick a Brick service. So let’s dive into this odd little part that has had such a...