Ideas Showcase

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It has been some time since I last Showcased some LEGO Ideas projects and yesterday I spotted a new Contests button on the LEGO Ideas Dashboard.

In late 2018, LEGO will celebrate a decade of Crowdsourcing – 10 years since the Japanese launch of LEGO CUUSOO! To prepare for the celebration, LEGO has invited you to a very special contest.

Read on as I Showcase eight Ideas projects and also include more information about the LEGO Ideas logo contest.

Build Your LEGO Ideas Logo

LEGO wants you to build your own version of the LEGO Ideas logo!

Take their existing logo and make it your own, or change it completely. How can you embody the spirit of LEGO Ideas in a re-imagined logo, built with LEGO bricks?

The best entries will be featured on the LEGO Ideas Facebook page to celebrate the anniversary, and the best of the best could win some very cool prizes.

Entry Deadline

You must submit your entry no later than 3:00 pm GMT, Friday December 15, 2017 (10:00 am EST).

Grand Prize

The current LEGO Ideas assortment including: 21306 The Beatles Yellow Submarine, 21307 Caterham Seven 620R, 21308 Adventure Time, 21309 LEGO NASA Apollo Saturn V, 21310 Old Fishing Store, all signed by their respective LEGO designers, and 21312 Women of NASA, signed by the LEGO designer and fan designer.

Runners Up

Two Runners Up each receive 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V signed by the LEGO designers, and 21312 Women of NASA, signed by both the LEGO designer and the fan designer.

View entries

You can see the submitted entries here.

Pinball Machine

By SecondChildhood

I have known Matt Hebley, SecondChildhood, for several years and have seen this Pinball Machine displayed In the Wild at several LEGO shows.

It is always a crowd pleaser with children queuing up to have a go playing pinball.

I can testify that as it has been tested by hundreds of kids at LEGO shows as described in the project description. This model is very robustly built.

In a time before gaming consoles, pinball machines were found in suburban dairies and takeaway shops.

Pinball machines were the forerunner of Space Invader styled arcade games.

It is another desk-top styled Idea in a similar fashion to last year's Ideas set: 21305 Maze.

This project has had early support and easily reached the first 100 Supporter's milestone. It is sitting at 200 Supporters and has over a year to reach the next goal.

Grand Piano

By TwinMum22

I have a soft spot for piano projects. I am surrounded at home by piano-playing family members and my son is a very successful piano tutor.

As I type this article, I can hear a young student playing piano music in his studio.

This Grand Piano is a collaborative build between Dianne and Lauren Winbanks. I have been following the progress of this project over the last few months.

Lauren has Autism and Intellectual Disability and that LEGO has been the best possible tool for helping her in life. Lauren is working towards her Grade 5 piano qualification and is immersed in LEGO building; she has used these two pastimes to manage her disability.

This project needs 400 new Supporters within the next six months to reach the 1000 Supporter's milestone.

A15 The Architect Office

By anthoatana

Before I went to sea I was a trainee engineering draughtsman. I worked at a drawing board similar to the one depicted in this project.

There is a fantastic level of detail in this Architect Office furniture. There is some filing cabinets, plan drawers, storage boxes and some Ikea styled shelving.

Anthoatana is a prolific Ideas contributor and this project is by far the most popular project. Take a look at some of anthoatana's other projects as some of them are just as good as this one.

Anthoatana needs 220 supporters in the next five months to get to the 1000 Supporter milestone.

Emma's Villa

By dr_lofstrand

There are some great modular buildings submitted at LEGO Ideas although, to date, they have not passed the review phase. This year's 21310 Old Fishing Store is the closest project to a modular themed set.

What appealed to me about this project was the Friends focuses colour scheme. There is quite a lot of interior detailing in this villa.

Dr_lofstrand has submitted several projects but this is the most popular.

It will need quite a boost in support to get to the next milestone. It sits at 264 Supporters and has four months to reach the 1000 Supporter's milestone.

RV Calypso

By LuisPG

RV Calypso was the ship used by the French oceanographic researcher Jacques-Yves Cousteau. She was converted from a Royal Navy minesweeper and had served in the Mediterranean during WWII.

I grew up in the 1970s watching the TV show The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

LuisPG has really captured the overall look of the RV Calypso. Take a look at the other images on his project page.

LuisPG is a prolific project submitter. Have a look at some of LuisPG's other projects.

This project has had solid support and is on track to reach 5000 Supporters.

Modular City Museum

By Luke Lyons

Luke Lyons has put a lot of detail into the Modular City Museum.

It includes science, history and art exhibits and has a glass elevator for travel between floors.

This project was selected as a Staff Pick two weeks ago. It will be interesting to see whether this improves the projects review chances should it reach the 10,000 target.

I am confident that this project will get to 1000 supporters milestone in the next day or so.

Luke Lyons also has a LEGO University Modular that is also worthy of mentioning here.

Here are two projects that I have Showcased before but they ran out of time and have been re-submitted.

Pingu

By LegoJalex

I loved watching Pingu as my son grew up. This was one of his favourite TV shows.

LegoJalex has made a very Creator styled project here and captures expressions of all the penguins really well.

It is a tall task to to get 3600 supporters in the next 30 days. Let's see if that can be achieved!

LegoJalex also has an interesting E.T. - Phone Home project that you should look at as well.

Newtonian Telescope

By guiguizmo_5168

I have an interest in astronomy and guiguizmo_5168 has made a telescope that really looks like a real Newtonian Telescope on an Equatorial Mount.

The Equatorial Mount enables the telescope to easily track stars and planets in the night sky. It has three axis: Latitude, right ascension and declination.

This has been re-submitted and is halfway to the 1000 supporter’s milestone. It has eight months to get another 500 Supporters.

So here are eight projects to have a look at. I encourage anyone contemplating submitting a LEGO Ideas project to do a considerable amount of research before starting to build their project.

I am always interested in your thoughts. Which projects do you like? Do you agree with my selections?

Feel free to leave feedback and links to your favourite Ideas.

32 likes

17 comments on this article

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By in Serbia,

IMO, the only one of these with even a remote chance of being approved as a set is A15 The Architect Office.

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By in Australia,

^ Indeed. Modular buildings that are actually in the style of official Modular Buildings are a big no-no, if past reviews are anything to go by. The Office, Calypso and Newtonian are bit too niche to gain popularity regardless of how easily they might pass review. The Pinball Machine has almost been already done before and I haven't seen Ideas ever pass an idea that's similar to a previous idea. The Grand Piano's nice and all but there isn't really anything new or special in it from past piano projects that have failed.
And... Pingu? While I would totally buy that set, I can't see a Lego set of a dried-up kid's TV show that's on its way out ever being produced. Then again, Adventure Time was passed...

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By in Germany,

Funny to hear positive comments about the architect's office set as I find it the least appealing of the lot and can't fathom who would buy such a set, other than people like Block-n-Roll who might harbour some personal feelings for such a theme. But how much appeal would such a set have for the general Lego buying public? How many Architects are there?
I would love to see the Pingu set get made, otoh it should be easy enough to MOC now that there are pictures as inspiration.
Other than that, I think either the Calypso or the Pinball machine would make great additions to the Ideas range. Especially the latter, being IP free, a fresh idea and a subject matter that surely loads of people will relate to - certainly more than an obscure office.

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By in Belgium,

The pinball machine is a good idea. I imagine all sorts of layouts could be possible with ramps, over-ramps and moving parts, but it needs some kind of powered functions (sensors, etc.) to make it really work. And without a scoring mechanism, I'm not sure how much playability it'd have long-term.

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By in United Kingdom,

I was looking at Emma's Villa & my first thought was how bad the layout would be in a house. The top floor bathroom splits it up into two small spaces rather than being at the back bit, giving a larger space & also making the plumbing more efficient by being almost over the toilet on the next floor down.
I don't think it has much chance as Emma already has a house. Mia & Andrea are still in need.

The only one of interest to me is Pingu & I think that would have licensing issues.

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By in United Kingdom,

I've given up with Lego ideas. The vast majority of good builds never gets recognition or built, and when a project does get the 10,000 votes, Lego usually comes up with some bs excuse for why they can't build it.

Ideas was a good idea, but because its been so poorly implemented and handled, its failed for me.

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By in Puerto Rico,

Great, two contests that require my attention, challenge accepted.

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By in Australia,

None of those particularly grab me, I'm sorry to say, although no slight against the designers. And in terms of the museum, I just feel like we see modular museums a lot, on Ideas, and there have been better ones in the past.

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By in United Kingdom,

@malou

Is the first project you have linked your own submission?

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By in United States,

I would definitely buy that architect office!

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By in United Kingdom,

@CCC
Harsh, but sadly you're not wrong. I would add another category though - builds that would be a popular release and sit in an existing theme, but are never likely to achieve 10,000 votes.
The site now seems to be full of builds that should be in the Lego Life magazine, not ideas.
Of the above ideas, I do like the Calypso. It did remind me of Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic though...

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By in United States,

I'm a fan of lego sailing ships and would definetly buy the calypso.

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By in United States,

Love the Architect's Office. My drafting table is almost exactly like the one there. So accurate at that scale!

I too grew up watching Jacques Cousteau's Undersea World. I even built the old Calypso model back in the day. Testors paint, glue, etc.
Love to get this as a Lego model. A nice hearty build, great to display, but I think the Technic one that recently came out, 42064, is very reminiscent of it already?

The Pinball Machine would be fun too, if you can swap out the boards to MoC like the Maze had.
The Newtonian Telescope has some nice details. Be a good, large desktop display model.
The Natural History Museum would be a nice addition to the Modular line. Be so much fun to build each exhibit and the building architecture is nice too.

Emma's House I'd say won't be made 'cause you have some really nice Friends houses and large builds that have some great details in them already.
Pingu...ah, meh looking.

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