NEXOGON: More tips using part 27255

Let's take another breather from the amazing builds using LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ Combo NEXO Power shields and explore the geometry of this new piece further, this time with regular contributor Gary Davis (Bricks for Brains). 

The Nexogon joins a small family of LEGO® elements with attachment points at a rotation separation of 60° (and 30° in some cases).

NEXOGON: More Building Techniques

In January I made many observations about the geometry of new LEGO® piece 27255, the "Nexogon". There's plenty more to discover though and some of our featured builders are describing their experiments, including Neil Crosby (thevoicewithin on Flickr) who recently created a round one-man spaceship from a Nexogon for us. 

When I first saw the Nexogon I knew it was going to be a piece I wanted to play with. I've always liked geometric shapes and taking things off the LEGO grid, so having another piece with studs in multiple directions on a plane was exciting. When I first got my hands on one I started playing, just trying to work out how the things fitted together and what connections weren't immediately obvious from looking at them.

So, this post isn't going to be a "look at the pretty final model" post. Those posts are great, but to be honest as a reader I sometimes find them a bit intimidating. The thought "I could never get there" has crossed my mind plenty of times in the past when I see the wonderfully intricate pieces that some people come up with. Instead, this post is me documenting some of the process that I went through in my exploration of the Nexogon. Nothing's a final piece, but hopefully some of the connections in here will be useful to some of you.

First up; one of the very first things I did with the Nexogon. It's useful to know that the space between the 2x2 connection points and the central stud hole is half a stud wide, which means you can place a 1x2 plate with rail on each one, tightly forming a triangle. This is, however, only possible on the underside of the Nexogon without raising by one plate first, due to the lip designed to surround a pentagonal Nexo shield.

NEXOGON: The Technic connection

This week we return to the geometric properties of the new LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ piece, Rotor w/ 4.85 hole (Design ID 27255). Brian D'Agostine of Portland, Oregon is no stranger to writing about LEGO pieces and techniques - his blog, Dag's Bricks, has been running longer than New Elementary for a start!

When I asked to be accepted into this parts festival my first inclination was to explore the geometry of the shape and figure out the dimensions in detail. I was also, by extension, interested in the geometric patterns that could be created in 2D and 3D space.

With a convention coming and my workload increasing weekly I was relegated to watching others post their discoveries and hoping I could finally get around to my write-up. Others had posted some exploration of the piece but there were still a few more aspects that I had wanted to explore.

NEXOGON: Hangar & launch tube

Duncan Lindbo returns today with this third set of creations in our parts festival using the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ piece Rotor w/ 4.85 hole, a.k.a. the Nexogon.

This build was inspired by a shape Tim built in his original post on the Nexogon's geometry. My original thought was that that would serve as a good base for a micro-scale train yard turntable, but trains aren't really my jam, so instead I built a spaceship hangar with a launch tube, inspired by the likes of Battlestar Galactica and EVE: Valkyrie.

NEXOGON: Stacking

For his next investigation of the LEGO® Plate, Modified 6 x 6 Hexagonal with Pin Hole (Design ID 27255), Brian D'Agostine (Dag) went back to basics to discover what happens when Nexogons are stacked.

For my third exploration I was curious about stacking pieces. Gary Davis had suggested the idea and shown a few neat stacking ideas but didn't take them further. My thought was to stack the 2x2 portions on top of each other to create a tighter pattern than some of Tim's initial offerings.

The idea first came from trying to get a sense of the geometry. In my first post I had used a 2x4 Technic plate to judge where the central hole was in relation to the sets of 2x2 studs. Doing this required a 2x2 plate to lift the Technic piece above the ridges and relief on the surface. The Technic plate later came off but I snapped another Nexogon on top of that 2x2. And then another. And another. Soon I had a tight little pyramid of sorts, all stacked up.

NEXOGON: Landing Platform

Even before Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha on Flickr) received the shipment of LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ Combo Power shields I sent him for our new parts festival, he was busily playing with some that he bought himself!

[UPDATE: Want to know how the platform is built? Check out this recreation on Mecabricks by Oby1! If you use it in some way, please credit Tim Goddard and Oby1 for their great work.] 

So far on New Elementary we have explored a lot of the potential geometric options, so I am starting with something a bit different. I've effectively built a giant Nexogon and turned it into a landing pad. I added a bit of 'tanscaping' (landscaping built with Brick Yellow [TLG]/Tan [BL] bricks and slopes primarily on their side) and passed the photo to my good friend Rob Damiano who did some wonderful things to bring it to life.

NEXOGON Landing Platform by Tim Goddard with Rob Damiano. Click for larger view.

8-Year Old Elementary: Celebr8 with Kev Levell

It's our 8th anniversary of publishing LEGO® articles today! As part of our celebrations, here's a fun article from Kev Levell.

Congratulations to Tim on 8 phenomenal years running New Elementary. In honour of those 8 years, I have picked 8 “parts”, most of these were (as usual) sitting on my build table, among the essential group of parts that I more often than not tend to have to hand, just to see how they might fit or what they will look like in whatever it is I’m building. Another day, it might have been a slightly different 8!

NEXOGON: The Nexo-mixer

Take a ride with Gary Davis (Bricks for Brains) as he presents another creation for our parts festival using the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ Combo Power shield (Design ID 27255). 

This simple mixer ride came to mind when I was thinking about using the Nexogons to create fractal patterns. Fractal patterns occur throughout the natural world whereby one simple shape is repeated multiple times to create complicated patterns.

I needed a base for the mixer and it suddenly came to me that a giant Nexogon would be a neat solution.

NEXOGON: Wearable LEGO® creation

When selecting builders for our parts festival, one thing I was looking for was the unusual. So I couldn't pass up on Blair Archer's wild idea to add Nexogons to the outfit he was developing for his local LEGO® convention in Portland, Oregon! He shares the ups and downs of this inspiring project with us today. (Oh - and if you haven't yet seen Blair's 1979 ALIEN Xenomorph on his Flickr page, you totally need to check that out too.)

For some time now, I had a ‘wearable LEGO creation’ concept rolling around in my mind and various sketches in my notebooks. I'd been wanting to build a cyberpunk-style Samurai suit of armor/battledress, but was struggling with the fashion design element since LEGO connections don't lend themselves to creating curves or complex polygons very easily (at least not ones that can withstand motion, without being overly rigid/heavy/uncomfortable to wear). I jumped at the chance last year to load up on Mixels joints in bulk, thinking these would be ideal for creating a LEGO wearable piece that could conform to the shape of a human body, and withstand some bending and movement.

NEXOGON: In the arms of droids

Brian D'Agostine (Dag) returns today with his second exploration of the LEGO® Plate, Modified 6 x 6 Hexagonal with Pin Hole (Design ID 27255). 

With the 2D geometry explored, I turned my attention to some 3D exploration. Tim initially showed some variants of icosahedra and after parts were issued to builders, a tighter truncated icosahedron had quickly been built by Gary Davis. There were two main explorations I wanted to do.

The first was to see how tightly I could put the Nexogons together in 3D space. This would require a bit of Technic wizardry, something I lack. Nonetheless I pulled out my case of Technic bits and started away. I knew I wanted to match corners together in rotational symmetry and that they should all be connected. Starting with the Technic axle connector hub with 3 axles (Design ID 57585) I experimented to find the proper angle connector. The 112.5° connector #5 (Design ID 32015) got about as close as I could wish for.

LEGO® parts 77845 & 77850: rounded plates

Occasionally, a new LEGO® part will present opportunities that I haven't encountered before. The family of rounded plates received two further wonderful new additions in 2023, and although they’re not quite so new anymore I felt that they were worthy of some exploration.

LEGO® NINJAGO® Spinjitzu review: Rise of the Tri-Baller

Spinjitzu has been practiced from the very start of the LEGO® NINJAGO® theme. Over the years, many different iterations have been released in sets, and the June 2023 wave adds a new version: Dragon Power Spinjitzu. Three ninja each get their own set: 71777 Kai’s Dragon Power Spinjitzu Flip with 72 parts, 71778 Nya's Dragon Power Spinjitzu Drift with 57 parts and 71779 Lloyd's Dragon Power Spinjitzu Spin with 56 parts. 

These small sets include a nice new mould. But before we take a look at that, I’ll have a quick look at the sets themselves and the other elements found in them. 

Combo NEXO Power shields

The LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ theme introduced many exciting and useful new elements into the LEGO System in 2016 and this trend continues into 2017. Today we look at a highly unusual piece which is set to take your building into totally new dimensions, literally!

NEXOGON: The Nexacore Building

Luc Byard surprised me with another creation for our parts festival today! LEGO® part 27255 is critical but nearly invisible in his bold piece of architecture.

One of the first things I thought about doing with Nexogons was using them for the core of some kind of structure, and here's where that led me.

To do so, I knew I would first need a better solution than I used in the Starglider to give the Nexogon a truly six-sided application.

LEGO® Star Wars review & MOCs: 75300 Imperial Tie Fighter & 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter

Kev Levell (@kevlevell) gives you double LEGO® Star Wars love today as he examines the parts in 75300 Imperial Tie Fighter & 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter before creating MOCs using both their parts. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

These two new iterations of iconic LEGO Star Wars ships have been available for a little while now. There are a very small number of notable new parts and even dealing with both sets at once, it is a scant offering. However, both sets feature elements that I wanted to investigate. None of the parts are presented in very great numbers either, but their connections and geometry may reveal them to be slightly overlooked gems. I’m hoping they aren’t disappointing, unnecessary introductions into the inventory.

Minifig Posing Stand: Kevin Levell's Fishy Fun

We sent a few builders an interesting new LEGO® part and following on from Jonas Kramm's analysis last month, UK-based builder Kevin Levell reveals what he made of these small but useful angled bar and stud elements.

The new posing element (Design ID 65578) is officially known as "Handle, No.1", while BrickLink call it "Minifigure, Utensil Posing Stand, Bar with Hollow Stud" and Rebrickable have gone with the neat "Bar, Angled with Stud on End" and can be found in 71026 DC Superheroes Collectible Minifigure series. It looks to be another wonderfully versatile addition to the selection of small LEGO parts.