LEGO® Reverse-Engineering Challenge: Days 2-5

On the weekend we mentioned Ryan Howerter is running an advanced daily building challenge and showed you the first one. They appear on their Instagram at 11am Mountain Time every day but we know not everyone uses Instagram, so we've started publishing them on New Elementary's Twitter and now here are a bunch of them for those of you who are yet to catch up! We will try to keep this up but if not, there's always Ryan's Instagram!

Welcome back to the Reverse-Engineering Challenge, or REC for short. Simply look at these small LEGO builds, and try to figure out how they are built. Always assume the hidden side is identical. The colours are irrelevant. No rubber bands and no flex tubing allowed! It's not a contest, there are no prizes – think of it more like a daily crossword puzzle. Solve as many as you like, at your own pace. Solutions are posted every Sunday at https://linktr.ee/rhowerter.

REC5 by Ryan Howerter

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United

Today Ben Davies plays with a set the size of a football field! LEGO® Creator Expert 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United clearly has a target audience of certain football fans, but will certain LEGO fans appreciate it for its techniques and many parts, including new moulds? The set is priced £249.99 / $299.99 / 269.99€.

With the exception of the occasional LEGO® Friends set, the last time LEGO tackled the subject of football (or for our American readers, soccer) was in 2006 for the LEGO Sports theme. That changes with 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United, introduced in February to the LEGO Creator Expert line.

Old Trafford stadium was first opened in 1910 in Greater Manchester, England, and since then has served as the home stadium of the famous Manchester United Football Club. It is currently celebrating its 110th anniversary, which LEGO is capitalizing on with the release of this set.

LEGO® Reverse-Engineering Challenge: Day 1

If you’re looking for some fun and good LEGO® building challenges and ideas, we can help! Today there’s a piece of great news for advanced LEGO builders: our friend and contributor Ryan Howerter is launching a daily building challenge on their Instagram. It will give your LEGO brain a good workout and definitely teach you new techniques.

It’s called the Reverse-Engineering Challenge, or REC for short, and you may be familiar with the concept already as four of these have been run on Flickr in the past. Here’s how it works.

Ryan posts a small LEGO build, and you try to figure out how it is built.

Old Elementary: LEGO® technique and geometry articles, part 1

Stuck inside much? Here at New Elementary we have been discussing ways to keep you entertained... and we have lots of ideas coming up!

First off we thought you might like to read some specially chosen articles from New Elementary's back catalogue. To start with we went to the beginning; 2013! See if any of these LEGO® articles take your fancy.

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.

LEGO® DOTS review: Bracelet Strap

As a follow up to Michael Studman's report from the LEGO® DOTS launch at the House of Dots in London, we are taking a closer look at one of the most unusual elements from this new-for-2020 theme which is available in stores from Sunday 1 March.

Dots was actually delayed from its planned launch date last year and the reason seems to be this strap, known as Bracelet (Design ID 66821). The design was changed from a 'slap' bracelet to a flexible fastening bracelet.

Minifig Posing Stand: Jonas Kramm's fantastic furniture

As soon as we saw the LEGO® DC Super Heroes Collectable Minifigure Series, we knew that we had to get our hands on the new little transparent angled bar included with the figures. We gave a handful of these new elements to three creative minds to see what they thought, and we will publish these over the coming weeks. First up is Jonas Kramm who analyses its geometry and possibilities.

Jumping, flying and fighting: these poses and many more can now be achieved easily by your LEGO minifigures. With the new element introduced in the DC Super Heroes Collectible Minifigure Series, called "Handle No.1" (6285587|65578) by The LEGO Group and "Minifigure, Utensil Posing Stand" by BrickLink, minifigures can strike a suitably super stance by connecting it to the bottom or the back of their legs. Regardless of which DC character you get, you get one posing stand and often even an extra one spare.

Old Elementary: the Train Light Prism

Following his stunning contributions to our recent LEGO® Parts Festival, the talented Swedish builder Oscar Cederwall (Flickr) suggested he write an article about one particular element he used in one particular build that a lot of you have been asking about. 

You might have seen this MOC of mine before. It showed up in the New Elementary Parts Festival in late 2019. When you saw it, you might have wondered what those weird parts that make up the cockpit are? Well, let me tell you all about them…

The story about the Electric, Train Light Prism 1 x 3 (Design ID 4171), or "train prism" that I will call it hereafter, begins in 1980 with the new LEGO electric train system. The part was released in six sets during a seven-year period, and only in Transparent/Trans-Clear. Just three of these sets are actual trains; the other three are accessory packs.

LEGO® FORMA and Revan New's alien moth

Back in September 2018, The LEGO Group launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a new kind of premium set aimed at adults: LEGO® FORMA, a kinetic sculpture that could be customised with different skins. Although the theme is not to be continued, we thought we would take a look at the new elements that came with it, and ask the talented Russian fan builder Revan New to create something original using them. We also have official instructions and sample skins at the bottom of this post, for you to download and build yourself.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Eero Okkonen's trio of characters

Well it's been our biggest, longest Parts Festival to date but today our LEGO® building fiesta comes to an end with not one, not two but three incredible characters designed by Eero Okkonen featuring the new 2019 pieces we sent him. You can also see his earlier parts fest builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Gwathlo of Order of Morning Star

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's kitchen, church and temple

Today sees the return of Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) to our Parts Festival, who previously blew us away with his LEGO® Star Wars creations. We have a really varied range of creations from him, using the seed parts we provided.

Life Sized Stove

Exploring the jumper plate-like characteristics of the 'Frozone board' (32627) led me to discover its real life counterpart one morning when I spilled freshly brewed espresso on a stove-top: perfect knobs, unlike the ones I had to clean the coffee from.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Thorin Finch's Republic Assault

When we sent new LEGO® parts to Alice Finch she got her sons involved in the Parts Festival fun! We saw many of their resulting builds last year but today we showcase an epic Star Wars diorama built entirely by Thorin (aged 16) as well as a gunship.  

Republic assault on an outer rim Separatist science facility

2019 Parts Fest #2: Pierre-E Fieschi's Imperial Star Destroyer and Chibi Tanks

The LEGO® parts festival we ran in late 2019 was so big and so successful, we didn't have time to finish publishing all the amazing creations our chosen builders came up with! So at last, over the next few days, we will publish the remaining models featuring our selected elements introduced in 2019. Warming us back up is French concept artist and architect Pierre-E Fieschi who showcases more of his inspiring ideas, following on from his Liebherr tunnelling machine and his sci-fi containers and launch pad.

Imperial Star Destroyer

This small Imperial Star Destroyer was a lot of fun to build. The large hook/grappler kind of resembles the trapezoid of the ISD bridge. It is found in the 'Batman bag' (Mini Accessory, No. 10 – 6266155| 40598).

Inthert's alternate build of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball

Our little fiesta of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball finishes today with original alternate models designed by British builder Inhert, using only the pieces found in this set. The set is priced £17.99 / US$19.99 / 19.99€ although perhaps you may now be seeing it on sale. If you missed our Wrecking Ball review by Inthert and Jonas Kramm, check it out here.

Alternate builds are tricky enough with the majority of sets but with 75976 Overwatch Wreaking Ball containing only 227 parts, I was a little doubtful I could make anything half-decent without dipping into my existing collection. As a safeguard against that temptation, I decided to take this challenge on holiday! Four days in a log cabin with LEGO bricks seemed like the perfect setting, with plenty of time to come up with ideas - my thought being I could come up with one alternate build per day.

Day 1: Bipedal Mech

Jonas Kramm's alternate build of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball

Last time, LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball was reviewed by both Jonas Kramm and Inthert but we had a further task for these two champion builders: create an alternate model using only the 227 pieces in the set! Here is Jonas' creation, and come back tomorrow for Inthert's. The set is priced £17.99 / US$19.99 / 19.99€ although perhaps you may now be seeing it on sale.

For my alternative creation with the pieces from the Wrecking Ball I started with the most prominent pieces: the dishes. I wanted to find a good and creative use for these. First thought was to build a motorcycle, but I couldn't find complimentary pieces to build the wheels. However the thought of building something to ride was still in my mind and so the idea of a hoverbike was born.

LEGO® Speed Champions 2020: The new pieces

Tomorrow is January 1 and that means new LEGO® sets, which in turn means new LEGO parts! We asked Duncan Lindbo to locate all the new moulds and printed parts in the 2020 range of Speed Champions, and additionally tasked him with exploring the capabilities of those exciting new moulds.

A few weeks ago, LEGO revealed the first wave of 2020 Speed Champions sets which are available from January 1 2020.

• 76895 Ferrari F8 Tributo
• 76896 Nissan GT-R NISMO
• 76897 Audi Sport Quattro S1
• 76898 Formula E Panasonic Jaguar Racing GEN2 Car & Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY
• 76899 Lamborghini Urus ST-C & Huracán Super Trofeo EVO

But we’re not here to talk about the sets themselves, we’re here for the parts!

New moulds in LEGO Speed Champions 2020

2019 parts Fest #2: Okkonen's Kekkonen and Tempietto

Finnish builder Eero Okkonen returns to our Parts Festival today for a fourth outing using new LEGO® parts. You can see his earlier builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Portrait of the President

The person in the portrait is Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (1900-1986), the eighth president of Finland. His reign lasted from 1956 to 1982, over 25 years, which is unusual in democratic country that limits its president’s career to two six-year terms.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Peter Ilmrud's gunship, flying city and bathhouse

Our final new Parts Festival participant is Peter Ilmrud, a Swedish AFOL who is a building engineer in real life but builds wondrous fantasy, castle and steampunk builds in his LEGO® life. His most well-known creations are perhaps his beautiful scenes contained within glass domes.

This build is an alien gunship often referred to as "Bullet Bill" by the survivors in the year 2119, 50 years after The Invasion.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's Star Wars

Today, another new participant for this Parts Festival presents his first builds. Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) is a former art & design student who, having just come out of his Grey Age (that's a semi-Dark Age), has been building with LEGO® elements seriously for just a year now, but mostly digitally.

For a newbie it is always an exhilarating surprise to be recognised for your work, and to be invited to challenges that only elevate your skills. Such was my reaction to find out that I had been recommended for this year’s second Parts Festival by several world-renowned Classic Space builders.

Clone Turbo Tank and AT-TE

2019 Parts Fest #2: The Finch's candy and craft

We have new arrivals to our LEGO® Parts festival today: Alice Finch of BippityBricks.com (famed for her massive Hogwarts and Rivendell models) has a range of creations. She even got the family involved; her sons Thorin (16) and Hadrian (11) have chipped in too!

Candy dispenser

This tasty creation uses the grappler and the weapon pack discs from Mini Accessory, No. 10  (40598|6266155), and the circular saws from Mini Accessory, No. 11 (50018|6266977).