Max Howell, Kevin Huxhold, Thomas Jenkins, Johann Dakitsch and Zachary Hill join our celebration of the 20th anniversary of LEGO® BIONICLE! Five more parts have been chosen by our regular and guest contributors; they analyse them for you and then get building original creations.
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Tim Goddard, Aiden Rexroad, Caz Mockett and Disty continue our celebration of the 20th anniversary of LEGO® BIONICLE, the New Elementary way! Five more parts have been examined by our regular and guest contributors.
PaulvilleMOCs (@paulvillemocs) joins us for a guest post today, we are excited to say – but he selected a rather terrifying area of the LEGO® parts inventory to explore: promotional tie-in vehicles. Specifically the "cereal cars": a range of LEGO® Racers promotional sets for General Mills and Cheerios. What MOCs can he make from these highly specialised parts?
Imagine yourself way back in 2009. You are at the grocery store, in the breakfast aisle. You can choose between the cereal with a LEGO® race car in it, or the cereal without. Most likely, knowing New Elementary’s audience, you would opt for the one with a LEGO race car. Because of this, a number of these odd car parts have been floating around my LEGO collection for the past 12 years.
Áron Gerencsér, Eero Okkonen, Mitch H and Ivan Martynov kick off a fresh Parts Festival using old parts, in honour of the weird and wonderful elements from LEGO® BIONICLE.
LEGO® BIONICLE is a beloved, if controversial, theme and it turned 20 this year. Memorable to different people for different reasons - be it its extensive story and mythology, or the feat of saving the company from bankruptcy, or the unusual moulds which at first glance might seem hard to finesse into the broader LEGO building system. The legacy of ‘Constraction’ was kicked off by Slizers / Throwbots, popularized by Bionicle, streamlined with CCBS, and lives on today in brick-built creatures and mechs using tow ball joints. Once revived and twice cancelled, Bionicle still has a dedicated fanbase full of enthusiastic builders. In true New Elementary fashion, we decided to celebrate the occasion by digging into the parts.
Eero Okkonen (@eerookkonen) resumes our series of Element Developer Q&As today as we speak to Henrik Skallebæk, Senior Mechanical Engineer at the LEGO Group, about the LEGO® Candelabra piece (73117). Then, Eero presents an original MOC using this new element. Transcripts were edited for clarity, readability and narrative flow.
Eero Okkonen (@eerookkonen) analyses the contents of LEGO® Disney 43196 Belle and the Beast's Castle before using some of its new parts in his own creation. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
Thomas Jenkins (@thomas_jenkins_bricks) continues our series of Element Developer Q&As, once again with Stephan Breum Steen, Senior Mechanical Engineer in the Novelty Element Development department at the LEGO Group. This time Stephan answers our questions about the LEGO® Escalator Link Chain with Panel and Centre Divider (69900). Then, Thomas provides additional analysis and MOCs. Transcripts were edited for clarity, readability and narrative flow.
Victor Pruvost (@leewanlego) is back today with a review of LEGO® 10295 Porsche 911, plus an original MOC! Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
The LEGO Group has released an unusually high number of Creator Expert sets in 2021, including three vehicles (four if you include the UK exclusive 77942 Fiat 500 in Light Royal Blue/ Bright Light Blue): 10290 Pickup Truck which has just been released, 10279 Volkswagen T2 Camper Van from August, and 10295 Porsche 911 from March. It is the latter that we’re going to talk about today. It contains 1458 pieces, is priced £119.99 / US$149.99 / CA$199.99 / 139.99€ (Euro price may vary according to the country) / AU$229.99.
Tim Goddard (@tim_goddard928) teaches you his building techniques using the LEGO® minifigure utensil, binoculars (Design ID 30162) and shows ways he's utilised them in his own MOCs.
Minifigs got a whole new perspective on Legoland back in 1998. That was the year part 30162 first graced their clawed hands across Town (this was before the conurbation grew to become City) and the new Adventurers theme. The binoculars also appeared in three Belville sets in their freshman year, although they looked a bit more like opera glasses in the hands of these larger figures.
Eero Okkonen (@eerookkonen) delivered his parts and build analysis of the upcoming LEGO® Ideas set 21329 Fender® Stratocaster™ yesterday, but left one vital conclusion for today's article: Can it be played? Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
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This plastic guitar has 6 actual strings of different scale lengths. It has a fretboard so yes, technically, it is possible to press the strings against that and pluck or strum them. However, the frets are only printed, so while they assist with finding the correct chords, the guitar is essentially a fretless one. And more importantly, the strings are plastic, there is no electricity in them, they are quite loose and the pickups are only prints... and thus the instrument stays silent.
This is entirely expected.
Caz Mockett (@cazmockett) follows up our 5x5 fest by taking on a further two LEGO® VIDIYO sets today, 43111 and 43112. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
Today I’ll be showing you two MOCs inspired by elements from 43184 Raya and Sisu Dragon. Coincidentally, both concern liquids which is appropriate given Sisu’s affinity with water.
Tom Loftus (@inthert.lego) continues to focus on new LEGO® VIDIYO elements in day 3 of his contributions to our 5x5 fest, incorporating them into original spaceship designs.
As a general rule the larger an element gets, the harder it is to integrate into a MOC, but also true is the fact that any part is a spaceship part. Let’s put that to the test shall we?
Tom Loftus (@inthert.lego) continues his daily contributions to our 5x5 fest today, turning his attention to another highly specialised element from the LEGO® VIDIYO range.
Devoid of studs, Technic holes, bars, clips, click hinges and anti-studs, this new mould instead features two previously unseen connection types: Firstly an extended base tab on each side featuring a trio of tiny rounded cutouts, and secondly, a pair of apertures that resemble supersized Technic axle holes. Both of which are intended only for use in conjunction with other Vidiyo elements. For a detailed look at how these work, see Caz Mockett’s review of the Vidiyo BeatBoxes.
Tom Loftus (@inthert.lego) is our final 5x5 fest contributor, and instead of one long article he divided his creations up. So, to complete this festival of MOCs using new-for-2021 parts, we have an article from Tom every day for the next four days! Be sure to check in.
It immediately struck me as a potentially useful detailing piece. The key word being ‘potentially’ because while it does belong to an existing element family, its system connection points are extremely limited and so remains a rather specialised entry in the LEGO parts catalogue. Today I’ll be proving this little part’s worth by discussing its closest relatives, exploring some unusual connections and combining the two in a micro-MOC.
Mitch Henry (CZQ on Flickr) completes our Forbidden Elementary Parts Festival today which, as its seed parts, uses the 3 weird LEGO® pieces that rubber bands used to come on back in the 2000s.
One play feature was pushing a lever on the back to flick its head forward. To make the head return to its resting position the sets included a rubber band. Naturally, this means each Bohrok came with a rubber band holder as well. When I was approached for this parts festival I had just picked up a lot with all 6 original Bohrok, so I was eager to participate.
Eero Okkonen (@eerookkonen) takes a look inside LEGO® Disney 43189 Elsa and the Nokk Storybook Adventures, before using some of its new parts in an original creation. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
LEGO® has recently shown interest in releasing sets that look like books, without actually being books. LEGO Ideas 21315 Pop-Up Book was released in 2018, and the first four Disney Storybook Adventures sets were introduced in early 2020. These lacked the advanced pop-up mechanism of the Ideas set, being simple cases fitting small playsets inside, easily closed for storage or travel.
Thomas Jenkins (@thomas_jenkins_bricks) is the penultimate contributor to our 5x5 fest, where we sent 5 LEGO® sets to 5 builders and asked them to use the new parts in interesting original creations.
An overview of the common sets we used in our 5x5 fest can be found here. In addition to the 71746 Jungle Dragon, 43184 Sisu Dragon and VIDIYO Beatbox that the four other New E writers received, I was given 71740 Jay’s Electro Mech and 41931 Extra DOTS Series 4 to work with.
James Kavanagh (JakTheMad on Flickr) joins our Forbidden Elementary Parts Festival today which for its seed parts uses the 3 weird LEGO® pieces that rubber bands came on in old sets. For an overview of the parts, check out last week's post by Aron Gerencsér.
Rubber band holders are a great relic from a different era of LEGO® sets. Sure, cardboard boxes may certainly be cheaper, more sustainable and take up less space, but there’s a lot of joy to be found in these old parts!
Aron Gerencsér (@_pohaturon) not only kicked off our rubber band holder parts fest earlier this week, he also created MOCs for our 5x5 fest! Let's see what he came up with using a selection of interesting new parts released in 2021.
Our subjects for this exercise are 43184 Raya and Sisu Dragon, 71746 Jungle Dragon, 71740 Jay’s Electro Mech and 43104 Alien DJ BeatBox. All sets from the first half of 2021, there are interesting - and fairly specialised - pieces to be found in them all.
