About us

Posted by Admin

Welcome to New Elementary and thanks for visiting our LEGO® news and set reviews site, with a unique focus on the bricks themselves. We are a dedicated group of LEGO fans who create high-quality, deep-dive articles about LEGO parts, especially the newest ones! We just love to introduce LEGO pieces to you and inspire you to build with them. 

New Elementary was founded in 2013 and is a Recognised LEGO® Fan Media, meaning we receive support from the LEGO Group in the form of review sets, interview opportunities and more. This also means we will not be discussing LEGO leaks here! However we regularly receive sets to review in advance of the release date, and official press releases too. Opinions expressed in our articles are our own.


If you love what we do, you can become a supporter on Patreon, or use our affiliate links to buy your LEGO (we may earn a commission).

Regular contributors to New Elementary

Although we have many guest writers, at the heart of New Elementary are a team of dedicated volunteers who spend hours researching, writing, photographing... and chit-chatting!... all to keep you entertained and informed. Let's meet them in alphabetical order!

Alexandre Campos

Author

Hailing from Portugal, Alex has always loved playing with LEGO products, having never gone through the typical "Dark Age" without LEGO. He is a member of PLUG (Portuguese LEGO Users Group, of which he is a former Ambassador), ROBOTMAK3RS, and TechnicBRICKs. A big fan of technology and gadgets, it should be of no surprise that his favourite LEGO themes are Technic, Space (M-Tron for the win!) and MINDSTORMS.

As a child, Alex swallowed a piece of a puzzle, which now has 1499 pieces.

Aron Gerencsér

Author & Editor

Currently living in rural Hungary, Aron got into the LEGO hobby with the first generation of BIONICLE, and was appropriately brought out of his dark ages by the second. When not building, editing or writing, he annoys his fellow New Elementarists by calling colours "Metru Blue" and "Keetorange". 

When living in Melbourne, Aron often saw actor Geoffrey Rush gardening with varying quantities of clothes. 

Ben Davies

Author

A lifelong LEGO fan, Ben enjoys building with bricks (both real and virtual) and doing original research into the digital history of the LEGO Group. He has consulted on numerous projects including LEGO Worlds (2017), Bricks n' Bits (2021), and The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks (2022), and is an active member of NELUG. In order to afford his LEGO hobby, Ben works as Game Artist in the United States.

Ben was once admitted to the hospital for swallowing a trumpet.

https://twitter.com/ProfBrickkeeper    

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95632775@N06/

Caz Mockett

Author

Caz loved LEGO as a child, particularly the original Classic Space theme, but she only came out of her Dark Age at the end of 2017. Since then, she has been making up for lost time, building mostly with System elements to construct various microscale models and expand her custom Ninjago District. She also dabbles in Technic when building frustrating Great Ball Contraption machines. Caz has been a member of London AFOLs since November 2017, and a selection of her Micropolis MOCs are on display in the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery in Billund from 2019-2021. 

During a canal boat holiday in southern France with friends, Caz accidentally kidnapped a dog.

https://www.youtube.com/c/BlockHeadUK

https://twitter.com/cazphoto

https://www.instagram.com/cazmockett/

Chris Baginski

Editor

Chris grew up with LEGO in the 1980s and early ’90s with Town, Technic and all things Space. His LEGO journey began with a giant bin of his older cousins’ LEGO bricks and was reignited in more recent years thanks to Creator, Ideas, and so many other wonderful themes. Chris hails from Queens, New York and loves the element exploring and parts-sorting world of New Elementary.

Chris' father was a priest and his mother was a nun.

Eero Okkonen

Author

In his free time, Eero tries to capture human beings with plastic bricks. Otherwise, he dabbles with architecture. When it comes to both LEGO and buildings, he prefers second-hand ones that have seen some life. He was born in rural eastern Finland but has moved to a slightly more urban setting in Tampere. Unlike most AFOLs, he picks blueberries and tried to avoid falling into BrickLink. 

Eero once spent Palm Sunday dressed up as an egg and beating his neighbours with twigs.

Francesco Spreafico

Author

Francesco lives in Italy even though you can easily find him roaming around Billund. LUG Ambassador for ItLUG, he came out of his Dark Ages about 10 years ago and fell in love with LEGO history after a tour in Billund in 2015.

Francesco once watched Wicked with Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laz75/

https://www.instagram.com/fra_sprea/

https://oldbricks.it

Jonas Kramm

Author

Jonas lives in Germany. After a LEGO-filled childhood, his obsession with the bricks just became bigger and he never had any Dark Ages. He still loves to build MOCs, to participate in building competitions and to show his work online and at LEGO conventions.

Jonas once was called by name by the lead singer of the German punk rock band "Die Ärzte", because he had lost his wallet at the concert.

Kev Levell

Author

Kev lives in the UK. When he’s not tinkering with tablescrap LEGO experiments he’s mostly a stay-at-home parent, although he has been known to draw and make things for a living too. Kev’s love of LEGO began in 1979 with a 918; he clearly remembers obsessing about trans-red antennae sometime during 1983 and, with the exception of a couple of periods when stuff got in the way of LEGO, it’s been that way ever since.

Kev once shouted “Welcome to the Muppet Show” during a Bishop’s sermon. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24652874@N02/

https://www.instagram.com/kevlevell/

Markus Rollbühler

Author

Originally from Germany but now living in Denmark, Markus has turned his life-long passion into a living. When he isn't paying his bills with tiny plastic bricks, he uses them to create MOCs in his spare time, building in a wide range of topics. He's known for questionable things such as building 52 mechs in the span of a year (which we can't recommend) or his unhealthy obsession with cheese slopes (tasty!) and, as of late, for tormenting amazing builders with crazy seed parts in the Iron Builder and Iron Forge contests.

Trying to get the perfect shot, Markus managed to fall into a local canal during the first class of his photography degree.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/moriartus/

https://www.instagram.com/moriartus/

Thomas Jenkins

Author

Thomas was born in Wales but has lived in Japan for almost a decade. He preaches the good word of Ninjago and Monkie Kid to the Classic Spacers in his LEGO User Group, KLUG, and he’s managed to convert a few new fans. When not building Star Wars MOCs, Thomas disappears into the mountains of rural Niigata on his bicycle. 

Thomas was once forced into a kimono-wearing contest but lost to a contestant who wore theirs back to front.

https://www.instagram.com/thomas_jenkins_bricks/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas_jenkins_bricks/

Tim Johnson

Editor-in-chief

As a child Tim's favourite LEGO sets were Classic Space... and Shell petrol stations. He is old enough to remember being thrilled by the introduction of the 1x3 brick. After leaving his Dark Age in 2011 he became frustrated by the lack of discussion about new LEGO elements online, and founded New Elementary in 2013. He was also the Editor of Bricks Culture magazine for its 2-year run and has written and built for DK Publishing's range of LEGO books. 

Tim was once removed from Australian Parliament for interrupting proceedings.

TobyMac

Author & Tech Wiz

A Space and Technic fan as a child, TobyMac came back to LEGO around 10 years ago when he discovered Peeron.com. When that great resource sadly stopped updating he stumbled upon Rebrickable and, soon becoming utterly LEGO-obsessed, he became an admin there in 2016. 

TobyMac once broke his jaw at a bike race. He passed the finish line first, but his bike never did.

https://rebrickable.com/users/TobyMac/profile/

Tom Loftus

Author

Having two older sisters, Tom's introduction to LEGO was an early one - albeit limited to Paradisa and Harry Potter sets. Having had no semblance of a Dark Age, Tom's obsession has grown ever since. When he's not at work designing packaging, he can be found making Star Wars ships in excruciating detail or creating bizarre spacefaring craft of his own imaginings. 

Tom became feared amongst teachers at school on account of fainting during multiple classes... on the same day.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/inthert/

https://www.instagram.com/inthert.lego/?hl=en

Zachary Hill

Author

Lured out of his Dark Age by New Elementary's attention to detail, Zach favours LEGO cars, Star Wars and Technic. He believes LEGO is a playground for imperfection, a contrast to his career in engineering and computers. Computer games were instrumental in cultivating his interest in LEGO with countless childhood hours spent playing Rock Raiders and LEGO Racers on the family PC.

Zach has been deeper underwater than you.

https://www.instagram.com/zaxbrix/

44 comments:

  1. Keep up the good work. Look very promising.

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  2. Love this! Keep the content coming...you are off to a wonderful start!

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  3. Look forward to the blog! Sounds great!

    Omega X

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  4. Just new here;;
    Really nice stuff.
    Maybe add a facebook/twitter :)

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    1. Everyone's new here Wilfried including me!

      You're right about FB/Twitter. I've been pondering it but not doing anything about it... best get my skates on and sort it out

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  5. Great blog, istantly added to my feed!! :)

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  6. Hello from Queensland Australia. Great blog, well done so far Tim.

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  7. Terrific idea for a blog. Hope you keep it up. Can I suggest you enlist other guest bloggers a la the Bros Brick in order to keep up the flow of articles. I am happy to write sthng on Duplo, should you desire.

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    1. Thanks Rich! Feels like very early days so will be interesting to see how I go - and how the stats go! - over the next month. Certainly a very exciting start.

      See you tonight, I hope to be there for 6.

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  8. Awww man, I was kinda hoping this was a blog more dedicated to complete listings of what's new and out there. Personally I think fretting about different colors of the same parts makes things way over complicated, especially since there are databases like bricklink one can link to to easily show people what colors a given part comes in.

    As for the Technic/Hero Factory/ Bionicle stuff, if you would like assistance with that area I am a "BioMOCer" and it is my area of expertise. I generally can track down which set a specialized piece comes or came from if you at the very least need a goto guy for stuff like that. I'm 24 years old so I was building with bionicle since the very beginning. I was there through the whole thing. And now I closely monitor the HF series and what ever else lego decides to use the system with(like the DC/Marvel ultrabuilds or the Legend of Chima ones). I'll be honest, I think its not fair to have a system MOCer by himself run a blog about new elements/parts when its a topic that appeals to all MOCers and collectors. I wouldn't do it. Going in, I'd know I'm no where near as experienced with system as I am bionicle/HF and I would cultivate a team of experts in the given areas to help run the blog and cover much more ground. So I'm tossing in my name for consideration as the go to Bionicl-e-xpert.

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    1. Thanks Dave! Re new colours - these elements are so new, they're not always listed on Bricklink at the time I post. Bricklink only adds elements once the sets are available and inventories can be verified.

      For me, I feel complete listings of all new elements is what would be overkill - for the same reason you give actually, you can check full lists on Brickset and Bricklink. (Although Brickset's aren't always complete thanks to LEGO's strange habit of not listing everything on their server, and as I said Bricklink's come only once sets are available.)

      I do take your point though that it would be cool to cover EVERYTHING, to teach people (including me!!) about what Constraction elements can be used for (and Duplo too, as Rich pointed out above). At this point though, I'm just finding my feet and reckon this will remain a personal blog for the time being. Let's see how it goes and I may be in touch. I'd love to run something with multiple writers like the wonderful TBB, but there's just too much other stuff to deal with at the mo. As you point out, colours would be less of a focus when it comes to Constraction as it would be more important to blog about the functionality of the pieces. Many little differences like this would need to be considered, and if I'm going to start being 'fair' about what goes on here, I'd need to be sure my team covers EVERYTHING. Food for thought...

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  9. Great site! I'll check it every day I can! (Don't know how to sign in, so just call me goldninja101) You're doing great man!

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  10. I think this blog is a GREAT idea and excellent for me and my part-nerdery.

    Would you be including, say, older parts (which are underrated and deserve more exposure)? Also, would you consider fan/guest contributions?

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    1. Cheers Marcus! Nerd on. Yes, I will venture into older (even vintage!) parts. I'm expecting the current wave of new elements from summer sets will die down for a few months, so I've dreamt up a variety of other related ideas!

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  11. Hay, goldninja101 here! With all the new superhero movies coming out, it makes you wonder if LEGO is going to make sets for them. Here's a list of the superhero movies coming out (Allthough some farly far into the future) and my oppinion for them:
    Captain America- Winter Soldger: I'm highly doubtful. But it would have GREAT minifigures.
    Thor- Dark World: I kinda doubt it. (But I DESPERATELY hope so!!!)
    The Amazing Spiderman 2: I think they really might, it would be a good comeback for the sets that they made for Spidermans 1 and 2.
    The Avengers 2: Yes. Defenently. Because it comes out in 2015, LEGO will have plenty of time.
    Well! that it for now! Tell me what you guys think, I'll really appreciate it!
    -goldninja101

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  12. Wonderful wonderful site! First class presentations!

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  13. Hay! goldninja101 here! Hay, Tim (Mind if I call you Tim? I'm still kinda new around here.) Maybe you could write something about the BIG treads that you can find in the NinjaGo Warior Bike. They're kinda new and definantly need more attention. P.S. I got the Warior bike , the Golden Dragon, Kia's Fire mech, and Cole's Earth Driller.
    Awesome Right?!

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  14. You may call me Tim, funnily enough it's even my name. Thanks for the idea goldninja101 I will have a look, although I don't own them as yet. Treads alone might be hard to flesh into a whole post, but you never know!

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  15. Hay Tim, goldninja101 here! Did you here about the release of The Hobbit, Azog, The Pale ork minifigure being realeased at this year's Comic con in San Diego? He's currently on ebay and is selling for 1,525$ US dollars! That means he surpasess Mr. gold in selling value! I just got the news off of Brickset, and It's getting me all hyped up! If you have 1,525$ dollars laying around (ha, ha), go and get it! -goldninja101

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    1. Update, Final selling price: 1,650$ US dollars! (Wow!) -goldninja101

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  16. Very nice (and new) idea Tim!

    I've added your blog to my LEGO favourites and have been reading every single article ever since.
    It's always nice to read something new I never would have thought of...
    Please keep on surprising me! ;-)
    And thx for doing this.

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    1. Thanks so much - such kind words make me happy I did it!

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  17. Why did I not find this earlier?!? Great blog, useful for us builders. Thanks Tim!

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  18. Hay Guys, goldninja101 here! I'm commenting to give you a little heads up on some new colors.
    First of all, on the LEGO NinjaGo 2014 set OverBorg attack (70722) we have some baby bows, IN GREEN! I am 99% sure that this is a new color for the baby bow, and since it's in a 20$ set, it should be easy to get your hands on some in 2014. Secondly, there's something different about the series 11 Grany's legs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the pants are an entirely new color! Well, that about wraps it up! ( But baby bows in LEGO NinjaGo, How cool is that?!) See you guys later! :D
    -goldninja101

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  19. Great news, goldninja, I will definitely want some green ones - thanks for letting me know!

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  20. Hey guys! It's goldninja101 here reporting something that is just off the charts weird. On the LDD software there is the new NinjaGo 2014 weapon piece (the one one that all the ninjas have that's transparent red, blue, ect. and looks like it has a gear on one side and small blade on the other). Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think this is an unreleased Lego piece on the LDD!!! I first saw this on a LDD update a couple months ago, and still questioning how this is possible. Let me know if you guys have any insight on this matter because I'd love to know what's going on. That;s all for now!
    -goldninja101 :D

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  21. This is my new favorite site. I really enjoy your insight and finds. Thank you!

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  22. In my humble opinion, this is the most interesting and informative LEGO site on the web
    --Chaz Fairbanks

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  23. I don't know how I managed to miss this site until now but I am very happy I have discovered it - so are my 7&9 year old kids :)

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  24. Man, I didnt know that you were the author of this blog when I've met you in Dubai. Congratulations and keep up the good work. Unbfortunatelly it takes too long to receive new sets in Brazil or else I could help with something. Anyway, nice to know you!

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    1. Hey Guilherme! Yes, I wear many hats. Although, I don't actually wear a hat. A New Elementary hat could help.

      New E doesn't always have to be about NEW parts or techniques so if you have ideas please do drop me a line!

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  25. Hey! I came across your blog, while hunting for some info on the "padlock plate" and read your October piece about them. It was great and super helpful! Thank you!

    One question - in that post you show some minifigs who are painted to look super ripped and in underwear. They're awesome! Where did you get them? I would have emailed but I missed an email address on here... If you want to email me, I'm steve@cavewolfgames.com.

    Thanks man! Keep up the awesome work!!!

    -Steve

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    1. They are from Citizen Brick https://citizenbrick.com/

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  26. Hi! I really enjoy this blog's content but wanted to suggest that you feature Blockie Talkie, a YouTube channel about legos. It's one of my favorite and is quirky and fun and thought it could resonate with this blog's followers. Thanks for all your great content!

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  27. Are there any plans in the near future to review the tilting/steering axle and axle holder parts? (design ID 69963 and 69964).

    I just picked up set 60288 Race Buggy Transporter and might try do a set of nice pictures if you aren't planning to in the near future.

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  28. Hey could inhert Lego please dm me on insta @ukcustomfigs thanks

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  29. Playing Rock Raiders on the family PC, this is how to spend a summer!

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  30. I read today from you, German Newsletter Rheinische Post .

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