LEGO’s next gift with purchase set for October has been revealed with the LEGO Magic Maze (40596). The build is basically a handheld maze that you control my moving the board around. The maze has thirteen different zones that you have to navigate through to reach the end by holding the sides. You start off at the top left corner where you move the ball in a spiral to reach the underground section. The underground part has a couple of openings in the middle for you to try to reach the exit which brings you to a speed bump section made of tan parts. If you angle it too much, you’ll most likely shoot past this area where you get to the small zigzag area. Next up is a ladder/bridge area using some red containers and you have to jump the ball to the other side. Once you get there, you...

LEGO has produced lots of balls, so today we are going to take a close look at the “soccer ball”-sized ones. Where did they get their start and where are they going? To find out, let’s get the ball rolling! LEGO Soccer Sets The first balls we are looking at came from LEGO soccer sets. LEGO soccer sets were introduced in 1998 with the large stadium, soccer field baseplates and grandstand. You could play with the LEGO soccer ball, but it was not really a play feature. The play features for these sets started in 2000 with the introduction of a spring-loaded shooter. With this shooter, you could shoot the ball at targets, or with set 3409, you could play a soccer match with a friend. Set 3409 Part 30488c01 Spring shooter Part 30492 These soccer sets had great playability. A friend of mine used to own one, and I remember...

If you haven’t been to the LEGO Insiders Rewards Center, there are some new items that you may be interested in. The newest item is the Customizable Logo Cap which costs 4,000 points and it features patches of Bionicle, Blacktron, and Castle. The listing also states that there will be additional patches available in the future. The other items in the Rewards Center are the Cross-Body Bag which costs 4,800 points and the Foldable LEGO Backpack that costs 3,300 points. Both includes an image of the LEGO minifigure design. The post New Items in LEGO Insiders Rewards Center appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

You heard that right, SHIPtember fans! Everyone’s favorite annual at-least-100-stud, Seriously Huge Investment in Parts, month-long build-a-thon is drawing to a close. But it’s not too late, even if you haven’t started yet. Got some vacation days to burn? Good at faking an illness (cough cough)? Then you’re ready to get to it! But if you’re just curious about who’s built what so far, you’re in luck. We’ve got a preliminary round-up of this year’s SHIPtember builds, plus some exclusive, behind-the-scenes commentary from the builders themselves! USS Alliance Kicking it off, we start with Ryan Olsen. Ryan kind of got an early start this year since he was planning on taking his finished build to BrickCon. He started with some renders back in August, but that’s totally within the rules of SHIPtember. As long as you start and finish within a month, no more, it’s cool. This allows, for example, students...

October is fast approaching and there a few new LEGO sets that will be available on the LEGO Shop. The list isn’t big but it does include some Christmas sets as well as some big hitters like the UCS Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser (75367) and Viking Village (21343). The promotions for October 2023 are still unknown at this time but I’m guessing the LEGO Halloweenn Fun VIP Add-On Pack (40608) could be launching some time during the month. Disney • Mini Disney Palace of Agrabah (40613) – $39.99• Asha in the City of Rosas (43223) – $19.99• King Magnifico’s Castle (43224) – $99.99• Asha’s Cottage (43231) – $49.99 Icons • Alpine Lodge (10325) – $99.99 Ideas • Viking Village (21343) – $129.99 Marvel • The Hoopty (76232) – $89.99 Seasonal • LEGO Nutcracker (40640) – $12.99• Gingerbread Ornaments (40642) – $12.99 Star Wars • Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama (40658) – $29.99•...

Many of us love the LEGO Botanical Collection. Making flowers and plants from unusual and repeated LEGO elements has stretched back in AFOL history from competitions like the Iron Builder to more modern sets. LEGO’s extended line of floral décor touches upon that desired “NPU” (Nice Parts Usage) descriptor for AFOLs and reaches out to the average person’s appreciation for beautiful plants and flowers. Bruce LoweLL If you’re anything like me and have a killer thumb instead of a green one, finding plants you can keep alive is a challenge. Enter the hearty succulents! Even before LEGO produced set 10309 Succulents, I found succulent gardens and terrariums enticing. Their ratio of beauty, life, and upkeep seemed to be perfect. Now, let us swap out the “life” category of these plants actually being alive with our favorite toy! The beauty is still there, but is now joined together with a tabletop puzzle...

In some news over in the sustainability front, it has been reported that The LEGO Group has abandoned their efforts to use recycled plastics for their bricks after findings that the new material caused higher carbon emissions. As reported from the Financial Times and Reuters, the plastics from recycled polyethylene terephthalate led to higher emissions in which the company is trying to reduce to greenhouse gas emissions by 2032 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The new bricks made from recycled bottles were revealed back in 2021 would also required new equipment to produce over the product’s lifetime. The post The LEGO Group Abandons Plans for Recycled Plastic Bricks appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

LEGO Anatomy by legotruman is the latest project to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas. The 650 piece build features a minifigure with half of it showing the insides and teaches children about human anatomy through LEGO building. The project joins Modular Heritage Museum, Great Temple of Abu Simbel – With Secret Treasure, Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 “Phantom of Love”, Moon Palace, and NASA’s SLS Block 1 & 1B Rockets – Artemis Missions as the ones to reach the Third 2023 Review Stage. The post LEGO Ideas LEGO Anatomy Achieves 10,000 Supporters appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published September 15, 2022. Today we feature a guest article from one of BrickNerd’s patrons Liz Puleo. She shares her experience growing as an AFOL and how ADHD has impacted her LEGO journey. One Thing Leads To Another Well, that escalated quickly. In the blink of an eye, I feel like I went from being a casual LEGO fan to part of the LEGO community to competing on LEGO Masters US Season 3. Let me quickly recap everything that has happened in my life relating to LEGO in the past two years. It began innocently at home—my family and I amassed a rather large LEGO collection for fun. Trying to sort this collection found me conversing with other adults in the LEGO community online including BrickNerd. Chatting with them online helped me find other adults in my area (a LUG) that built with LEGO. Building with...

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published September 28, 2022. What do Dr. Strange, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Disney characters all have in common? They’re subjects built into MOCs by the talented Josh Parkinson of course! Last month I covered the holy grail of nerdiness, Emerald City Comicon (ECCC), and the group of AFOLs that I hung out with there called Brick Nation. As part of the story, we took a minute to talk to one of the builders who presented MOCs there, Josh Parkinson, to get his first-timer ECCC experience recap. It turns out that while we chatted, he was so fascinating that I got to asking him other questions that ranged far past ECCC… so I decided to split it out into a second article. So here we are! It’s always exciting to get to learn about another builder—everyone has such a unique and fascinating story to tell...