Minecraft 2017: Techniques using LEGO® part 27928

Taking another small break from our parts festival, today sees the return not only of the interesting new Minecraft piece (which BrickLink have named 'Wedge, Plate 2 x 2 Pentagonal with Center Stud and 1 x 1/2 Raised Tab on Top') but also of Jonas Kramm and his apparent predilection for street furniture!

In my previous article I showed you a long list of highlights from the new LEGO® Minecraft sets. Today I will present you the first ideas I came up with using the new mould, the modified 2x2 wedge plate in Reddish Brown (Element ID 6163991|Design ID 27928). Luckily we get a great number of this part — 24! — in the set 21130 The Nether Railway [available from Amazon US and Amazon UK], so I could play around with some ideas that use it repetitive ways. The generated structures immediately inspired me to build two fence designs.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Microscale

Okay, it really is happening! Welcome 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. I'll post a handful every day for the next nine days. Hopefully some just might inspire you to get building! 

To kick things off I have selected some of the microscale constructions that the participants came up with. Microscale essentially means that the scale of the model is smaller than one that minifigures could inhabit.

To me this looks like a floating industrial island with traditional housing. Look carefully and you'll see that the builder has made use of the 3.18mm bar connection on the Black Fence 1X4X2 W/ Shaft No 1 (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) giving an impression of 'floating'.

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: 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).

Minecraft 2017: More building ideas

Recently we've been lucky enough to have Jonas Kramm (who has literally just won another Iron Builder title!) investigating the pieces that come in the latest wave of LEGO® Minecraft sets for us and one in particular has intrigued him. Today he shows some more of the clever builds he's created using the new piece called “Wedge, Plate 2 x 2 Pentagonal with Center Stud and 1 x 1/2 Raised Tab on Top” by BrickLink and “Plate 2X2, W/ Design” by TLG (Element ID 6163991|Design ID 27928).

Welcome back to more ideas using the new LEGO Minecraft mould. Having shown you two fence designs, amongst others, here are a few more uses of that element, starting with the first idea I built and the one that I like the most of all. In the comments on New Elementary someone already called this new modified wedge plate a “birdhouse plate” and that actually fits pretty well, as the part is just perfect for building birdhouses.

LEGO Birdhouse

Lettering contest: Entries (Vol.5)

Some more great entries to our LEGO® lettering contest are ready for you to enjoy! Click any image to view larger.

For all images, please be aware that COPYRIGHT IS OWNED BY THE ENTRANT. So, for example, using their design or posting these images elsewhere without their consent might not be cool with them.

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Eduardo Moreira

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: 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),

Minecraft 2017: Steampunk Spider

Jonas Kramm has sort of been running a mini-parts festival here on New Elementary recently using a piece from the new LEGO® Minecraft sets, and today he brings it to our other parts festival...

For this build I combined the 'birdhouse' plate (Design ID 27928) with another part that is being reviewed on New Elementary currently, the Nexogon (Design ID 27255). The result is a three-legged Steampunk spider creature.

Minecraft 2017: the new parts

What would Jonas Kramm (Legopard on Flickr) do with six LEGO® Minecraft sets? We will find out in the coming weeks, but first, to bring you up to speed he's written a great rundown of the pieces in the new range: 21129 The Mushroom Island, 21130 The Nether Railway, 21131 The Ice Spikes, 21132 The Jungle Temple, 21133 The Witch Hut and 21134 The Waterfall Base. He's even added a helpful catch-up of other interesting parts the theme has introduced over the years.

The LEGO® Group has been producing sets in minifigure scale within the LEGO Minecraft theme since 2014, but these sets still seem to be pretty unpopular in the AFOL community. That is probably the reason why nobody noticed that a new wave of LEGO Minecraft sets popped up in the product line.

I was the lucky one on the New Elementary team to receive the six new sets to give you a look at the new parts… perhaps I am the only one who has ever played Minecraft?

NEXOGON: Patterns with pentagons

Our next builder in the NEXOGON parts festival, our celebration of LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ Combo Power shields, is Tom Klatt (thirteenthmonkey on Flickr) who hails from the state of Minnesota, USA. Tom's initial investigations paired the Nexogon with another brand-new LEGO piece we investigated recently...

This first build came together as I had the parts to LEGO Minecraft 21130 Nether Railway and one of the Nexo Knights battle suits lying near each other on my table. When I put the new Minecraft piece, Reddish Brown 'Plate 2x2, w/ design' (Element ID 6163991|Design ID 27928), where the NEXO power shield would normally go, I saw the potential for a face.

LEGO® Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle

Sven Franic found some surprising things inside LEGO® Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle. The set has 962 pieces and is now available, for an RRP of £69.99 / US$69.99 / 69.99€. 

Another weird and wonderful set has recently emerged from the LEGO® Ideas platform. A team effort from fan designer Jake Sadovich and LEGO model designer Tiago Catarino went through what seems like a tough job: adapting a glass bottle into a feasible construction for a set.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival

On the last weekend of each September, the Skærbæk Fan Weekend brings together hundreds of LEGO® fans from dozens of countries for a few fun-filled days in a remote Danish coastal town. 2017's was the biggest yet, and on the Sunday morning New Elementary ran one of our 'live' parts festivals: a special workshop where, thanks to the LEGO Group, 60 AFOLs got their hands on some of the newest LEGO pieces to see what they could build within the space of an hour.

At long last I'm ready to show you what they made! Well, almost. Today I will introduce the parts I chose for the festival.

LEGO® NINJAGO® review: 71720 Fire Stone Mech

Kev Levell (on Flickr) takes a deep dive into the 2020 LEGO® NINJAGO® set 71720 Fire Stone Mech today. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links: UK LEGO Shop | UK Amazon | USA LEGO Shop | USA Amazon | Australia LEGO Shop, for other countries 'Change Region'. New Elementary may get a commission. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.

An incredible 45 sets were released within the LEGO® NINJAGO® theme in 2020; that’s a lot even allowing for magazine cover mounts and the perennial pocket money “character spinner” variants. It’s a number exceeded only by LEGO Friends sets, while LEGO Star Wars languishes just behind with 43.

The 71720 Fire Stone Mech is one of the larger sets in Ninjago's 2020 ‘Master of the Mountain’ subtheme. He’s a big fella too, weighing in at 667g with a total of 968 pieces including 5 minifigures, all for a comparatively reasonable £64.99 / US$69.99 / 68.23€.

LEGO® Star Wars 2018: the parts

With the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it's a timely moment to see what excitements the most recent batch of LEGO® Star Wars range has brought us in terms of new parts. We've challenged Kevin Levell to free-build using only parts from sets 75206 - 75212 inclusive and you'll see the results in the coming weeks; but before he built anything, we asked that he review the new parts from every set for you.

Seven sets. 3062 parts. 29 minifigures. 56 new parts.

For many, the main attraction of new LEGO® Star Wars sets are the minifigures, and across these sets there are a total of 29. This includes three weird looking dog things, Corellian Hounds I'm informed, and three droids.

LEGO® Jurassic World review: 76956 T. rex Breakout

What if LEGO® Jurassic World sets had brick-built dinosaurs? I was intrigued by the presence of one in 2022's 76956 T.rex Breakout, and wanted to check it out to see if LEGO succeeded to bring the prehistoric predator to life with so-called normal pieces. Also, a brick-built Tyrannosaurus is definitely easier to refurbish than one of those prefabricated dinosaurs, so I gave mine bit of a facelift.

Left: ©2022 The LEGO Group.  Right: Eero's revised version.

LEGO® Pick a Brick: new elements for November 2025

LEGO® Pick a Brick (PaB) have added these 55 new elements to the service today, Tuesday 4 November 2025. The new parts are from some of the July 2025 sets.

LEGO® Pick a Brick: new elements added in October 2025 for Europe, Australia and New Zealand

Having skipped September 2025, LEGO® Pick a Brick (PaB) have confirmed they will resume the addition of new elements to the service this week, but only for European, Australian and New Zealand stores. New parts from both May and June 2025 sets are included, so it's a bumper load!

The PaB stores in USA and Canada will not be included due to the current ongoing suspension. No definite date has been provided for the resumption of service in North America, however we do know that it is the team's top priority, and much progress has been made.

What are the new LEGO® parts in June 2024 sets?

I've created a list showing the more than 1000 new LEGO® elements added in June 2024, with links to which sets they come in so you can check for the ones you might be interested in. For those of you who instead prefer our list of sets showing which contain the most new elements, click here.

LEGO® Pick a Brick: Thousands of pieces reduced in price

LEGO® Insiders Weekend is underway! On top of all the LEGO Insiders Weekend 2025 Gift with Purchase (GwP) Sets & Deals running across Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 November 2025, we wanted to alert you that there have also been substantial price changes recently on the LEGO Pick a Brick service (PaB), which sells loose bricks individually. Purchases this weekend receive 2x loyalty points and count towards achieving those GwP thresholds.

Thousands of LEGO pieces have had their prices reduced, up to 97% lower. Thanks to data provided by the awesome Ashley Pinner, we've listed every PaB part that is now 40% cheaper or more – that's 2,111 LEGO bits to pick from! Read on to see the visual list of elements, and click any part you like to buy it on LEGO Pick a Brick... while stocks last.