LEGO Ideas pick-a-brick models now available
Posted by Huw,
Last year LEGO invited selected LEGO Ideas members to participate in the Test Lab Challenge, developing digital models from a fairly limited range of parts, those in the pick-a-brick bestsellers list, I believe.
Seven of the nine successful designs are now available to purchase at LEGO.com in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and digital instructions can be downloaded without the need to buy the parts, thus allowing you to have a go at building them with those you already have.
We've added the sets to the database, and you can also view the models after the break.
Billboard Fun
Cyber Explorers
4-Season Greenhouse
Market Magic
Modular Racers
Garden Dreams
Brick-quarium
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44 comments on this article
All of the parts show as out of stock, but it may not be fully live for purchasing yet. Very cool to make the instructions available as this feels like a modern take on the Idea Book.
Is it not only live outside of the U.S. at the moment?
I was tempted by a few of these until I saw the price.
@Rimefang said:
"All of the parts show as out of stock, but it may not be fully live for purchasing yet. Very cool to make the instructions available as this feels like a modern take on the Idea Book."
Interesting -- they appear to be in stock in Europe still. I successfully added the billbord to my cart.
@Huw From the Ideas announcement on this the other day ( https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/a4ae09b6-0d4c-4307-9da8-3ee9f3d368d6/post/1b849cf8-b693-4a04-a605-561c7af462e7 )
"The builds are now live in all European countries with Pick a Brick, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
We’ve made sure all the bricks are in our Bestseller selection for faster shipping, but don’t forget you can also add your own twist to customize the builds even further by adding other elements from the Pick a Brick assortment to your basket.
As the bricks are still on their way into the Bestseller warehouse in the USA and Canada, we expect that the designs will first be available in July in these regions. For now, you can still have a look at the builds and download the instructions."
Very neat... especially like the 3 live and ex-live botanicals!
@Rimefang said:
"All of the parts show as out of stock, but it may not be fully live for purchasing yet. Very cool to make the instructions available as this feels like a modern take on the Idea Book."
They are not yet available in the US
I realy like the 4 season greenhouse.
Let's see if I have all the bricks to make it :)
@Vizzitor, thank you.
I LOVE the two gardens and the market space.
Like those market stalls. Fortunately I already have all the needed parts, so am happy to use the free digital instructions.
Also quite fond of the greenhouse and the garden dreams.
Hmm, something lame, that the pieces are in normal priecing. No lower set price. So it's only a free manual and the good thing, that all pieces are bestseller.
Prieces in DE:
Billboard 26,9 €
Cyber 15,63 €
greenhouse 30,72 €
market: 27,11 €
cars 27,11 €
garden 25,85 €
I find it very annoying that when selecting all the parts for the 7 builds and adding them to your cart, you inevitably go over the amount of parts allowed so have to do multiple orders and because each order’s value is less than NZ$200 you won’t qualify for free shipping.
the prices
:skull:
Market Magic and Garden Dreams are both wonderful. The market would be great with a small color change for multiple copies, and as the designer noted, it can be used for medieval to modern.
Yikes at those prices, I expected them to be 15€ at most.
Just had a look at the inventories on Rebrickable and I already have the parts for the ones I want to build. Great stuff.
I am seriously aiming for that Billboard fun, it will be glorious but mine needs to be taller.
Oh, I was looking foward to these, but they're way too expensive for what they are. I'd much rather just buy a small creator set at these prices.
After a couple of experiences with them, I think digital instructions is a huge "no thank you" for me in general, though with small sets like this maybe they are not that much of a problem. Still, if LEGO decides that the future is digital instructions, their future won't include my purchases of large high margin sets from them.
These stink.
epic fail by LEGO, lots of the parts in the US are out of stock already as of yesterday afternoon. You can't build these sets when the are missing 39 parts like for the Billboard. I'm sure with this failure, it's a one off deal. LEGO should Just build the set, put in a cheap Black Friday generic yellow box with instructions as the front of the box and send it out instead of making people piece it together over LEGO.com and Bricklink
@medleyj said:
"epic fail by LEGO, lots of the parts in the US are out of stock already as of yesterday afternoon. You can't build these sets when the are missing 39 parts like for the Billboard. I'm sure with this failure, it's a one off deal. LEGO should Just build the set, put in a cheap Black Friday generic yellow box with instructions as the front of the box and send it out instead of making people piece it together over LEGO.com and Bricklink"
It's not yet available in the US. Their announcement said it will be in July for the US and Canada.
I get the idea is to sell more with the mass-produced pieces, but doesn't this defeat the purpose of pick-a-brick? It's pick-a-set, otherwise known as a set. And these sets include no sought-after prints, recolors, molds, or minifigs. Not sure I understand this.
Uninteresting models and generously overpriced.
The Lego-catalogue definitely is getting bloated, more and more.
These are simple, easy and nice builds that one can build easily from their own parts. I really like that. The ability to ALSO buy the needed pieces is a welcome addition. I see nothing to complain here and I look forward for more free instructions!
These have such a traditional LEGO feel to them, with a slightly modern twist. Love em!
I've already downloaded the instructions for the Greenhouse, Market & Garden as those are the ones that I liked the most. Pretty sure I have most if not all of the parts needed for these. I plan to modify the Market one to use with the Lion Knight's Castle. I'll probably add Pies & Apples to replace the Pizza and maybe a different style chair. Also will replace the register with something more appropriate to medieval times.
Interesting to see that $NZ pricing is less than $AU. Honestly, I don't believe I've ever seen that before. As for the sets, there's a couple of interesting little builds in there, but unless you can rustle up the parts there's no way they're worth buying as a kit. For example, why would you buy the Modular Racers when, fir a similar price, you could get a decent Speed Champions set?
Stuff like these should have been promoted WAY MORE. This is great concept that will fail because kids DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT
@gylman said:
"After a couple of experiences with them, I think digital instructions is a huge "no thank you" for me in general, though with small sets like this maybe they are not that much of a problem. Still, if LEGO decides that the future is digital instructions, their future won't include my purchases of large high margin sets from them. "
The downfall of lego, over an instruction book. I'd probably stop buying also, definately stop building
IDEASPAB7 sure is a funny looking Ant-Man set. I'm glad we get another set other then 76256 for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: "Quariumania".
@Ridgeheart said:
"Pretty cool, I'm just not a fan of digital instructions (which apparently is the way of the future?)."
Currently building one of the Bricklink Designer sets with the digital instructions, and I have to say I don’t mind them.
One advantage I like over traditional instructions is that you can spin the model and view it from other angles, which would’ve been very handy on previous builds I’ve done where brick placement on a baseplate was not clear, for example.
These prices seem standard piece prices for pick-a-brick, it’s always been a premium service that Bricklink will beat on price while remaining more inaccessible- and that’s the tidy modern bricklink!
I wish i had used BL more, i spent too much at pick-a-brick because it was easy and I was lazy.
What was the reasoning for these to be added to the database?
Lego set number - nope
Offical box or packaging - nope
There a bunch of bricks from pick a brick with some online only instructions (with no set number or different packaging than me buying 4 white tiles)
So the only thing that makes them “offical sets” is that Lego have a press release about them and the pick a brick order system is grouping some bricks together.
I don’t know…. Doesn’t feel like a “set” to me.
@Ridgeheart:
Unlike other companies, I think TLG recognizes that not everyone owns or has access to a computer device. Dimensions and Mario had digital instructions because they made more sense than paper instructions, given their unique circumstances. Replacements for lost or damaged instructions are digital because it’s easier to maintain the entire back catalog that way vs warehouses of printed booklets. These and the Bricklink sets probably got digital instructions because it makes those programs less costly to manage (never mind the logistics of how to obtain these instructions in paper form). That box you pick up in a store still gets paper instructions, in spite of constant reminders that some Brickset users would prefer otherwise. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
@Reg:
*cough* $200? At current exchange rates, that’s $125 USD, which is lower than I was expecting, but you still have my earnest sympathy. A lot of people complained about PAB minimum thresholds, but that seems a bit petty when you consider some of us can qualify for free shipping nearly four times for the same amount.
Now, I don’t know if this will actually work, but have you tried adding these to your cart one at a time? The new PAB system has, at times, been a little weird. I’ve had times when I paid for an order, and the next time I started adding parts to my bag, all the old parts were still showing up in my bag.
@oukexergon:
They did something similar with in-store PAB a few years ago. It was a miserable flop, but in that case you were paying by volume, and the parts needed for any given model left a ton of empty space in the cup. Not everyone knew you could continue to pack parts in the cup until it was full, so it was like paying $15 for a polybag. At least in this case, pricing is by the piece.
@gylman said:
"After a couple of experiences with them, I think digital instructions is a huge "no thank you" for me in general, though with small sets like this maybe they are not that much of a problem. Still, if LEGO decides that the future is digital instructions, their future won't include my purchases of large high margin sets from them. "
Agreed. If LEGO goes fully with digital instructions in the future, I will no longer buy sets to build. Will still buy for parts (if worth it), but a lot of the joy in building LEGO sets for me is having the freedom to build them anywhere, WITHOUT having to stare at a screen. I deal with enough 'screens' on a daily basis. I do NOT want them when dealing with what should be a 'low-tech' toy experience.
I always hear folks saying that Bricklink is 'always' cheaper, but honestly, many, many times I have compared the cost of parts I wanted to buy between online PAB and Bricklink, and when Bricklink was cheaper for the part, it ended up costing more once shipping was factored in. So, I stick with PAB for new (also guaranteed to not be gross), and use Bricklink pretty much only for old, OOS items.
@vizzitor said:
" @medleyj said:
"epic fail by LEGO, lots of the parts in the US are out of stock already as of yesterday afternoon. You can't build these sets when the are missing 39 parts like for the Billboard. I'm sure with this failure, it's a one off deal. LEGO should Just build the set, put in a cheap Black Friday generic yellow box with instructions as the front of the box and send it out instead of making people piece it together over LEGO.com and Bricklink"
It's not yet available in the US. Their announcement said it will be in July for the US and Canada."
.
.
no, you're wrong. they are live and avail. Go to the Brickfan.com website. it has the links to the PDF instructions and price lists that are linked up to Bricks and Pieces Page. It is live despite what this article says or the Brickfan.com website says. You can get the PDF instructions.
Go the Brickfan.com website, they have the link to each set to get the instructions and to get the parts list that is partially sold out on bricks and pieces. I've already looked at all the sets and saved the PDF instructions for the billboard
@Ogre:
It definitely does depend on the parts. If a Bricklink seller parts out a set that's just 1x1 bricks and a couple minifigs, they can price the minifigs and rare colors high, and the common colors low. Online PAB may sell all the 1x1 bricks at the same price, based on cost to manufacture, and the minifig parts may be priced comparable to Used ones on Bricklink.
These days, I've shifted to buying mostly online PAB, just because I trust LEGO.com's payment system. I can't say the same for Bricklink's, now that they've forced everyone to use onsite Paypal. That site got hacked to the point where it couldn't even serve up error pages...twice. All they did both times was patch the damage, which was fine when all I had to do was use a different computer to send payments.
Hopefully something like this can open the door for uploading a BOM to PAB to order parts en masse. I would rather much enjoy such a feature.
@ickis:
A “BOM”?
@PurpleDave said:
" @ickis:
A “BOM”?"
Bill Of Materials.
@ickis:
I don't think I've ever heard that term before, and certainly not in reference to a LEGO model. I usually hear Part List and/or Wanted List. Now, if you use Stud.io (which I don't), they did build that functionality in with relation to Bricklink. No such luck on PAB, I'm afraid. I can use MLCad (my digital design program of choice) to spit out a part list, but even that gets hairy when trying to upload to PAB, because the AFOL community largely sticks with the first design number that comes along, and online PAB is a stickler for the constant flux of design numbers that happens internally. If they could even sort that much out, where looking up "same part" on a cheese wedge would give you _ALL_ of the cheese wedges vs just a compatible subset, I'd be happy.
@dimc said:
"Market Magic and Garden Dreams are both wonderful. The market would be great with a small color change for multiple copies, and as the designer noted, it can be used for medieval to modern. "
Maybe a little market corner in a 32x32 baseplate.