Pull Together With Polybags

Here's a box of about 100 polybags, collected from people from New Elementary and London AFOLs and destined for Germany where they will be personally handed to refugee children. It's not too late to donate some yourself!

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.

2014 Inside Tour set: Legoland Train

Every year, The LEGO® Group (TLG) run a few three-day tours for small groups, opening all sorts of secret doors in their headquarters in Billund. Members of the public meet designers and other staff and gain access to incredible sights in the factories, offices, Legoland workshops, staff shop and "The Vault" - where a copy of pretty much every LEGO set ever made is stored. My friend Lee McG went on the first 2014 tour and the final tour finished today, which means he can now tell you about the most exciting gift that every participant received.

From Swindon to L.A.

In today's post we're going travelling to places real and virtual, concrete and plastic, past and future, around the globe and beyond. I hope I haven't overmanaged your expectations with that pretentious opening line?... the first destination is Swindon. That's the concrete bit.

I'm now home after an exhausting, fabulous weekend at The Great Western LEGO® Show, the UK's largest display, run by the Brickish Association who are the UK's largest LUG. I'm very rude to label the English town of Swindon as concrete, as the show itself is held in a beautifully restored nineteenth-century railway works building. I've not displayed there before and it was a wonderful experience to take part. Six other members and I covered 30 feet of the tables with models that we had built for The LEGO Play Book (the creation of which I discussed in an earlier post). It was such a delight to see little faces (and big ones) lighting up at the sight of my creations, especially given that they'd already probably spent an hour or more having their faces regularly lit up by LEGO before getting to our display, which sat towards the exit.

Hidden treasure in North America? [Nope.]

[edit 1st Aug: Spoiler; it is Dark Pink and NOT Medium Lavender! Feel free to read on nevertheless.]

If you live near a LEGO® Brand Store in the USA or Canada and have nothing to do at 5pm tomorrow the 1st of August 2013 and have a daughter aged 6 to 14 (or a son to be applauded), keep reading.

That's most of the caveats out the way; now look at this picture and tell me what you can spot? I think I know what I see. New element. Oooooo. I'd love to know if I'm right.

The box is mostly made of what I think is Medium Lavender, and I'm pretty certain those are some 1X4 Bricks in there - which are not listed anywhere as yet appearing in sets. It feels odd for an element to appear in promotional builds before actual sets. TLG don't just make new elements willy-nilly, certainly not just for a polybag that is available for a couple of hours on one continent. I would make a guess that this new element was included in a set 'first' in terms of TLG's development timelines, and the shorter development time required to make a wee model like this means that in the end it got released earlier than the set.

Exclusive element in UK newsagents

Flat Tile 1X4 - Tr.

Element ID 6030742 | Design ID 91143
Colour Trans-Neon Green [BL] / Tr. Floure. Green [TLG]

A quick 'new element alert' for UK readers if you're not already aware; high street branches of WHSmith's are selling several LEGO® polybags for £2.99 each and of interest to me is 30231 Space Insectoid (which was a Toys R Us promotion during February in the US). It's the only set so far to contain these tiles in Trans-Neon Green [BL] / Tr. Floure. Green [TLG], and there's two in there, to make the space bug's little wings. It's the fifth transparent colour that part 91143 has appeared in since 2010.