I like that they've kept them as 3 vignettes rather than try to cram them together, and the tiled floor is nice to see in a set of this size. The brick separator seems a bit unnecessary considering the size of the set though.

Great review and a great set. It may be the first one from Cuussoo that I decide to buy.
As you said the dino is fantastic and I like the telescope and especially the map of the stars. Excellent job LEGO!

Sir Valiant~

A - MAZE - ING!

That set is super sweet, I must say. Love the parts, the figs are actually quite nice, and the models themselves are generic. Given as well that its probably under $25.00 USD, it may have a good price as well. LEGO did a good job with this set. WTG Alatariel!

Looks really great, I am impressed with how this turned out. Hopefully they will produce this more than the Mars Rover, it is a shame that one disappeared so quickly.

Looks like they've stayed pretty true to the original design. However I am surprised at the lack of fanfare on this one. Don't new product reveals (especially CUUSOO/Lego Ideas) usually come in the form of a press release? Especially seeing the amount of online chatter this set seemed to create in various news outlets.

Really happy with how this turned out. I can see both of my children wanting to build and play with this one. (T-Rex Fossils and a Telescope? Yes please.) I may need to MOC a full observatory one day if I ever get really ambitious to tackle the dome...

I would have thought the release would have been more noteworthy also. But it's here, so that's all that matters. The set itself looks neat. I'll definitely pick one up for myself and one for my daughter. She'll get a kick out of it. She always takes all of my flasks and bottles anyway, so this will give her some more.

I just hope the price is right to afford more than one.

Wow, this looks great, I'm suprised how much it looks like the original. This might be my first CUUSOO/Ideas set.

Ooh, I love this! I don't know why, but I'm extremely excited over the recolour of the Chima spider leg used for the T-Rex's tail. In fact, the T-Rex one is my favourite, but I think that's because I'm a female palaeontologist myself :-) But can I be nitpicky? The skeleton should be tan or dark tan - the only purely white fossils are in fact only plaster casts, and I think the palaeontologist would be more interested studying actual prehistoric bone than plaster! :-)

Despite that, this isn't just a want for me, it's a NEED. I like it that much.

This set looks much more interesting to me after I've seen the pictures of the actual bricks. I was pretty disappointed Lego didn't choose the Zelda themed Idea but this set is pretty neat. As a bachelor of chemistry I really like the little chemistry lab. The female minifigs are nice too considering I have a grand total of probably 1 female minifigs (Batgirl!). This will probably be the first Lego Ideas set I will buy and I'm pretty excited!

I might add three male scientists to make it more realistic

This is awesome. I'm hoping I can pick this up next week when I make my birthday run to the LEGO store in Detroit.

Yep, this will be bought when it comes out...even with the wife saying we don't need any more sets right now.

I hope they expand the set like they did the Minecraft set. I would like to see some of those other female scientist sets made.

I think it looks great. My only disappointment is that they changed the torsos and used already established toros that come in every set instead of creating some new ones to give the female torsos line up some variety.

This set actually looks fantastic! It's an example of an Ideas set that was actually improved upon in the final version. When does this go on sale?

I'm sure I'll buy three of these when it comes out... one for myself, and one for each of my daughters!

I hope it actually will be released the first of July, together with all the promotions announced a great start of the summer! :-)

Day of purchase for sure.

While this looks like a wonderful set, and I'm sure it is, these pictures have been released BEFORE images of the Exo-Suit!!! This set was announced a few weeks ago! I'm surprised they showed images of this before the Exo, which we have known was coming for over a year. Oh, well. I am dying to see the Exo-Suit, but this looks to be a sure purchase as well. :)

I'll definitely buy one of these for my little one and keep it safe until she is old enaught to build it! Great work, Alatariel!

My little sister really likes this, but especially the T-Rex. Which, frankly, I quite enjoy too. This is going to be $20, right?

I wonder if caperberry knows anything about the Exo-Suit that we don't... like, what the final design or piece count are. It's got to be done by now if they're releasing this in August. I have some idea of the piece count, considering the price of $35 USD... 400-odd pieces. Sounds reasonable for having a properly sized and greebled model, hopefully with a Classic Space color scheme. What else would they do? The submission was part of a Classic Space lineup, so adding blue, trans-yellow, and bumblebee striped would be just awesome.

Caperberry! Can you reveal anything about the set that we don't know? Please?

@ BrickSnorter,

As indicated in Alatariel's review, the syringes are stand ins for pipettes. So though it is weird they are sticking out of a drawer (other than from a marketing perspective) there is no danger to the figs.

As for the Astrology statement I am uncertain what you mean. Perhaps your implication is that a depiction of constellations = astrology? If that is the case, well, here is a very brief example of how Astronomers use constellations today: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=340 (well 12 years ago ;) )

Did anyone mention whether or not this was going to be released this year or in 2015?

@ DR EVIL: It may be a bit of a silly comment, considering the original proposal, but it is by no means sexist. People throw that word around way, way too much.

@Mr. PicnicBasket :: It's not long to wait now until the grand reveal of the exo-suit. A little more patience, please! The design was finalised months ago; the sets exist (I've held one in my hands - a proper production set, not a mock-up (we saw the mock-up much earlier in the year)). Those of us involved had to sign legally binding agreements with Lego that we wouldn't blab, so you won't get anything from us before the announcement. Sorry!

Love it. And I wonder if Emmett's Exo Suit is the reason why the Cussoo one has been delayed?

That is actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be.

Simple, yet marvelous.
Simply marvelous!
I like it!
I'll buy it!
And, I hope LEGO decides to make this into a series and possibly do the other designs that Alatariel suggested.... male or female. These would all make nice additions to any LEGO city. I already envision the Astronomer on the rooftop of one of the modular buildings. Now there's a reason to have a museum/university in the modular line.... *wink wink*

@ bluemoose and Huw:

OK, thanks. I suspect the grand reveal will be in the first couple days of July if it comes out August 1st. Can you confirm it comes out August 1st for $35 USD?

Ok, sorry everyone but I'm going to be a huge tin-foil hatted wet blanket here.

First, let me get out of the way - the set is awesome. No doubt, it looks to have achieved the intended goal of the creator, is true to the original concept and plain old looks neat. Bravo.

Here's the bad part. So, the reveal of the quarterly winner was 23 days ago. Think about that for a second. 23 DAYS AGO.

Are we to believe that Lego sunk their entire design, development, legal teams, etc etc. to get this out FASTER than Minecraft? Of course not. That's because this was clearly started months ago.

But wait... then that must mean the only reason this proposal was still in consideration with the last review was because... no, it couldn't be...

Of course, no one is that naive. It is now essentially confirmed that although they had two previous winners, they pushed this one along so that there would be at least SOMETHING to release with the inaugural Ideas reveal.

Sure, I get it, they wanted a sure thing for PR purposes so that Ideas isn't a huge downer. But for a company that is attempting to include it's fan/consumer base, the whole Ideas/Cuusoo project is far too classically "covert" with their decision making. What's the point of trying to play the game when the game is rigged?

At least be honest so people don't waste their time and get their hopes up. Despite their scheme, Ideas is shaping up to be a huge downer for me at least.

** comment removed by moderators **

@DanRSL, remember this was a holdover review. Something that required more examination or debate. In this case probably to avoid a PC pop storm if handled wrong. But that decision could have been made days after the last review period. When they announce does not always mean when they begin production. And let's be honest, this one probably took the design team a day or two to refine. I don't see any conspiracy here. The other review projects all faced pass or fail on their own merits. And this last review period there really were no surprises.

@Huey1 Looks like SOMEBODY's bitter.

It honestly bothers me a bit that some people have claimed to be offended by this, or insisted they want equal gender ratios. Gender equality doesn't mean every single set has to have equal numbers of male and female minifigures. If one set has more of one gender than the other it's not the end of the world. The problem which this set sought to address is that there is a huge imbalance between the number of majority-female sets and the number of majority-male sets. And when this happens to overlap with sets related to the sciences, there's the risk that it could perpetuate the imbalance of men and women working in actual science-related fields.

If a single majority-female set outside of LEGO Friends is enough to offend you, maybe, just maybe, there might be some personal issues you need to work out.

It's a great set but... For me the whole point of the set is to get new female mini figs.. Which we don't. :{

DanRSL, I'm sure they design mock-ups for sets AS they delve into incensing agreements, they know well ahead of time before they release them. And in any case, projects like the Mars Rover or this Research Institute have very few things that need to be changed in order to fit with TLG's standards.
Oh, and bluemoose, thanks for the relief! I'm excited for its release, and I'm sure it will blow away my expectations! :)

It's been discussed in CMF series 11, I'm not sure I like the new female scientist design even though the designers did try to make her different. I liked the original design with long robe and short legs.
And I'm alittle disappoint that no original figure prints aka new minifigures come to appeal FOLs despite they're the first group of female LEGO Idea minifigures and this set was meant to show gender issues. Also, if this is a whole research lab, it may be nice to see all three come in"uniform" things.
i.imgur.com/FDAKo90

The rest building part is very close to the original design, I'm not too surprised and I guess I'll still be going to get them.

Aanchir, you've totally misunderstood my point and you obviously don't know the background of this particular set. Nobody is complaining that this set has too many women or suggesting that sets outside the Friends theme shouldn't have more than 50% women.

This set's creator (Alatariel) openly proposed what has now been called "Research Institute" as an instrument of feminist propaganda, saying that with this LEGO set, she aimed to convince little girls to choose technical careers and to trick everyone into thinking that these jobs aren't almost exclusively done by men. It was never a case of "here's a cool depiction of a laboratory"; it was always "I want to spread feminist propaganda to children and I'll use LEGO to do so."

If The LEGO Group decided all by itself to make a laboratory and the scientists just happened to be female, I'd be one of the first to buy it. However, what we've seen instead is TLG endorsing and producing propaganda designed by a feminist activist. It's disgraceful; TLG should stay out of controversy and not take sides in political arguments. TLG has a policy of not featuring religion in its products because of a supposed possibility of people being offended, yet apparently they think politics is suitable.

I completely forgot that this one had passed review. I love it, I can't wait to get it.

Huey1, what on Earth is wrong with encouraging women to work in traditionally male fields? That's not even just a feminist thing. I'm male and disagree with 90% of modern feminists, but I think this is a good thing.

Please, don't feed the trolls. Ignore and move on.

While I am a bit disappointed with the lack of new printed torsos, save for one - it was the designer's intention to include fairly casual wear for the figures and it would have been nice to have some new ones - but I understand the reasons why. I would have also liked to see some new head prints. It seems like they just took whatever heads they had plenty of in particular to use. It would also be nice to see a fairly 'neutral' head print to be used instead of one with explicit makeup / long lashes, though. I always have admired the fact that the original classic minifigure heads were gender-neutral and it would be nice to have some more modern day counterparts. I wish they'd kept the original color of the skeleton, too..

That being said, the set is possibly the most faithful translation thus far seen. and I plan on picking up a copy.

Huw, just a suggestion...I'm all for lively dialog and free expression, but the repetitive arguments that break out each and every time this project is mentioned are quite tiresome. The points were all made the first dozen times people posted inflammatory comments about "feminist propaganda," "political correctness" and why there should also be "men-only" projects. It'll undoubtedly continue as new articles are posted about the set's release date, reviews, etc.

Certainly people are entitled to their opinions, but enough's enough about the principles behind this set and the endless flaming it creates. This is still a LEGO fansite, not a political debate forum. (There *are* Brickset forums if people really need to keep arguing about this somewhere.)

Perhaps it might be a good idea to consider more stringent moderation and deletion of comments in articles about this set. Again, just a suggestion.

Two of the female minifigs wearing casual clothes is a good idea, though they could have made some "funny science" torsos like the famous Einstein-tongue picture in LEGO form, or let's say the classic space logo with a pizza instead of the planet, or something like that.
But I love the set anyway!

Huw, the description on the project page has been changed since I read it. I objected to the idea at the time but, like you, the moderator there decided that big picture thinkers are second-class citizens who must be silenced immediately. I wasn't going to say any more about today's news; I find it silly that you and Modok perceived me as some kind of troublemaker. After all, I never said anything irrelevant, obscene or uncivil.

Isn't that the flight attendant torso? The minifigs are a bit of a let down, I think. Also, I would have prefered an entire female CMF series, but that's just me, I guess.

@Huey

Your comment "an instrument of feminist propaganda, saying that with this LEGO set, she aimed to convince little girls to choose technical careers and to trick everyone into thinking that these jobs aren't almost exclusively done by men." So you're saying that these jobs are almost exclusively done by men? That isn't even remotely based on truth and will be even less true when those girls become women. In my field of chemical engineering the top five universities have the following undergraduate intakes...

50% Male, 50% Female
47% Male, 53% Female
64% Male, 36% Female
47% Male, 53% Female
48% Male, 52% Female

These are the best of the best Universities and any hard working graduate should be able to walk into a decent career at one of top petrochemical, pharma etc companies - or indeed a research institute. Want to go narrower? How about first hand breakdown of a engineering/science research institute? Mine has a female to male ratio of 45% to 55%. They are all PhD students, postdocs or professors. Want to go broader?

In the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Norway 30-35% of ALL academics are female. In the US, Canada, France, Sweden and Spain its higher at 35-40%. But my favourite, in Finland, New Zealand and Australia (where you are posting from it seems) its 40-45% of ALL academic staff are female. So even in your backyard your suggestion that research jobs are 'almost exclusively done by men' has no basis which perhaps suggests you're not quite the 'big picture thinker' you imagine yourself to be.

Looks good to me; I'll consider bumping it up on my set list...

Not for me, I could almost build those models from the parts I already have.

I'm still trying to figure out what Dinosaur that's supposed to be.

^Legosauraus?

Just on the speed this model was produced in - yeah Steen started on a buildable version before the review results were announced. But then I started on a buildable version of the Exo-Suit before it was revealed as passed review too. These 'Ideas' models have to go from sketch to final product on shelves in 3 to 6 months - as opposed to the year to 18 months of retail sets, so we start on them early, and we accept they might be cancelled and our work goes to waste (a couple of Cuusoo 10,000's where partially developed and then fell through - don't ask, I won't tell, It's hard enough for the people whose models are passed over without rubbing it in further). As I've said in interviews before 95% of the builds we LEGO Designers do never go anywhere, we're used to it.

On the Exo-Suit - of course I had to change a few things, added some colour variation etc. - but Pete approved it, so when it's announced if you like it then thank me, if you hate it then blame him for compromising!

^ @Nabii, can you tell us in what way the colors have been changed or when it will be officially announced?
If Peter Reid approved it, it's probably good enough for me.

^^^ Tyrannosaurus Rex. Note the large, square head and two fingers.
EDIT: Is that a white fez I spy keeping the tail in place?

Oh, I hope that color variation involves bright blue and trans yellow! Of course, whatever you do with it, regardless of the color scheme, will be spectacular, I'm sure! :)

@Nabii
Thanks for your candid honesty. I appreciate that you can't reveal all of the interworkings, but I hope you can at least carry with you the sentiment of frustration from the other side over the Cuusoo/Ideas process back to Lego.

But you know, we all know now, Research Institute was the "safety school" for the Ideas inauguration.

@DanRSL

I love a tin hat theory as much as the next person, but I am a little lost on what you are accusing LEGO of having done.

Are you accusing them of not producing the RI last review period?

If so, LEGO has never claimed it would produce more than one set in a period. I assume that unless two genius-but-timely-cash-cows come in the same review, or perhaps a polybag and a normal scaled set, that we won't see this happen.

There is simply no reason for LEGO to saturate the market with Ideas set.

Are you accusing LEGO of releasing the RI set AFTER the Ghostbusters set?

Given that LEGO is not enamored with the idea of releasing multiple sets in a review, it is obviously in the best interest of all parties involved for LEGO to plan their releases for best effect. GB was released in time for the 30th Anniversary of the movie. The RI is, unfortunately, an evergreen idea for the time being so there is no inherent timeliness to its release. If LEGO thought the press behind RI would be bigger than GB and wanted to capitalize on that for the Ideas transition, well, Bully for them.

Are you accusing LEGO of delaying the RI then rejecting all the other sets in the same review?

If LEGO thought that any of the other projects in the review were viable for Production (in their own view) then they would have granted them a "pass" to a later review (just like they did with the RI).

^I think he's suggesting that the LEGO Group already more or less knew what the results for the next review would be and thus gave the RI a "pass" so that the results for that review period would not seem so underwhelming at a glance. But I don't know how likely that is.

@ Mr. PicnicBasket,
maybe,
but if that is supposed to be a T-rex they could've at least made it bigger.

I will not discuss the review process or the timing of announcements - that's entirely up to the Ideas team and I don't know enough about it to answer the questions anyway. I just wanted to give some insight into the Design process and how early we start exploring how these ideas can become sets.

As for Cuusoo/Ideas frustration - I had the highest rated Doctor Who project before they were all deleted, when they were allowed again the rules had changed and LEGO Employees were no longer permitted to have accounts. I think I understand the frustration a little.

I won't say anything further on the Exo-suit until it's released - but I will say I'm happy with it and it's still Pete's baby above all else.

OK. Thanks for clarification, Nabii. I think I'm going to be very pleased with it.

Wait, LEGO employees can't have Ideas accounts? That makes a certain amount of sense, if your proposal could just be a regular set in a theme, but now they're saying that LEGO employees can't suggest something like Ghostbusters or Doctor Who that way? That part doesn't make a lot of sense.

And, the set wouldn't need a redesign. :-)

Buying it along with the Exo-Suit set.

@glenbricker

The only thing I'd say I was "accusing" Lego of is pushing along a winning set in the guise of "still under consideration".

TLG can certainly plan and rework their marketing strategies however they please, but to establish a system of consumer involvement based on a specific framework and then play around with that framework leaves an unpleasant taste that trivializes the consumer involvement.

What I'd have like to have seen was GB and RI both pass review at the same review (like they did, wink wink) and then be released on whatever schedule works for TLG. What order they are released is pretty irrelevant to me, something with a limited amount of redesign like RI could have come out this past spring even before GB.

As far as saturation goes, the only Cuusoo/Ideas products that have any relation to each other are that that Delorean and GB Ambulance are both famous movie vehicles. Does a Minecraft world, 2 iconic movie cars and a pack of 3 scientists really feel "saturated" to you? Especially when Chima has over 50 sets this year? RI is basically a CITY set.

So in your words, I am accusing LEGO of delaying the RI then rejecting all the other sets in the same review. It got the green light months ago, was redesigned, photographed, had the box design done, was produced and shipped to the original submitter. That didn't all get rushed through in 23 days.

I understand why they might want to (as I said above, so that something would pass and the first Ideas review isn't a huge downer), but when you realize that nothing DID pass, it IS a huge downer.

@Nabii, thanks very much for sharing. I didn't realise that you are on this one, a collab of you and Pete is a day 1 buy sight unseen!

Hope they have made enough, so it doesn't sell out as fast as the others on the
Lego site. Already missed out on the Mars Rover earlier this year. Now the Ecto-1 is out of stock. I was hoping to buy the Research Institute, Ecto-1 and the Exo-Suit together in one go, but it looks increasingly like if you don't buy immediately you won't get one of these Ideas/Cuusoo products, which I assume means Ideas projects are a good thing from a business point of view?

A bit amazed how a set can generate so much debate, ire and conspiracy theories.. Its a PLASTIC TOY SET people! Only those who insist on reading too much into it are blowing this out of proportion.

I like it but probably will be overpriced, like most Cuusoo/Idea sets, though. Then again this is the first non-Licensed Idea set to come out of this project isn't it?
I will say the dino is more like a raptor I think than a T- Rex (though I'm guessing due to space and part limitations for the set this is the best they could squeeze in)
A few nice parts, appears to be a sticker or two.
Also, if they were going to reuse torsos, then why not reuse the CMF scientist torsos?
As it is a non-licensed one I would be surprised if LEGO sells out of it and does not make more.

@madforLEGO
For the torsos, the designer Alatariel explicitly explained that she prefer to show scientists in "plain clothes", much like how they would naturally be in their office or doing field work. It especially makes sense that a paleontologist and astronomer wouldn't wear stereotypical lab coats and goggles.

Kinda disappointed in the reuse of common styles, though.

@madforLEGO
> Also, if they were going to reuse torsos, then why not reuse the CMF scientist torsos?
Uh..... I'm alittle confused. Since that one is the only new torso here, wouldn't your suggestion result in no new torso print at all?

@DanRSL
Since RI isn't the very first delayed project, I don't easily suspect that TLC purposely delay the project in order to reject all other projects in the next review (in order to be no huge downer). Only the return of Portal and Land-Rover Defender can confirm this theory. To be more suspectful, we may also believe that there should be the other selected project in last review.

I wouldn't mind to see two projects selected in a review and no project selected if they're recognizeably reasonable enough for why they can't be real products. If it's due to production reasons, there's no reason to be unhonest by not declaring the product.