LEGO News Archives | Page 185 of 413

Annual Passes Now Available for LEGO House in Billund

When a resort theme park has been well established and operating for as long as LEGOLAND, they’d have plenty of admission options for guests to select from. Aside from one-off tickets, they might have special packages and even the vaunted annual pass. With that, you’d be allowed repeatedly inside for a year barring off-limits days.

LEGO House in Billund, Denmark isn’t part of the LEGOLAND chain. It is after all an “experience house” that hosts LEGO exhibits, special events, and a LEGO Store. But since opening in 2017 it’s attracted lots of visitors arriving at LEGO’s hometown. Perhaps that’s why they’re confident in launching this.

The Home of the Brick is announcing that they are introducing annual passes as a new means of admission for the attraction. It will begin this April 13, and for a limited time until the 28^th the LEGO House annual pass has a special rate.

During its introduction, guests to LEGO House can upgrade their 199 Danish krone ($29.92) single-entry day ticket into an annual pass by adding just another hundred kroner (for 299 DKK). With that, potentially the next 365 days from the date of issuance is now open to you at LEGO House.

If you can’t plan on visiting Billund and the Home of the Brick anytime soon, note that after Easter Sunday (April 28) an individual annual pass will jump to 399 DKK. LEGO House annual passes can only be obtained in person at their Information desk. Those wishing to convert their day tickets may do so within the ticket’s validity period.

Annual pass-holders for the Home of the Brick are reserved only a limited number of tickets for use. This means that when visiting LEGO House during peak tourist season, even pass-holders are not guaranteed access. Other than that, they’re free to enjoy at LEGO House.

Duke University (NC) Senior Records Campus Life with Shoulder-Camera Rig Made from LEGO Pieces

We’ve covered a number of LEGO MOCs in the past that have gone beyond mere play or aesthetic purposes. These builds were of a utilitarian bent, like the wheeled frame for a post-surgery recovering animal, made from Technic pieces. Reading about them certainly reaffirms the sheer function versatility of LEGO.

Now here’s another MOC we found that may be worth talking about. Back when Jeffrey Wubbenhorst started as a freshman in Duke University, North Carolina, he was inspired to try recording his life as a student. His idea was to mount a camera frame on his backpack, pointing front over his left shoulder. His search for a steadying material to mount his GoPro cam led him to using LEGO Technic.

Thus, with his shoulder-camera LEGO-mounting named “Felix,” Wubbenhorst began documenting how he spent his day studying and attending classes at Duke, as well as other activities in between all that.

“I also have some kind of understanding that life at Duke is not normal,” says Wubbenhorst, “and that not-normalcy should probably be preserved for posterity.”

Now a Duke Senior, Wubbenhorst remarks that the constant presence of his recording camera somehow helped him make friends around campus, due to interest in his video-taking and the LEGO rig he uses for it. The fact that footage is constantly being recorded of his interactions has also aided him in keeping his “social consciousness.”

Wubbenhorst has begun uploading some of his video footage on YouTube. Thus far sample footage looks relatively stable for being atop his shoulder, a testament to Wubbenhorst relying on stable construction offered by LEGO sets.

LEGO Designers Make Brick-Built Captain Marvel Statue to Help Promote “Avengers: Endgame”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe will come to an ending that’s been ten years in the making this month. Fans of the franchise and Marvel superheroes can catch that this April 26 when “Avengers: Endgame” premieres. Merchandising partners such as LEGO have already begun releasing their tie-in products. But leave it to LEGO to do extra.

In what’s undoubtedly another contribution to promoting the upcoming MCU movie, the longest running-time of all series so far. LEGO designers have constructed a brick-built statue of one of the heroes involved. It’s none other than Captain Marvel, the superhuman cosmic champion lead character of her own film last month, and the most powerful good guy in the franchise yet.

With possibly all the LEGO-piece resources they could need, LEGO’s pro builders used 17,661 of them over the course of around 165 hours to assemble the brick statue. They even went the extra mile to match the physical dimensions to the character’s actress Brie Larson.

Upon completion, LEGO’s brick-built Captain Marvel statue matched Larson’s height of 5 feet seven inches. The design team even included an Avengers logo for background, making the figure a prime photo-op opportunity for MCU fans.

LEGO hasn’t quite revealed yet where this sweet build will be located for promotional purposes. It’s also possible that it could be located away from an obvious spot like a cinema. The Porg promotional statues during “The Last Jedi” were scattered in London, for example.

“Avengers: Endgame” arrives at last in theaters on April 26.

Brick Formation Introduces Licensed “Homeworld” Spaceship Sets Built with LEGO Bricks

Among the many imaginative constructs that have been designed by LEGO as official products are star-faring spaceships. The most easily recalled example may be the LEGO Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon (75192), but there are others. Indeed LEGO pieces are prime material for assembling model spaceships. Just ask Brick Formation.

As a company, Brick Formation treads a fine line by taking official LEGO elements and using them to make construction kits of vehicles from licensed properties. The kits are official merchandise to the franchise they depict, but they’re not official to LEGO which doesn’t “sponsor, authorize or endorse” these products by Brick Formation. Confused yet?

Currently Brick Formation has revealed their LEGO-built construction sets based on the innovative PC game series “Homeworld,” developed by Relic Entertainment since 1999 but now IP-owned by Gearbox Software.

For the moment, Brick Formation only has three “Homeworld” ship sets ready for orders. Each are worth at least $250, so they’re incredibly pricy stuff. But it only makes sense considering there will only be 100 of each set being produced. Instant collector’s items, these sets:

Hiigarans

Interceptor

Ion Cannon Frigate

Destroyer

Aside from Gearbox’s “Homeworld,” Brick Formation is also looking for more licensing partners to make their LEGO-built sets for. In a way, their “official-for-this-franchise” but “not-official-for-LEGO” approach is novel, though it does sort of give some IP franchises that tend to be passed over by LEGO to get their own toy merchandise made out of LEGO’s iconic building bricks.

Note: Much obliged to Doug Rass for the correction offered.

Christmas Comes Early as LEGO Previews 2019 Holiday Minifigure Ornaments

We’re roughly getting to the middle of springtime this year. But thanks to a recent product announcement by LEGO you’d be forgiven to think that Christmas is coming again. Then again, it’s pretty much standard for the toy giant to start advertising their seasonal products ahead of their associated seasons.

So for the 2019 Holidays we can look forward to getting these cool large-minifigure hanging ornaments for your Christmas tree. As before, these licensed ornaments are officially manufactured by Hallmark for LEGO. They’re making large hanging minifigs based on “LEGO Movie,” “LEGO Batman Movie,” and “LEGO Star Wars,” the third one in line with their 20^th Anniversary celebration this year.

“LEGO Movie/2”

Unikitty

“LEGO Batman Movie”

Robin – Since Joker was made into an ornament for Christmas 2018, this is a natural progression

LEGO Star Wars

R2-D2

C-3PO

And there’s one original LEGO minifigure ornament not tied to any line or licensed property. Here’s Santa Claus:

These hanging minifigure ornaments are priced at $16.99 and will become available starting October 5. However you can now add them to your wish list at Hallmark’s official website, to reserve yours for that day. We can thank LEGO for letting us see what our Christmas 2019 might look like.

Introducing New LEGO Education Brick-Digital Product: SPIKE Prime

It’s already said that LEGO products make for potentially helpful teaching aids at times. But the brand also has a focused line just meant for that: LEGO Education. The Education product lines are non-retail, available only on LEGO’s online portal. We’ve featured several of these sets before, and LEGO has a new one to introduce.

A number of the more recent LEGO Education specialized sets have been geared towards introductory coding and programing. The new LEGO SPIKE Prime is no different. With over 500 Technic-like mechanical pieces and an electronic hub, it’s a fantastic new building system allowing for coding to articulate and drive constructs.

The digital aspect of LEGO Education’s SPIKE Prime is, as usual, a downloadable app for mobile devices that can develop programs using Scratch coding language. These programs are then transmitted to the electronic hubs on any SPIKE Prime build, to perform the desire motion or animatronic effect according to instructions.

SPIKE Prime will be getting its first major test as an educational tool with LEGO packing it along with other Education products in a “Confidence in Learning” toolkit. These kits will be provided by LEGO to select schools around the world, to establish LEGO Education and SPIKE Prime as valuable aids in a hands-on education.

For schools in the US interested in trying LEGO Education SPIKE Prime, they can already preorder the system on the Education portal of LEGO’s official website. It will become generally available later on August 2019.

LEGO Store Build Event on April 18: Create Thor’s “Stormbreaker” from the MCU

Now that the month of April has started, LEGO has about finalized what sort of events and promotions it’ll have both online and with their branded LEGO Stores. Two weeks from now, these LEGO Stores will have a build event to commemorate the impending release of Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Endgame.”

If you’ve got children ages 6 to 14 years of age, you’re in luck! Starting this Friday, April 5, you can register for the build event itself on the 18^th. The subject of construction is the current weapon of the Asgardian Avenger Thor: the Stormbreaker.

For those who’re following the MCU storyline so far, you’d remember that Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir was destroyed in 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok.” In last year’s “Avengers: Endgame” he gained a replacement weapon, an ax called Stormbreaker. The head is made of the same material as Mjolnir, with its wooden handle being grown from Groot’s arm.

As can be seen above, the LEGO build version for Stormbreaker is pretty neat and reasonably easy to copy. If your little Avenger wants this mighty thunder-tool, then make sure to check your local LEGO Store if they’re running the event for April 18, and what time they’ll be held.

Quick Roundup of New LEGO Star Wars Sets Available on Shop@Home Starting this April

Refresh. This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the LEGO Star Wars product line, just as the final segment of the Sequel film trilogy and the Skywalker family saga concludes with “Episode IX.” The two decades of LEGO making “Star Wars” sets might be overshadowed by other celebration developments, if not for their latest offerings.

We got a good look at these sets months ago, both of the “new for 2019” variety and the special 20^th Anniversary Collection. After weeks of waiting they’re now listed as available on LEGO Shop@Home. It’s shaping up to be another great year for LEGO Star Wars collectors, tiding the excitement until “Episode IX” releases.

20^th Anniversary Collection

Slave I – 20th Anniversary Edition (75243)
Anakin’s Podracer – 20th Anniversary Edition (75258)
Snowspeeder – 20th Anniversary Edition (75259)
Clone Scout Walker – 20th Anniversary Edition (75261)
Imperial Dropship – 20th Anniversary Edition (75262)

New for 2019

Sequel Trilogy – the current films in the spotlight; “Episode IX” premieres this December 20

Duel on Starkiller Base (75236)

Action Battle Series – not just play, but an actual target-shooting game with fun damage effects

Endor Assault (75238)
Hoth Generator Attack (75239)
Echo Base Defense (75241)

Star Wars Resistance – first season completed on Disney Channel, with a second already green-lit

Major Vonreg’s TIE Fighter (75240)
Black Ace TIE Interceptor (75242)

Target Online Shopping has Surprise Discounts for Newest LEGO Avengers: Endgame Tie-Ins

As you already know, LEGO Shop@Home already has the tie-ins for MCU’s “Avengers: Endgame” movie listed. Those awesome vehicle and action sets have long had their official images pored over by fans for hints to the movie’s plot. And now they can finally get these sets in the flesh plastic.

But the added listing of the “Endgame” tie-ins isn’t just with Shop@Home, but on all prominent LEGO/toy retail platforms. In particular, Target not only has them online, two of these sets actually have discounts. This is probably one of the earliest sales Target has done for new LEGO sets available for less than a week.

First it was the LEGO Avengers: Endgame War Machine Buster (76124). Then it was followed by the Iron Man Hall of Armor (76125). Third is the Avengers Ultimate Quinjet (76126) that’s a bit mislabeled. These three sets have their prices shaved on Target’s online platform.

To compare, Amazon is offering the War Machine Buster (76124) for $27.99 (to Shop@Home’s $34.99); Hall of Armor (76125) for $47.99 ($59.99); and Ultimate Quinjet (76126, which Target says is a “Spider-Man: Homecoming” tie-in) is at $63.99 to the official price of $79.99 on Shop@Home. Only Target’s Captain America: Outriders Attack (76123) and Avengers Compound Battle (76131) listings are unchanged.

Now that you know, you have a choice on whether to buy full-price from LEGO Shop@Home or discounted on Target (at least the three above). If with the former, at least Ultimate Quinjet (76126) and Avengers Compound Battle (76131) have double-VIP points all April. You decide which bonus is better.

A Look at LEGO’s April Fools Prank for 2019

We decided to write this stuff after the day in question itself to make sure its true nature is known. Anyway, yesterday was April Fools’ and that means there were plenty of zingers for suckers both in real-life and online. LEGO’s an old hat with this in their social media.

If you might recall, last year the LEGO Twitter page “introduced” a “brick vacuum cleaner” for sucking up loose pieces. This year they’re continuing the April Fools’ theme of wacky tools for managing LEGO. Now the problem being ostensibly addressed is helping builders find the right pieces in a pile.

To “help” with that they announced the “Find My Brick,” a phone app that obviously rips off similar apps on the market. At least LEGO’s trying to put spins on the joke. Find My Brick apparently uses some AR offshoot, where users select a particular brick on its online database and points the phone-cam at a pile of LEGO bricks.

The long search is finally over… 📱 #FindMyBrick pic.twitter.com/3yBIPJ2OPk

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) April 1, 2019

As seen in the image above, the app would scan the brick pile and pick out the bricks matching the selection made in the app. They even get glowing outlines on the screen like a standard sci-fi HUD. Frivolous? Yes. Self-indulgent? Yes. Funny? Definitely yes.

Comments on LEGO’s April Fools Twitter entry even contain some posts that feel the Find My Brick spoof app to be potentially useful. They even asked the toy giant to make it real. For this writer that indicates the one-day gag just works too well.