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.

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!

Quarter tile: Chris McVeigh

Today we have an original LEGO® creation by Chris McVeigh using the little bundle of Medium Azure "1/4 Circle Tile 1X1" (Element ID 6150307 | Design ID 25269) that I sent him.

Quarter tile: Elspeth De Montes

A great new LEGO® part introduced in 2016 is the 1x1 tile in the shape of a quadrant. The first unprinted colour of these I got my hands on was Medium Azure, and I sent some to Elspeth De Montes and Chris McVeigh to see what they could make with them. What with The New Black parts festival overrunning, this mini-festival has been somewhat delayed! But we have some lovely ideas from Elspeth to enjoy today and one from Chris tomorrow. 

As an Azure/Azur fan, be that dark or medium, I was excited to receive a few Medium Azure 1/4 Circle Tile 1X1 (Element ID 6150307 | Design ID 25269) from Tim many moons ago when the summer sun was still warming the northern hemisphere. My excitement waned a little when I realised that I only had this one colour of quarter tile and the lack of any other tiles of a circular nature (other than round) at this time, meant the possibilities were fewer than I first imagined.

Peter Reid's 'bar with towball' idea

Our brief re-exploration of the LEGO® piece 3.2 Shaft W/5.9 Ball (Design ID 22484) seems to be turning into an unexpected parts festival! I was pleased to hear from Peter Reid with a new creation that uses this part. He calls it The Digital Ombudsman.

Tom Poulsom's "Bar with ball" ideas

Following Gary Davis' examination of 3.2 Shaft with 5.9 Ball (Design ID 22484) we have some further ideas from Tom Poulsom (designer of LEGO Ideas 21301 Birds) of ways to use this part, such as making the ears on his aardvark posable!

Ballshaft!

The new Modular, 10255 Assembly Square, is available today and a LEGO® piece that it contains has been analysed by Gary Davis (Bricks for Brains).

It's not a euphemism, an insult or a new action hero. Ballshaft is the name I'm using for a relatively new element officially known as 3.2 Shaft W/5.9 Ball and, on BrickLink, Bar1L with Towbar (Design ID 22484). The ballshaft was introduced early in 2016 in the Nexo Knights range. It was first produced in Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange [TLG]/Trans-Neon Orange [BL] (Element ID 6131711) in four sets, and in Transparent Bright Green (Element ID 6139234) in one set. Now the Transparent Bright Green version is available in a second set, 10255 Assembly Square.

It is also available in Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/Dark Bluish Gray [BL] (Element ID 6158469)—a much more useful colour for MOC builders like me. So I was delighted when New Elementary sent me a small batch of dark grey ballshafts to play with. With shafts inserted, the exposed balls can be used represent various things, such as elements of a hairbrush.

Bravo Three One Eight

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano su Old Bricks

I am sure that many people, upon seeing these models, would cite them as proof that LEGO® have lost their way "since I was a kid, when it was just bricks". Whilst these are indeed new parts, the fact is that the changes that brought them into the LEGO System occurred in the 1970s.

The New Black - Tim Goddard: Blaze mech

Another of our regular contributors has joined in The New Black parts challenge of their own volition! Today Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha) pens a love letter to one single new part released by the LEGO® Group this year. 

Ah, Plate 1X1 Round W/3.2 Shaft (Design ID 26047). I thought I was dreaming when I first saw it but it was real! The semi-circular end is made for rotating, it allows you to attach anything with a clip any which way you like which is just perfect for the legs on my mini Blaze mech.

The New Black: Weapon No. 11

I screwed up when I sent the builders the parts for The New Black; I omitted one of the most interesting new elements I had chosen! So I guess it is up to me to tell you about the piece that the LEGO® Group have named "Weapon No. 11" (Element ID 6134781 | Design ID 24144).

The New Black - Jonas Kramm: Delicious Leftovers

He's been astonishingly prolific but today we have the final contribution from Jonas Kramm to The New Black, our celebration of new LEGO® parts. 

After talking about lamps, fences, furniture, Venice and the Alien, you get now the leftovers that did not fit into one of these categories but could be of interest nevertheless. My first is a small tree in autumnal colours that makes use of the bar holders with clip (Element ID 6015891 | Design ID 11090) and the new bar holder with handle (6143318 | 23443) for the trunk. These connect to each other via pneumatic T-pieces and, in addition, strings make the structure look more organic.

The New Black - Peter Reid: Blacktron Assault Tanks

I asked readers to send in pictures of models they've created that use some the LEGO® parts featured in our current parts festival, The New Black. Perhaps having got the bug when he took place in our previous parts festival, Nexo-Classic Space, Peter Reid (legoloverman) surprised me with some microscale tanks he built especially for New Elementary readers.

Blacktron Wolverine Assault Tank

The latest addition to Kazak's army of darkness, the Wolverine assault tank is a remote-controlled, mobile missile launcher. Each unit carries a devastating payload of eight tactical nuclear missiles.

The New Black - Jonas Kramm: Alien

Jonas Kramm has already created many models using new LEGO® elements for our parts festival, The New Black, and today I'm honoured to present yet another remarkable creation from him; a model of the Alien based on H. R. Giger's creepy design. The detail Jonas has achieved at this scale is incredible and the new elements he used are perfect for the model.

The New Black - Chris McVeigh

After all that London-based excitement, let's get back to our global parts festival, The New Black, with a trip to Canada. Today it is the turn of the multitalented Chris McVeigh (powerpig) to get inspired by some of the new parts and recolours that the LEGO® Group have released in 2016.

I was thrilled to be asked to participate in The New Black parts festival, but due to work demands, I wasn’t able to take on that challenge until this past week. I really wish I’d gotten to it sooner – I had an absolute blast! I love part challenges because they encourage me to build things I just wouldn’t attempt otherwise; figuratively and literally, The New Black gave me a chance to spread my wings.

Swing Set

The New Black: Venice 1486

Having already designed many small models that highlight new LEGO® parts for The New Black parts festival, Jonas Kramm returns today with a fully-fledged MOC, which he built with another Jonas!

The parts festivals here on New Elementary are all about sharing ideas with the community as top how new parts can be used, and it is always great to see builders with unique building styles and ideas use the given parts in different ways.

So I was glad when I got visited by the talented Jonas (Brick Vader) one weekend in August to talk about the LEGO hobby and to inspire each other. We started building a small scene from the game “Assassin's Creed 2” that takes place in Venice in 1486 and it turned out to fit perfectly some of the details I already built with the new moulds. In addition we added further details that also feature these new parts.

The New Black - Tim Johnson: Skeleton

Just a quick follow-on from yesterday's post by Tom Poulsom for The New Black where he was inspired to use the new LEGO® part Plate 1X1 Round W/3.2 Shaft (Design ID 26047) as feet. I had exactly the same thought, so this seems like an appropriate moment to post my version.

The New Black - Tom Poulsom

Our parts festival, which consists of experiments with some new Black and Transparent [TLG]/Trans-Clear [BL] LEGO® parts (as well as some Black recolours) continues today. I'm glad to welcome British builder Tom Poulsom (detomaso77) who is best-known for designing LEGO Ideas 21301 Birds but likes to turn his attention to all manner of things including cars, trains and all manner of animals, as you are about to discover...

I was very kindly supplied with some brand new LEGO elements by Tim and was really excited when I received them, as I am regularly on Brickset to keep an eye on what fancy new pieces and colours LEGO have to offer. I was sent all sorts of exciting new elements, and you can see what I used some of them for below.

Animal parts

The New Black - Jonas Kramm: Indoor items

Jonas Kramm is back with his third instalment for "The New Black", our celebration of a selection of new and recoloured LEGO® parts here on New Elementary. The ones Jonas picked for this post can be seen to the right, and as you can see he branched out to include the two Transparent [TLG]/Trans-Clear [BL] elements that I sneakily added into the mix, just because they're so lovely.

After talking about building outdoor objects in my last two posts, it's time to go indoors.

Most of the new elements used here feature the 3.18 bar attachment, which allows for a lot of possible connections when combined with clips. Some of these possibilities were used in my first idea, a chair design that was based on using the recoloured handlebar (Element ID 6078610 | Design ID 98397) as legs. This part is the centrepiece of the chair as it holds not only the arm rests but also the seat, which are made of a square street sign (Design ID 30258).

The New Black - Jonas Kramm: Fences

Jonas Kramm returns today for another instalment of "The New Black", our celebration of a selection of new LEGO® parts. Builders have been challenged to come up with interesting uses for the (mostly) Black parts from 2016 (mostly) that I chose, and the ones Jonas used in this post can be seen to the right.

After my first idea, to create some lamps, the next theme that popped up in my mind was fences. This idea was heavily inspired by the wish to use the new skeleton leg (Element ID 6124849 | Design ID 23769) as it just screamed to be used as a fence. To do so I only had to add a 4L bar in Black, and furthermore I played a bit with the stone wall that frames the fence segments.

The New Black - Jason Briscoe: Milagre Hoverbike

When I launched The New Black, our latest parts festival here on New Elementary, I welcomed anyone to let me know if they have built stuff using the parts I selected. I'm glad to say we already have some great images from people and so I will post some of them during the festival. Today we have one from the lovely Jason Briscoe (bizzabricks), who also was a part in our previous festival, Nexo-Classic Space.

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Space ranger Nino speeds majestically across the vast capim grass plains of Milagre.