When I’m not making apps, one of the things that I enjoy doing is making things out of LEGO. When I was younger, I played with LEGO. Recently, I decided my kids should start building with LEGO too since I think it helps them think spatially, be creative and also learn some things about engineering. After helping my kids build some things, I realized I enjoyed it too. A lot. I find it to be a great stress reliever plus an outlet for my creative side. It is a nice change of pace to make things with plastic bricks when you are creating software all day.
I found some fellow AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO) here in the Washington DC area at WAMALUG (Washington Metropolitan Area LEGO User Group) and they were very encouraging. This month (January 2012), I even have the honor of displaying some of my creations at The LEGO Store in Potomac Mills Mall! Here are some pics, but if you are in the area, I’d encourage you to go to the store to see it in person. It should be on display until January 29th.
Here’s the display as you see it from the front. The display is managed by Rich at WAMALUG (thanks Rich!) and is in the center rear of the store, right before you get to the Pick-A-Brick wall. You can see Chess on the left, which was inspired by some of the pieces in the Tower Raid set. The Lion King (from Kingdoms) and a Dragon Knight are minifigs I added as players.
If you walk to the left of the display, you’ll see Connect Four. I was kind of concerned that people wouldn’t recognize this. It is one of my all-time favorite board games, since it is so simple but makes you think a few moves ahead. Plus who can forget the commercial where the kid says “Pretty sneaky, sis!” Fortunately, kids still play this game today and some of the store employees recognized it. I’ve got a little boy minifig and a sister as players for this one.
Here’s the display from the rear. If you look at the left, there is a game of Checkers, built with the studs going sideways, to make a really shiny board. I thought that was a nice contrast with the normal studs-up build that I did for the other two MOCs (My Own Creations.) Note that the checker pieces are interchangeable with the Connect Four game. I’ve got two British-looking minifigs, the Zookeeper and the Detective from the Collectible series are here since another name for Checkers is English draughts.
Here’s the display from the right. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that Connect Four is in the configuration that is shown on the box cover (well at least the 2002 edition.)
So, if you like LEGO and you’re in the DC area, you should come out to the WAMALUG meetings. We meet every month usually on the 2nd Saturday. You can get more details at the group calendar. This month we’re meeting on Saturday the 15th at George Mason Library.
