Nexo-Classic Space: Jeremy Williams

It's day four of our investigation of seven new 2016 LEGO® elements. So far Drew Hamilton, Jason Briscoe and Tim Goddard have all taken on our super Spacer challenge: today, it's the multitalented Jeremy Williams (Bricking It). Without further ado I will hand over to Jez.

Pilot seat

This uses the Nexo Bot torso element (Design ID: 24078) as a control column, allowing me to attach two levers and a display.

The newer style of 1x1 tile with clip introduced in 2013 which has a C-shaped clip (15712) fits onto the torso nicely, whereas the old, more angular clip (2555) doesn't fit as well, for some strange reason. This warrants further investigation!

I also placed the seat in a mockup cockpit, shown below.

NEXOGON: Mini-Reactor One

Jeremy Williams (Bricking It on Flickr) has written for New Elementary many times and also took part in a previous parts festival. He's more excited about the Combo Power Shield than any other recent LEGO® part, and so he returns for our NEXOGON parts festival.

You may remember seeing my Reactor One model on Flickr last year, or 'in the brick' at Skaerbaek Fan Weekend or The Great Western Brick Show at STEAM. Well, I decided to use two Nexogons to create a miniature version of Reactor One!

LEGO® Ideas Exo Suit: the logo

Exciting news today; the LEGO® CUUSOO team have given New Elementary readers this exclusive first look at the official logo to be used on their forthcoming set, the Exo Suit! The set will be released in August 2014. Knowing how special the Exo Suit is to the fan community, the CUUSOO team took the unusual step of deciding to work hand-in-hand with AFOLs to decide how the set should be packaged and marketed. So the designer of the original Exo Suit, British AFOL Peter Reid, assembled a team and I was fortunate enough to be included.

"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...

Exo Suit: tease and reveal

Having been starved for the best part of a year, in the last fortnight AFOLs have enjoyed a glut of information about the next LEGO® Ideas set; 21109 Exo Suit, redesigned by LEGO Senior Designer Mark Stafford based on the submission by AFOL Peter Reid. There are already several set reviews online so I'm mixing mine up a bit by interspersing it with a review of the teaser marketing campaign driven by fans.

Nexo-Classic Household Appliances: Elspeth De Montes

All week we've been enjoying amazing creations that use a selection of new 2016 LEGO® parts, built exclusively for New Elementary by a fantastic bunch of AFOLs from the UK. It's been all Spacers so far but today we have one last builder who is not a Spacer: Elspeth De Montes. She brought things firmly back down to a domestic setting!

The shape of the Nexo shield caused her to think of an ironing board. "It’s not exactly going to win the Dyson innovation award for Most Stable Ironing Board," admits Elspeth, but it certainly is delightful I'm sure you will agree.

Contest: Kill Teal (Volume 2)

25 February 2018 

ENTRY IS NOW CLOSED. All received entries will be published on the blog in a few days' time.

After a long absence, in 2018 The LEGO® Group will be reintroducing teal-coloured LEGO elements (Bright Bluish Green [TLG]/ Dark Turquoise [BL]) and the team here at New Elementary are so excited, we're running a competition!

You may recall the 'Mark Stafford Killed Teal' story (if not, it is reproduced below) which inspired Elspeth De Montes to create this LEGO model recently...

Elspeth's creation provoked quite a funny reaction. When New E contributor Jeremy Williams saw it he began to wonder about other ways that Mark Stafford might have killed teal, and suggested this contest to me. And when Mark Stafford it on Twitter, it raised strange anxieties in him:

Beware builders, I fear one day teal may rise again! Zombie-teal. With strange eons even death may die. :) I would have to kill it again!

— Mark John Stafford (@LEGO_Nabii) July 27, 2017

So that's what we want you to build for this competition:
How might Mark Stafford kill teal again?

Our chief minifig is surprise

A brief break from our Elves coverage to look at a Star Wars set: 75082 TIE Advanced Prototype in the hands of Jeremy Williams (Bricking It).

Let’s start with an admission: outside of the six films, my knowledge of the wider Star Wars Expanded Universe is pretty limited. Thus I’m not too familiar with the Rebels series, so I’m going to judge this set on its own merits. And it stands up extremely well. (Except that it doesn’t actually stand up very well at all, owing to those folding wings. But I’m getting ahead of myself).

An ‘Appy Medium

Ultra Agents has proven to be a popular and exciting LEGO® theme, and in advance of the new summer sets hitting stores Jeremy Williams (Bricking It) takes a look at one of the currently-available winter sets: 70170 UltraCopter vs. AntiMatter.

My 'eighties childhood was marked (as I’m sure everyone’s is) with some key contests: which is better? Dallas or Dynasty? BA or Murdoch? Neighbours or Home and Away? Blue Thunder or Airwolf? I had answers to all these questions, and (as you’ve probably guessed by now) also had the sallow skin and weak eyes of an indoors, trash-TV addict. And in the case of the latter question, it was Airwolf all the way.

Which is why I am irresistibly drawn to the Ultracopter. In my mind, it lives inside a dormant volcano, ready to unleash terror on any would-be villains. The Ultra Agents playtheme is already a firm favourite, but this has to be the standout set of the range. Bristling with weaponry and oozing with style, I couldn’t wait to get started.

Nexo-Classic Space: Peter Reid

All week we've had excellent Spacers (Drew Hamilton, Jason Briscoe, Tim Goddard, Jeremy Williams and David Alexander Smith) building gorgeous things with this bunch of new LEGO ® parts. Today it is the turn of Pete Reid; co-author of LEGO Space: Building the Future and the designer of 21109 Exo Suit, with its wee adorable robot turtle. Once again he has employed the masterful skills of Chris Salt to hone the loveliness of the imagery.

Grab a cup of tea first. Strong, British tea. You're going to want to scroll slowly. Over to Pete...

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Asteroids

First up, a homage to a classic arcade game, Asteroids. Only a couple of pieces are actually attached to other pieces. I'm not sure laying out elements like this counts as a proper LEGO model.

AFOLCON 2014

Just a note to say I've no time to put a post together this week... as AFOLCON/Brick 2014 is here in London, and today consisted of some 200 or so adult fans enjoying seminars and setting up displays in the MAAASSIVE exhibition hall. However I'll try to post bits and bobs on social media, so keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook feeds. Here are some tidbits from today.

The best thing about today was someone quietly pointing out that the minifig heads from Minecraft are 'in System' after all, so I was wrong in my recent post on the subject. By placing a 1x2 jumper and a 2x2 jumper next to each other, two Minecraft heads align. Now that is nice.

NEXOGON: Our parts festival begins

Our next parts festival, NEXOGON, is progressing nicely! The new LEGO® part 27255, a.k.a. "Plate, Modified 6 x 6 Hexagonal with Pin Hole" or "Rotor , w/ 4.85 hole, No. 1" or the "Combo NEXO Power shield" is found in several 2017 sets from the NEXO KNIGHTS™ range. Bulk amounts of this part are now on their way to 14 select builders around the world and indeed some of the builders have received them already. One of them, Gary Davis, was so excited he immediately sent me this picture... so I guess the festival is officially underway!

Nexo-Classic Space: David Alexander Smith

We're back for another day of Classic Space builds inspired by some of the new LEGO® parts released this year. Following hot on the trail of Drew Hamilton, Jason Briscoe, Tim Goddard and Jeremy Williams we have David Alexander Smith. I first noticed David because he creates all sorts of odd things in a primitive style but most recently he has become known for his charming series of Space Dinos which emulate not only Classic Space but also other toys of the 1980s.

I sent David the same parts as everyone else except for the white 2x2 wedges, and he used all the supplied parts in one creation. Let's hand over to him now to see what he made...

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The little bag of Nexo Knights elements I was sent immediately got my sci-fi juices flowing. As a Classic Space builder the pieces cried out to me to be used in a whole host of ways, although I suspect a space tortoise wouldn’t be the most obvious choice.

Make me Smilodon

We have another Legends of Chima set for you today: 70143 Sir Fangar's Sabre-Tooth Walker. On reviewing duty is Jeremy Williams (Bricking It) who, on top of building stunning Neo Classic Space ships and scenes, also composed the music for the recent Exo Suit reveal video and you may have seen his Beginner's Guide to BrickLink tutorial video.

Since I’m a space builder I spend most of my build time immersed in blue and various shades of grey, with the odd bit of trans-yellow to spice things up (more please, Billund!) So it’s a genuine pleasure to review a set in an entirely different theme, with strange and exotic colours (Dark Orange! Trans-Light Blue!) to pore over. And it’s an eye-catching set, too - one that I suspect will have bucket loads of appeal for fans of all ages (even my three year-old is clamouring to play with it).

Nexo-Classic Space: Drew Hamilton

We have a fun week ahead! In January the LEGO® Group sent a delicious selection of new parts, mostly from the Nexo Knights theme, for New Elementary to play with and we will be publishing the results over the next week. Come back every day to check it out. As you can see below there were a lot of Neo-Classic Space colours in there so I couldn't resist asking a bunch of Spacers to come up with something Spacey!

Six for the proud walkers

Our first Star Wars review for 2015 comes from the multi-talented Jeremy Williams (Bricking It), who examines one of the smallest new sets of the range.

The Star Wars films (including the Clone Wars animated series) continue to provide The LEGO® Group (TLG) with plenty of source material for small ‘battle pack’ sets. These typically include four minifigs (often with at least two duplicates) and some additional hardware. Today I’m reviewing a 2015 set in this series: 75089 Geonosis Troopers.

Let’s start with the minifigs: two pairs of clone troopers (a regular pair and an airborne ‘paratrooper’ pair) all clad in camouflage (or are they just dusty?) dark orange armour.

NEXOGON: The Enforcer

We welcome another new builder to the parts festival today: Luc Byard (on Facebook and Flickr) who is an active builder in the UK and in the Eurobricks ‘role building game’ Andromeda’s Gates. Today, he approaches LEGO® part 27255 in a wholly different way.

No civilian disturbances in sector 12

PdC Parts Festival: Classic Space micro ships

Our latest parts festival is nearing its end but fear not, we have some models from Peter Reid and his pals, using the parts he took home after attending our final session. Although he rarely makes instructions of his work, Peter has listed which of the new parts he used in each model, so you can get hold of the ones you're less likely to have.

LL611

This first model, a Neo-Classic Space (NCS) micro ship, was made during the New Elementary workshop in Portugal. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make anything decent in an unfamiliar building environment, but it turned out fine; after one or two false starts I had this little beauty in hand. I managed to safely bring it home and put the ship in a safe place, ready for photography. I immediately lost it, and had to recreate it from pictures taken by the lovely Miguel.

Parts used: 2 x 29120, 2 x 29119, 1 x 25892

Bricktastic 2017: event pictures

We're live from Manchester! Bricktastic, the event run by the wonderful charity Fairy Bricks, is underway and the quality of models is outstanding. It's a really relaxed event thanks to the generous space, carefully managed crowd numbers and the lack of doof-doof music!

Here's a very random look at some of the AFOL creations on display - sorry not to be more polished with this post, it's been hard to find the time. Enjoy!

Steve Deaville and Steph Cotter - The Odyssey (1980s animated series)

Ice Ice Baby

Returning for another review today is Jeremy Williams (Bricking It) who is not only sticking with the Legends of Chima theme; he's sticking with the icy world of Sir Fangar!

This review continues the Chima theme from my last review, in which I looked at Sir Fangar’s wheels (well, paws actually). Today I’m looking at his pad; his Ice Fortress, a set full of playful traps and some rather nice new elements, too. Let’s begin.