The History of the Space Turtle

The best-known LEGO® model by British AFOL Peter Reid is his Exo Suit, but everyone who bought the official LEGO Ideas version, 21109 Exo Suit, knows his Space Turtle just as well. The turtle has been around much longer, having appeared in the bestselling book he co-created with Tim Goddard – LEGO Space: Building the Future, as well as thrilling thousands of children at LEGO fan shows as a part of his extraordinary Turtle Factory display piece.

We are going to reveal a new turtle exclusive for you here at New Elementary but for context, let’s first look back at the history of the space turtle and ask Peter to take us inside his universe where the robot turtles are hard-working, loyal mechanoids, created by the manufacturing giant Anodyne Systems. The M364 turtle has been deployed on numerous Federation outposts where they perform a wide range of duties, and upgraded M450 units are widely used throughout the corporate security sector.

London AFOLs: Abstract

We took a box of new LEGO® pieces to a meet up of London AFOLs for some fast-paced building adventures. London AFOLs meet in a pub every second Monday of the month, and new and international visitors are always welcome. Check out the group on meetup.com/LondonAFOLs. 

Last time we shared some of the real-world objects the builders made; today it's the abstract builds. People had just 20 minutes to create something using some new LEGO parts, some elements that have recently come in new colours, and London AFOLs' general brick stock. 

Love this simple usage of  Brick 1X1X1 2/3 W/ Vert Knobs in Bright Red [TLG]/Red [BL] (Element ID 6187620|Design ID 32952) to create a spiral. Those 1x4 tiles are Bright Green (6195267|2431); these are back again having briefly appeared in 2012/13. They come in the exclusive set 21037 LEGO House which also introduces 1x1 tiles in this colour!

"Kill Teal" - the winners

It's all over! 54 builders submitted 79 entries that imagined how the newly returned LEGO® colour called teal could be killed off again, given that Mark Stafford's last attempt in 2006 clearly failed. Here are all the entries in one image:

Which of course means we had to judge winners; always a painful task but especially difficult when the entries all excelled in different ways - their originality, humour, clever ideas and of course nice piece usage. Thank you so much to everyone that entered, creating so many smiles for us and New Elementary readers. Now read on to find out who was picked for the prizes...

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 7)

Today we present the final entries we received in our contest where we asked you to imagine how LEGO® designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off Teal again, now that this colour is back in the LEGO palette once more. Missed the previous entries? See them here.

KillTeal2

By Ralf Langer

A rather unobtrusive way :-)

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 6)

For a bit of fun, we asked you to imagine how Teal might be "killed" again, now that this colour is back in the LEGO palette once more. We received 79 fun entries and are publishing a few every day, in the order they were received, and reveal the winners next week. Missed the previous entries? See them here.

The extremes people will go to...

By Tom (Inthert)

"I'm not crazy, you're crazy!!! Its reappearance in the Downtown Diner only proves my theory! Discontinuing teal wasn't enough! It must be removed from the archives to destroy it once and for all!"
- Extract from 'My Life as a Lego Conspiracy Theorist'.

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 5)

We asked you to imagine how LEGO® designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off Teal again, now that this colour is back in the LEGO palette once more. We received 79 entries and are publishing a few every day, in the order they were received, and reveal the winners in just a few days' time. Missed the previous entries? See them here.

Killing the reputation

By Igor R

I think we can all agree that casually phasing out a Lego colour is no way to go and is extremely unethical. What must be done is the colour's reputation has to be destroyed first, after which people themselves may demand to let go of the dreaded shade.

It just so happens that a maniacal angel dressed in Teal and allowed to run amok happens to be a great solution to the problem. Just make sure you add a dash of Purple (preferably of the firearm kind), and you're as good as done! Enjoy the show!

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 4)

We asked you to imagine how LEGO® designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off Teal again, now that this colour is back in the LEGO palette once more. We received 79 entries and are publishing a few every day, in the order they were received, and we reveal the winners next week. Missed the previous entries? See them here.

Teal: Into the Phantom Zone

By Daniele Alessandro Combatti

The year is 2024.

LEGO's continuous production of Teal mysteriously caused giving sentience to the newly-reintroduced colour; all bricks combined to form a humanoid, leaving a trail of destruction at the Danish HQ.

The higher-ups at the company tasked Mark Stafford himself to get rid of the monster, while still following their “no-weapons” policy, so there was only one tool suitable for the job: The Phantom Zone Projector. And a squad of purple paintballers for safety.

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 3)

Now for the third collection of LEGO® models built by New Elementary readers (see the first here) where we asked you to imagine how LEGO designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off this colour, now it is back in the LEGO palette once more. We reveal the judges' choices next week - but which do you like? Comment below!

Sweeping teal under the rug

By Simon Gebraad

With the help of Ryo, Mark Stafford sweaps teal under the rug. Ryo was very happy he could keep his hear, so helping Mark was no problem.

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"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 2)

Here is the second batch of LEGO® models built by New Elementary readers (see the first here) where we asked you to imagine how LEGO designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off this colour now it is back in the LEGO palette once more. We reveal the winners next week - which would you like to win from this bunch?

Not this time Mr. Stafford, not this time...

By Andreas Lenander

Decided to go in a little different direction with this entry. Instead of Mr. Stafford having another go at killing teal as he pleases, I figured there had to be some resistance this time around. So as Mr. Stafford goes about killing teal all over again, figuring no one will be the wiser, a few brave souls decide they have something to say about that.

*disclaimer: this in no way endorses the use of violence, alien or other, to prevent Mr. Stafford from killing teal again ;)

"Kill Teal" models (Vol. 1)

The time has come at last! We asked you to imagine how LEGO® designer and AFOL Mark Stafford might kill off Teal again, now that this colour is back in the LEGO palette once more. We received 79 entries! We will publish a few every day, in the order they were received, and reveal the winners next week. Enjoy, and be sure to tell us your favourites in the comments.

I wanna kill you... again!

By Devid VII

In a secret room in LEGO factory Mark is trying to color the last teal pieces... I wanna kill you again!

London AFOLs: Real-world

We had a box of LEGO® pieces left over from our Skærbæk Parts Festival (which Jason Briscoe kindly drove back to London, thanks Jase!) and so we took them to a meet up of London AFOLs, for more building adventures. London AFOLs are - you guessed it - a bunch of adult fans of LEGO who meet in London. In a pub! It's very friendly and informal, and new and international visitors are always welcome. They meet on the second Monday of every month, so check out the group on meetup.com/LondonAFOLs. 

Over three posts, we will show you just a fraction of what was built that evening. Today we start with some real-world objects the builders dreamt up. Our parts were added to London AFOLs' existing brick stock and head honcho Richard Selby had the idea of restricting build time to just 20 minutes! Then everyone would move tables to try out the different parts on offer. Many of the featured 'seed' parts from the festival had previously been gobbled up by Skærbæk builds, so you'll notice more of the supplementary parts from the festival in these builds. A lot of these were rare or new recolours of existing parts, so I will point some of these out as we go.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Cristiano Grassi and Oscar Cederwall

Two participants of our parts festival at Skærbæk Fan Weekend last September continued building with the new LEGO® pieces after they got home from Denmark.

Oscar Cederwall

Oscar was very interested in the strange Minecraft railway track piece, Plate 2X2, W/ Design in Reddish Brown (Element ID 6163991|Design ID 27928).

He pulled some crafty moves to set the whole of the interior of this flower box at 45°.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Techniques

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

For our parts festivals we also encourage builders to make 'tablescraps' - little things that aren't models, but might have an interesting technique or use a new part in a clever way. For the final visit to our Denmark workshop, we present some of these tablescraps.

This roof uses two pentagonal pieces in Reddish Brown, Plate 2X2, W/ Design (Element ID 6163991|Design ID 27928) and Flat Tile2X3 W/Angle (6163184|22385), which appears only in the rather beautiful LEGO Dimensions Story Pack 71253 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Play the Complete Movie.)

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Garmadon's Hat

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Yesterday brought many vehicles using Ninjago Mini Hat No 19 (Design ID 26007), also known as Minifig, Headgear Hat, Conical Asian with Raised Center on BrickLink or, I believe, 'Jungle Garmadon's hat' to Ninjago fans. Today we have an even wider range of builds using this decorative piece, even though it only has one connection point.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Vehicles

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Following on from yesterday's ships, we have some other kinds of vehicles today using new parts, especially the Ninjago Mini Hat No 19 in Dark Brown (Element ID 6198018 | Design ID 26007).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Ships

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Some used the parts to build ships, which I've collected for you today. Click any image to enlarge.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Furniture and gates

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Today we present some of the models using Fence 1X4X2 W/ Shaft No 1 in Black (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) from Ninjago.

This ornamental furniture is exquisite! Note how the one on the left also uses the Plate 1X3 W/ 2 Knobs in Black (Element ID 6199908 | Design ID 34103).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Patterns

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Faced with parts in large volumes, many were inspired to make patterns.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: the SNOT column

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Today we look at models containing Brick 1X1X1 2/3 W/ Vert Knobs in Bright Red [TLG]/Red [BL] (Element ID 6187620 | Design ID 32952) - except that being such a functional piece, it usually gets buried in the build!

Such as within this spectacular geometric form which makes use of the Nexo Knights pentagonal shield tile (Design ID 22385).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Cages

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Many people used the Ninjago fence - (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) Fence 1X4X2 W Shaft No 1 - to create cage-like structures.

This microscale temple covers up parts of the fence, giving it quite a different feel. Many of the seed parts are used here. Note how the two Plate 2X2 W/ Reduced Knobs in Reddish Brown (Element ID 6196221 | Design ID 33909) slightly tuck under the tiles that have been offset using 'triple jumpers' Plate 1X3 W/ 2 Knobs in Black (Element ID 6199908 | Design ID 34103),