LEGO Masters NZ - Season 2 - Final

LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2 finished at the end of April. In this article, I interview the three teams which made it into the Grand Final.

In New Zealand, you can still see all the episodes from seasons 1 and 2 on the TVNZ website.

In this article, found out how COVID affected the filming schedule and the knock-on effect this had for the last four episodes of LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2.

In the article are details of two new LEGO Masters challenge formats that have never been attempted on any LEGO Masters production prior to this series.

You will also be able to read how one Season 2 contestant has used their LEGO Masters NZ experience to make building with LEGO a full-time career!

To avoid spoilers for those who have yet to watch these episodes, I'll refrain from identifying them until after the break.

Angus and Carsten

NEW ALLIANCE

Second runners-up

David: Hello, Carsten in Europe and Angus here in New Zealand. I appreciate catching up with you, and thank you for arranging this for me, Angus.

Congratulations on reaching the final for LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2. Your team was one of the strongest from the first episode, and it didn't surprise me to see you end up in the final.
There are several episodes that I would like to touch on:

• There was the reflection challenge when you had to build a lighthouse that you built on a rocky outcrop;
• And I particularly want to talk about your Little Yellow Digger and that challenge where you had the twist at the end of that show where you had to modify the build slightly;
• The marble race, which I think is a first for LEGO Masters;
• And then your final build with the gyroscope, with the big, rotating armillary sphere gyroscope arrangement.

So where should we start? Which one would you like to talk about first?

Angus: Let's talk about them in chronological order.

David: Okay. The Reflection Challenge is the earliest episode. The picture you got was the reflection of a lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper's cottage. Tell me where you went with that challenge and that reflection. You had to build the actual lighthouse reflected in the image.

Angus: We got to choose that picture. And that was the challenge where we also got to pick the paintings for the other teams. We had won the challenge before that: The book for the housewarming present.

So, going into this challenge, we could pick the different reflected paintings for each team. And we didn't do it with malice or anything like that. We tried to choose paintings for the other teams that we thought they would be good at. We chose the lighthouse. I am trying to remember why. Can you remember, Carsten? Why did we decide on that one?

Carsten: Well, there was the thing about the lighthouse because Henny and Pieter went out when their 3D lighthouse picture crashed onto the floor, and I know another team was talking about the lighthouse. And it was really weird that this lighthouse came up in this challenge.
I don't know why we picked it. I remember my thought was either that Pohutukawa tree or the lighthouse. I would like to know if it was something to do with the round building that I wanted to do it. I'm not sure.

Angus: It could have been because we had also built the glass house, and I knew Carsten was amazing at building buildings and architecture. So maybe there were two buildings in there, and I knew we could do a good job.

David: You do have a thing for building bendy things and building things with LEGO bricks that are slightly stressed to make a curve. Some people call it illegal building techniques, but on LEGO Masters, you can do whatever you like.

Carsten: Yes, that's true. But the lighthouse didn't need to be done using that technique. But I do like round shapes. I like using different building techniques, which worked well in this challenge.

Angus: I wonder why we picked that.

Carsten: When we picked it, we needed a clearer vision of what we wanted to do. We only got a minute to discuss what we wanted to do. So we had to choose the challenges on the spot.
Angus: Yes. It went quickly.

David: There was the pirate ship you allocated to Oli and Charlie, the castle that Amy and Llewe received. Harry and Andrew had the two horse heads, and Jason and Rachel got the Pohutukawa trees.

They were all quite creative. It was a creative challenge. I know that Oli and Charlie had struggled with the perspective aspect and the mathematical components of seeing a reflected image to work out what the real thing may look like. It was an optical illusion, that optical effect of working with mirrors.

Angus: We loved this challenge, but it probably was the hardest one to wrap our heads around, and, as Carsten was saying, we didn't get a lot of time to figure it out.

And Robin Sather also knew it would be challenging to grasp exactly what he was after. He had some sketches which he showed us behind the scenes, yet it wasn't easy to explain, with words, what Robin had drawn.

MATANGA PEREKI, Brickmaster Robin Sather comments:

David: Since the Upon Reflection challenge was a new concept to LEGO Masters, I caught up with Robin Sather and asked him about these "concept sketches" that were used to help explain this new concept.

Robin Sather responds: The Upon Reflection challenge was one of several challenges that had never been done on any LEGO Masters production anywhere before.

I showed two sketches to the production team to better explain the concept.

The train on the stone arch bridge, which was a reflection that did not make the cut onto the show, was shown to the teams.

There were two sketches, but the teams only saw the train one.

Note: The two sketches, and the five mosaics used in the Upon Reflection challenge, can be seen at Robin Sather's Brickville DesignWorks Facebook page.

Angus and Carsten - continued

Angus: We were proud of what we built. I love that we incorporated a lot of bonus story around the two buildings' perspective. That angle really did throw us, and looking back on it; we decided to do a cutaway to show that water effects running along the top and then what's happening below the water.

We stabbed ourselves in the foot a little bit because we couldn't then build in the reflection; we couldn't build the painting into the scene, and some of the best builds in that episode were the ones that incorporated their reflections. We realised our strategy hadn't paid off when we saw what other teams were doing.

But the one thing that people probably didn't know from watching the show was that this was the last time we could use the Power Brick to avoid elimination. Robin informed us all about that during that episode.

Carsten and I decided early on to never use the Power Brick for an advantage. If you're not using it for an advantage, and it's the last time it can be used to avoid elimination, it is basically useless after that. So, we decided to play it to avoid elimination. In hindsight, the second we didn't incorporate that painting into our scene, it could have been us eliminated.

David: You probably had the reflected image with the greatest vertical extent. So you ended up building a tower, and you're looking down at quite a sharp angle to get the lighthouse keeper's cottage and the top of the lighthouse into the reflection, which wasn't a flat view like other reflections. That's my take on it, those reflections. You had quite a vertical component to it, and building that was quite a challenge.

Angus: Absolutely.

David: And in the end, as the other teams figured out, there was all this story that could be behind the edges of the reflected image because the image missed all of this chaos going around the sides. But to be able to do that, it had to be on an entirely different dimension to the rest of the build.

Angus: That is an excellent point.

David: The next episode chronologically would be the marble race because it was the marble race that led to the semi-final, and the semi-final was the Little Yellow Digger.

Angus: Yes. The marble run. That was where Charlie and Oli told us beforehand that it would be a marble run. Charlie and Oil had all the details. We were told that it would be a Great Ball Contraption. It will be a challenge where a ball must move around something we built.
But either they didn't know, or they didn't tell us that genres would be assigned to each team. Knowing it was a great advantage, and I love Charlie and Oli to bits; the fact that they told us was amazing!

But I guess it means that no matter how much you planned, that genre of medieval, space sci-fi, would mean you would have to pivot on the spot anyway.

David: Your theme for the ball race was medieval. You had the castle, and didn't it have a little jump built into it?

Angus: The one thing that's been going through the entire LEGO Masters season is how bad we are at machines in terms of motors. That we never practised with motors going into the show. This wasn't our forte. Our forte was more around good design and storytelling. And, if you're trying to get the ball circulating in a small space as much as possible, then motors are pretty important.

Carsten built this fantastic elevator, and you see it briefly on the show. It's the tallest thing on that episode, and it worked. It brings a ball all the way to the top. But then, due to the inability to plan, we needed to figure out what to do with our ball at the end.

Carsten: I think because we built the tower at the edge of the plate, and it was going to be up against the other modules touching each other, there was no space to complete that feature: the ball was going to be over to the side, and the challenge was how to catch the ball and, to be honest, there was only an hour left, and we couldn't figure that it out in time.

There was only half an hour left when we had to pivot and change the roller coaster track layout to do a shortcut, which was a bit of a shame. But this challenge was my least favourite. This challenge came down to something other than aesthetics or story. And that was what we did best. We were told this challenge was not going to be judged on that.

You also need to know about the series: we had two lockdowns due to COVID. And when we came into the last four episodes, they had to be shot in ten days. They had to cut down all the challenges by one or two hours each, and this episode was cut down. It was cut down, so we were told that aesthetics was not a part of the judging.

David: Okay. That all makes sense. If you have been to LEGO shows or LEGO conventions and there is a Great Ball Contraption, multiple powered modules usually keep the ball in your domain for a little longer. With that staircase in Oli and Charlie's module with the reciprocating pistons, it didn't surprise me that they won that challenge by a long shot.

Tell me, Carsten, if that was your least favourite challenge. What was your favourite challenge?

Carsten: That is a tough one. We did some incredible builds. I loved our glass house but didn't like the challenge itself as I'm not a big fan of the demolition. I liked our builds and even the mirror one; I absolutely love that build, even though it didn't work in our favour when we got the twist. I am proud of all our builds except the ball race - I wish we could do that over again.

The episode where we both did well, had plenty of time and enjoyed was where we created the book.

David: You mean the Little Yellow Digger?

Carsten: No, no that that one. The book for the housewarming. For some reason, in that challenge, we just chilled.

David: Wasn't that build where you had the front cover of the book upside down, and you had to reverse it all? Did you put the hinges on the wrong side?

Carsten: The book was made, but when I had to make the cover pattern for the front, I turned the front-page upside down somehow. But I did like that challenge for some reason. I don't know why.

David: The next episode in our sequence is The Little Yellow Digger story. That was in the semi-final, where there were three New Zealand-based children's storybooks: There was The Wonky Donkey. There was Nee Naw, the Little Fire Engine, and you got The Little Yellow Digger with the scene where the big digger gets bogged down in the mud, and a little yellow dog comes to the rescue.

Angus: Despite me having kids – ten-year-old twins - I've never read The Little Yellow Digger. I haven't seen the other books either!

The challenge kicked off because we had to randomly choose a book out of the bookshelf. And then inside, there was the book. And so, by chance, we got another digger! We had just done a digger in episode two,

Going into LEGO Masters, I had never built a digger and, yet weirdly, by the end of the show, I had built six of them! We built four of them in episode two and had to build two in that Little Yellow Digger episode. So that was very bizarre; I wouldn't have dreamt of building so many diggers in a LEGO Masters season.

I think the good thing about that challenge was that each of the builds was going to end up very different because, unlike previous challenges - where we could do whatever we wanted in a style that suited us, all of a sudden, we had to use the style of the book - the illustration style.
The Little Yellow Digger has a very detailed illustration style, and Carsten thought the build was a bit messy, but at the same time, it suited the subject matter.

David: That was the image from all the books with the most depth. It was semi-realistic. I suspect it is probably based on an event that happened in someone's front yard years ago, and it has been built into a classic story around the little yellow digger that rescued all the other diggers.

And you had the house, the foliage, the man with the plan, and all the people in gumboots with the dog. You had quite a lot in there with a dense image you had to replicate.

Carsten: We wanted to combine a few pages because we were trying to pick the best parts from each page, but we were not allowed to. We could not figure out why, and, of course, we didn't know there was a twist later on where we would have to change to another page.

But it was interesting because the scene that we had talked about building, we decided not to do and then when the twist came, it was straightforward for us to change our build because we had already talked about the scene on the next page.

David: It came across as if you had captured all the pertinent details in that complicated chaos around the tree in the centre of that scene.

Carsten: When the twist came, it worked out better the for our build.

David: All three builds improved because of the twist.

Angus: I would agree.

David: All three teams benefited from the last hour of the build, with the twist adding another layer to the story.

Angus: In all of your experience watching other LEGO Masters series, this is the first challenge where you haven't been able to tell your own story. You've had to tell somebody else's story because this surprised us. We love telling stories in our builds. But that was not an option for this one. And I was wondering whether this was a first.

David: I know there were new challenges in this series of LEGO Masters. I have not seen a storybook challenge, but I'm not saying it has never been done before. The reflection challenge was the first, and I think the marble race was the first.

This show has been screened concurrently with LEGO Masters Australia - Grandmasters, with many of the winning teams participating, and they had a collaborative roller coaster challenge. But that is not the same as a ball race.

They also had a challenge where they replicated some things found in an office. One team built a desk fan; others built a radio and a tape deck. The teams had to match something up in real life.

But what you are saying is that for the storybook challenge, you had to build something that you had no control over the subject matter.

Angus: Yes, that's right.

David: Well, that leads us onto the last built, where you were given a set amount of time, and you could build anything you liked, where you built your pyramid model. Would you like to describe it?

Angus: When I first met Carsten through the show, and once we were paired together, I saw all of the amazing brick-bending work that he had done; he had made these amazing Olympic rings, for example.

I wanted to incorporate some brick-bending into a build. So, halfway through the show, we thought we could be in the final episode. We were talking about the rings that Carsten had built, and I was thinking about having a gyro sphere and getting the rings to spin.

Amazingly, Carsten began putting together a prototype: Back in our apartment where we were staying during filming, there were big buckets of LEGO. And once we realised we could be in the final, Carsten started to build a prototype of these rings.

And from there, it was a challenge, but I thought we could include imagery of the Sun or a shifting globe. And from there, we started to craft a story around Ancient Egypt but distinctly not Ancient Egypt: It's a bit Sci-Fi; it's a little bit Dune; It's a little bit Blade Runner.

I love the build that we ended up with. Maybe it was a bit too intellectual, but it was not the most straightforward concept to grasp. In some ways, it looks like it's from a cult. But there is meant to be a little bit of spirituality in that building where people are more advanced as a society, as a civilisation than maybe what they look like on the surface because of this power source they've got. I think it was very much a "dad build" pitched towards middle-aged men. I imagined that many dudes would gather around saying, "That's cool!" The other two builds were easier to identify, especially for a younger audience.

David: When I looked at it, it reminded me of a Carl Sagan story called Contact. It's a movie that stars Jodie Foster where they build a machine called The Machine, and it takes them on an interstellar trip to a planet orbiting the star Vega. If you're familiar with that story, they have this machine with these rotating spheres, and your armillary sphere - what I call it - reminded me of that movie. And it's a time portal. It is a stargate to some other dimension, a wormhole in the fabric of space-time.

But, as you say, that Egyptian pyramidal subculture is also going on. You had built a whole plinth for that display. There was a lot of depth to that model. And weren't you trying to build something with the magnets?

Angus: We had seen these magnet pieces every time we walked into the Brick Pit. We kept asking, "What are these magnets for?" And nobody ever used them, not even Charlie and Oli, which surprised me as I thought they would have tried to use the magnets.

When I was a kid, I used to love putting a paperclip on a piece of paper and then having a magnet underneath and moving that paperclip around. It was like magic to me! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

So, the idea of trying to create that illusion where boats would be moving along the water with the magnets underneath required a very lightweight boat on top. But what tripped us up was getting that beautiful translucent water, which we used quite a bit; we had had to use those window pieces and every time you joined them next to each other, it created a tiny little seam. And that causes just enough friction for something to catch.

We had to set this build up where they would run for a couple of hours before the public came in and had their time looking around. And we knew that if there was even a chance that a mechanism just stopped working – the boats getting caught on those seams - we could not go in there to fix it. We looked at the time, and we looked at the potential failure rate, and we decided to scrap it.

Carsten: You're spot on. There were some mechanical issues as well. It had it to run. Unfortunately, it didn't move as far as we had hoped; we wanted the boat to go to the dock. But it only moved about 15 centimetres (6 inches), and we hoped to make it move further. It was about 40 to 50 centimetres (15 to 20 inches) back and forward. So, unfortunately, it didn't happen.

We had only built that part about halfway, and, at that time, I still needed to build a tower. And that was probably more important than the mechanics. We would have worked on it if we had more time. But time ran out. So yes, we skipped it.

David: I thought all three of the builds in the final were strong and all with different themes:
Harry and Andrew's classic space: I would have thought it was a very popular theme and, as there was a voting public, it could have been more popular.

Your build was creative, but, as you said, that probably appealed to an older audience.
And Oli and Charlie's dragon, with its moving wings with that double motion mechanism for the wings and the rotating flame coming out of the dragon's mouth, was creative, but it had some flaws, too.

So, all in all, it must have been a tough pick.

Angus: It was the first time LEGO Masters NZ allowed a public vote. Around the time of episode five or six, Robin and the crew asked the teams to start thinking about the final build. And then, a few episodes before the final, they heard our ideas. So, they did that intentionally to ensure they did not end up with any double-ups.

David: Yes. In Harry Andrew's interview, they touch on that. They said there was a pitch meeting to pitch their ideas to the production team.

Angus: Yes. That's right.

David: Having been a finalist in LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2, how has that changed your LEGO experience or involvement in the LEGO communities?

Angus: I'll go first, as I am sure Carsten will have a bit more to say on that.

I was never involved in any LEGO communities before the show, I had never been to any LEGO conventions before, and I've certainly never built anything to be displayed at one of them.
Since LEGO Masters NZ, I've been welcomed into them. I'm going to the Christchurch Brick Show in a few weeks, which will be amazing next month.

It's great meeting all these people and seeing this other side of the LEGO community that I've never witnessed before. I'll hand it over to Carsten because he is in Denmark, which probably says it all!

Carsten: Well, LEGO Masters NZ has definitely changed my life. Before COVID, I hadn't played with LEGO for over thirty years as it was stored in my mom's basement.

When COVID came, I got stuck in the lockdown in New Zealand and started playing around with LEGO and then somehow; I got involved with LEGO Masters NZ, which was amazing.

I never thought I would end up in the final. Maybe we didn't win, but I feel like I have won anyway because I have been offered a job as a LEGO builder now at LEGOLAND in Billund.

It feels unreal, but I'm very happy to be back in Denmark after eighteen years in New Zealand. Working at LEGOLAND is a dream job because it was my childhood dream. To be working with LEGO and to be hired forty years later. So, it's amazing.

David: That's incredible. Is the LEGOLAND in Billund run by LEGO, or does Merlin manage it?

Carsten: Merlin. Yes, Merlin.

David: Thanks for catching up with me tonight. And this morning in Europe,

Angus: Thanks, David. We appreciate your time as well.

David: Thank you very much. Good night and good morning. Have a nice day!

Angus and Carsten: Bye and take care.

Andrew and Harry

FRIENDS

Runners-up

David: Thanks for joining me again today. I was impressed you got right through to the final of LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2. It struck me how quickly the show played out on TV: Three episodes a week over three weeks, and then it's all over! As opposed to actually filming. How many weeks was it that you were involved with the filming?

Harry: It started in March and went through to the end of Easter last year.

Andrew: It played out in half the time.

David: Blink, and it's over! I've just jotted down a list of all the screened episodes since I talked to you last time:

• There was an episode where you got a gift for a special anniversary, and you had to build something based on that gift;
• There was the reflection mosaic, where you had a reflection of a scene, and you had to build the actual item in the background;
• There was the smash where you had the swinging pendulum smash your model; and
• There was the Great Ball Contraption, where you guys had, I think, the industrial age or something where the ball was going through a coal mine.

Andrew: Technically, we were building a marble machine rather than a Great Ball Contraption.

David: A GBC on steroids!

Andrew: Yes.

David: With the big ball that came out with the latest Mindstorms set of the Spike educational set.

Andrew: Yes.

Harry: We were explicitly told not to build a GBC. So that's why Andrew is taking issue with it being called a GBC. That is all.

David: Anyone who is involved with LEGO clubs knows that one of the popular collaborative builds is a collaborative Great Ball Contraption, where everyone comes in with their modules, it is a bit like what you had to build on the LEGO Masters show, and there's an entry and an exit point that has to be a particular format, so they will all nest together and build a GBC.

Andrew: And it ended up being a GBC.

David: Then there was the storybook episode where you had a New Zealand children's storybook, and the last episode – the final – which was a free build. Have I got that right?
The storybook episode was when Jason and Rachel were eliminated with their Wonky Donkey.

And in the final episode, you built the Classic Space base. As a teenager, I had a passion for geometry. I recognised and can name all thirteen Archimedean solids and recognised your truncated icosahedron before somebody used that word during the show. There were some impressive geodesic domes that you built for your space scene.

Andrew: I now have these parts in my room (showing segments of blue domes), having purchased all the pieces to rebuild it full scale.

David: So, you will build your version of that space base? Is Classic Space your theme?

Andrew: It is now!

Harry: Just by virtue of how much blue and grey you own now.

Andrew: Yes. You'll see a lot of hexagons at the Christchurch Brick Show and the Auckland Brick Show.

David: They're reasonably flexible enough to click together and make those dome shapes work successfully with the hinges and ball joints.

Harry: So, an interesting thing that we ran into. There were two domes – a smaller one and a bigger one. We built the domes with plates for the edges two studs wide, whereas nearly all other LEGO domes are built with one-stud-wide plates.

Making the domes with two wide plates makes the shape no longer a hexagon. So there had to be a bit of flex in those plates for them to fit together. There was less flex in our plate length on the smaller dome, and only some of the ball joints could be joined together. And thankfully, you can't see that.

Andrew: About 30% of those ball joints weren't connected. The larger dome had more flex in it.

David: So, it was held together by faith?

Andrew: After our whole season of holding everything together with hopes and dreams, we couldn't do anything different than that in the final build.

David: That didn't come through on the show. It looked like a solidly engineered technical structure that would hold together for a rocket trip to Mars!

Andrew: That's the magic of LEGO Masters. Many people ask why the builds are not kept or held on to for longer after each show. And in reality, you couldn't move them safely. A lot of them would collapse.

David: I have wondered, after watching your series, LEGO Masters NZ, and on LEGO Masters Australia and all the other LEGO Masters series that I have viewed, that when time is up, and you all step away from your tables with your completed build, there is quite a lot of photography undertaken where the film crews come in and take different shots of all the models from different angles, and you've got to move them all around. And I have wondered whether any of the builds have collapsed during that process, and then they have to be pieced together for the final judging.

Andrew: Parts do fall off. They have us all there to take those shots. It lasts about an hour. It's on us to move the models around, and sometimes we had to take pieces off to move them into position.

David: The detail on your Classic Space model that caught my eye was that tiny yellow planet with the red spaceship orbiting around. People of my generation can remember those themes that came out in 1978 with the first Minifigures: The yellow castle, the Galaxy Explorer and all the Classic Space sets, and the Classic Town in the original city.

Your model took me right back to my childhood. That is an image that my generation would recognise from our youth. I only had a spaceship that was about twenty pieces. It was a tiny little wedge with a red Classic Spaceman on it. It was called a Space Scooter. And when they filmed it, I thought, "That's brilliant!"

Andrew: That is one of the icons we wanted to capture. You can look at those symbols; as you say, it takes you back to your memories. We carefully positioned that, and if you noticed the stained-glass window at the top of the smaller dome, when you look straight down from the top, you get the Classic Space logo in the middle of the dome.

David: There was another TV series in that era called Space 1999 which Gerry Anderson produced. They had the spaceships that landed on the moon that had interchangeable pods. They had human characters, not puppets like the Thunderbirds. And your vertical rocket with its shape of the nose had a similar look to those rockets.

Harry: The rocket had many inspirations and DNA from many sci-fi themes. We attempted to build a Galaxy Explorer in a vertical take-off and landing rocket format. There is a bit of Tintin in it, a bit of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a bit from The Martian in there as well.

Andrew: That was Harry's baby. That rocket was a beautiful thing.

David: Did you go into that episode knowing what you would do in the final episode? Most LEGO Masters series have a free building challenge for the final build. Did you have a preconceived plan of what you might start working on?

Harry: Yes. Around episode four, Robin Sather and the producers asked us to start thinking about what we would do if we made it to the end of the series.

And then, between episodes five and six, there was a pitch meeting where you got to say to Robin and Tony (Executive Producer from Screentime) if we make the finals, this is what we would like to do. And they give us some tips. It did not factor in whether you got into the finals. They just gave feedback to the four remaining teams.

We had many creative blocks when thinking about what we would do for the finals because we kept asking ourselves whether our ideas would be a build worthy of the LEGO Masters finals. What could be a build that would win LEGO Masters? We were in the Brick Pit and asked ourselves, "What do we want to build?"

Andrew: We realised the duality of doing our best when having fun; this was our last chance, regardless of what happened. Whether we won or didn't – this was our last chance to play in the Brick Pit – so basically, let's go out having fun and what we want to build. We like Space. We like Classic Space.

David: Looking at the show and looking at all of the voting and all the random children coming through to cast their Brick votes into those voting slots, I couldn't have picked who was going to win: Oli and Charlie with their Dragon which was really creative; Carsten and Angus with their Egyptian—themed build; and your build would have appealed to an enormous amount of people as well.

As a viewer, I could not pick who would win that final. All the builds that were created for the final were top builds!

Andrew: That was the thing: three incredibly strong builds were very different. So, there was no picking it. They were all so strong on their merits.

David: Let's talk about the storybook challenge: Nee Naw the Little Fire Engine, with the twist where you had to pivot to the next page in the story.

Andrew: I think it was a conscious choice by Robin to select childish storybooks with many scenes that ran onto each other, so all the pages were very similar.

We had the benefit of initially picking a scene between two consecutive pages and choosing the first of those two spreads in the end. So, then we were told. "Here is the twist." So, all we did was turn to the next page. Build the next page where not much has changed.

One of the critical things that had changed was that they had moved one of the firefighters from halfway up the ladder to right on the end of the ladder, which means that all of a sudden, our ladder, that had been built to hold the firefighter in the original position, was now under a whole lot of strain. It was not made to have all the weight right at the end. So that was an interesting challenge.

Henry: There was also the outhouse that had to be built—the shoe inside the outhouse with a long hose leading in there. I think Robin said on the show that we were not ambitious with what we chose to do with that little twist. What we did, we did reasonably well.

David: Who was behind the fire engine? Who built the face of the fire engine?

Andrew: That was a perfect moment of collaboration. Literally half the face was built by each person simultaneously. I made the top half, and Harry built the bottom half. We talked through the whole process and compared sizes, and we initially built three sizes of the mouth simultaneously. We said, "This looks at the right scale." And when we built the two halves together, they fitted perfectly.

Harry: There was a lot of talking throughout that build. Like, "Hey, can you add these parts, or can we attach them to a Technic frame," or something like that?

Andrew: That was the first time we reversed roles, and I suggested we had extra structure to connect sections. Usually, Harry would try to bring me back and say this needs to be connected. This time I got the chance to do the same.

David: As a viewer watching the show, the accuracy of that fire engine compared to the image that we could see in the book – and I have no knowledge of that book – but the image that we saw from time to time of the book and your fire engine probably nailed the win for you over Rachel and Jason with their Wonky Donkey. Their donkey wasn't quite as accurate as your fire engine, which is the main character, and that probably was the defining decision criteria making Robin choose you over them. I was impressed, and you had the flashing lights in multiple places.

Andrew: Those flashing lights were the least efficient use of intelligent Spike Prime hubs I've ever seen. We used one per side, and we just started one of them with a flashing sequence, and when that went off, we started the other one.

David: So you've got a really advanced computer brick with an analogue way of programming. Have I got that?

Harry: It is one of those things you can only do on LEGO Masters. An incredibly dumb, expensive way to do something just because you don't have the time.

David: It was the first time I've noticed using LEGO Powered Up, the new format of LEGO powered motors in the LEGO Masters. Previous LEGO Masters NZ Season 1, and even the LEGO Masters Australia, tended to use the former Power Functions with the infrared controllers. Many of the studio lighting and accessories are also communicating with Bluetooth.

Andrew: Exactly. You've got the microphones and cameras. For that reason, we mostly avoided using Bluetooth. We used the programmable hubs or the on-off switch units to avoid Bluetooth.

David: I was also impressed with the horses you built in that reflection challenge. As a tangible real horse, I thought you captured that image quite accurately. Are you happy with your two horses and how they turned out?

Harry: That was fun for us, I think. We had the same calculation that we had with the final. It was the second elimination episode of LEGO Masters NZ, so we thought, "How do we make this fun?"

We love telling minifigure stories, which led us to giant horses and people inside the horses—some reinterpretation of the Trojan Horse. The work breakdown was one person per horse or a horse head for a while.

And it mostly worked well. They managed to edit around my minor crisis regarding how Andrew built his horse head, and I'm thankful for that. Andrew made his head incredibly accurately, but how the head would attach to the body was a bit of an afterthought.

Andrew: I hadn't thought through how I would attach the head. It was going to be a headless horse! We coined the phrase "vibes-based building." Which is kind of sticking pieces together and hoping for the best, and apparently, it works well eventually! It just requires Harry to fix it after I break things.

David: Being in the final of LEGO Masters NZ - How has it changed your LEGO experience here? What does it mean for you to be LEGO Master NZ finalists?

Andrew: It was a dream to get there and an unreal being there. Since doing something I love, I have realised how much I have learned. And now, the way I design things, I approach it in quite a different way and just feel comfortable designing a lot larger range of things than I would have before LEGO Masters, just because we've been thrown into that boiling pot of creativity and had our creativity tested and learned from everyone else who was there.

Harry: It's changed how I work as a builder; It has influenced the MOCs I create, and I'm much more comfortable doing fringe stuff that I usually wouldn't do otherwise.
It was also such a phenomenal experience. We got to meet amazing people and everyone we got to work with.

David: Thanks for the time.

Andrew: Thanks, David.

Harry: Thanks.

David: Bye now.

Charlie and Oli

SIBLINGS

Winners - LEGO Masters, Season 2

David: Hey, congratulations! Well done for winning LEGO Masters New Zealand. You kept that one completely secret. I had no inkling that you were so successful when I talked to you last time.

Oli: Thank you.

David: How does it feel now that this is public? Everyone in New Zealand knows you won LEGO Masters NZ, Season 2.

Charlie: It's pretty cool to be recognised every day by some random people who ask to take selfies. That's cool in my book to have people so excited that random strangers want to have selfies with me.

Oli: Honestly. It is a relief because I was so worried that I would accidentally tell someone, and now if I tell people, it's not a big deal.

David: Has there been the pressure of keeping that secret for such a long period?

Oli: Yeah.

David: I'll just run through some of the episodes because it's been a while since I last spoke to you.

• There was an episode where you celebrated a special event or anniversary; you picked up a gift and had to build a model based on the anniversary;
• There was the reflected image where you had the pirate ship reflection picture and had to build the pirate ship itself;
• You smashed something up with a swinging ball;
• There was the Great Ball Contraption, but Harry and Andrew told me it should not be called the Great Ball Contraption.

That challenge gave you a free pass into the finals. Correct?

Oli: Yes.

David: You didn't do the storybook. That was when Jason and Rachel got eliminated. And then you were in the final where you built your dragon and the moving wings and stuff.

In the final, Charlie, I noticed that you raced straight into the Brick Pit when the challenge clock started. Were you diving in to get some particular parts? Was that your mission? Were you off to get something special?

Charlie: Since it was the finale, we could do whatever we wanted. We already knew what we were doing, so I ran in there straightaway to build the dragon wing mechanism because I wanted to get that running as quickly as possible.

David: As I understand it, from episode four or episode five, all the teams were being encouraged to consider what their final build would be, even though you had yet to learn who would be in the final. So were you two already thinking about your motorised dragon build for a few weeks before you eventually earnt the right to be in the final?

Charlie: We knew we wanted to do the basic idea of a dragon for the whole season, and we were developing it in our house during the series. I had designed some of the mechanisms, including the wings, beforehand, so with me racing into the Brick Pit, I wanted to build it while it was fresh in my memory.

David: One of the other things I picked up from watching LEGO Masters NZ, and I've been watching the Australian version and LEGO Masters US, is that they previously used the older Power Functions format with the infrared controls. It seems there was a concerted effort to utilise the more modern Powered-Up system on a publicly visible show like LEGO Masters.

Charlie: We only had access to the Powered-Up system. The new system was completely new to me and Oli; that is all we had. We didn't get to use the old stuff, but it still worked out really well.

David: I've heard from other teams that Robin Sather has bought that new equipment for the second season. Did he have any conversation about the introduction and availability of these kits for this show?

Charlie: Yes, We had about half a day where we had the opportunity to play with the electronics and to get used to the feeling, especially the brain or the hub, which you can program.

David: Yes. That's the new version of Mindstorms or Spike Prime education version.

Charlie: Robin taught us how to use that.

David: I'd like to talk about the episode where you had the collaborative ball race where you had the space theme. You had the pistons, the stairway pushing the ball up. The criteria were that they had to be within your section for the longest period, and you nailed that. Is this something, Charlie, where you have had some experience building these types of mechanisms?

Charlie: For the first Brick Show that I went to, I took a whole bunch of Great Ball Contraption machines like the one we just made, and this module that we built was similar to the first GBC module I had ever worked on. So, when Robin was describing the marble run, that was the challenge; it sounded identical to the Great Ball Contraptions, marble runs I had previously worked on. And the step module was quite cool as we could use it because it was one of the first things I had built regarding robotics.

David: I've certainly been to many Brick Shows and supervised the Great Ball Contraptions when people have been taking a break, so I understand all the gearing and mechanisms and how the different modules work. It was apparent to me, as a viewer of that episode, that you had had some experience with mechanisms because you created a reason for the ball to slow down and stay in your zone for what ended up being over thirty seconds.

Charlie: That was quite a fun challenge for me. It wasn't so fun for the rest of the builders. Oli became focused on non-technical aspects, being focused as an artist, building the astronauts and making it all look beautiful, so it ended up being a collaboration of our skills.

David: Absolutely. The way that all fitted together: the astronauts, the spaceship, and the ball went into the spaceship's hull. It was a solid vote for that mechanical component and the aesthetics.

And it would have been fun build to see them all nested together with the ball going from one module to the next!

Oli: It was great to do something collaboratively because we all got along so well. It was fun; even though we were all competing, it was still fun to build something together.

David: Yes. And Robin used larger balls. The usual Great Ball Contraption typically uses those tiny balls about a centimetre and a half in diameter (9/16th of an inch) - the footballs or orange balls found in the Soccer sets. Still, these larger balls originated with earlier robotics sets and can now be seen in the new Mindstorms set.

Charlie: Yes. Robin explained how he wanted the modules to fit together, but initially, it needed to be clearer. When he pulled out the Mindstorms balls, it was an understanding moment for that challenge.

David: You seem to have quite a bit of banter with Dai Henwood: This other layer of the show went along as you and he were goofing around quite a bit.

Charlie: Dai Henwood is a very funny guy. Yeah, it was pretty cool to meet him.

David; The other build that I was impressed with, the challenge that I thought was quite an interesting concept, was the reflection where you had the picture of the pirate ship. You had to imagine how the actual ship would appear to create that reflection in the image. That was quite a challenge for the two of you.

Oli: Yes. It was challenging for us to try and figure out what angle the ship was actually on. Still, it was definitely fun having the picture show a very small part of the pirate ship, which meant that we could add a lot using our imagination rather than following the strict guidelines of the picture.

Charlie: The night before, I was joking with Oli and said, "It would be really cool to be able to build a pirate ship as one of our builds." And then, the next thing, that's what we got to do!

David: Extending the build beyond the limits of what the picture was reflecting; The were a few things that I picked up on that. On the peripheral, all this activity was going on, but in the centre, a more serious build was coming through. You had won an advantage from that challenge: you knew the challenge for the subsequent episode.

Talk to me about that because you could keep that information to yourself, reveal a fictitious challenge, put the other teams off, or release that information to one or all of the teams. Is that right?

Oli: Yes.

David: How was that for you? In the end, what do you choose to do?

Oli: We got along well with all the teams and wanted to keep it that way. We didn't want there to be any animosity. And we also wanted the challenges to be fair.

David: The interesting thing when I reflect on that is that your decision to have a level playing field and tell all the other teams what you knew about that challenge early on so that there was no real advantage was the same as what the teams came to in LEGO Masters NZ, Season 1, but you couldn't have known that because none of the series one episodes had been aired during the filming of series two. You could not have known that in season one, Dan Mulholland and Jono Samson had the same strategic advantage. Your decision to be fair and even matched their decision as well. So that was quite nice seeing that feeling of fair play in place.

Oli: Thank you.

David: Of the other builds that you've done, do you want to talk about any of them? The special occasion or anniversary challenge, for example?

Charlie: We made a big model of the earth- a globe. And the whole model opened up.

David: It looked like a larger version of the LEGO Ideas Globe. Was that inspiration for your build?

Charlie: The LEGO Ideas Globe set only came out after we had finished filming LEGO Masters NZ. So, we only knew about the LEGO set after the show was filmed. Oli messaged me saying our model was better, as a joke!

David: Wow. When I watched that episode, I thought you had used the LEGO Ideas model for inspiration, but now you are telling me there was no such influence in your design.

Charlie: Yes.

David: I've got two of those globes. They are just behind me behind. I MOCd the second one using white 1x1 round plates as stars on a celestial sphere. It has all the constellations, such as Orion and Scorpius. It is basic around the poles as LEGO does not make an Earth blue (BrickLink: Dark Blue) Dia. 80 Dish because that is the Arctic or Antarctica on the globe, but I have managed to include Crux - the Southern Cross – and Ursa Major and Minor – the two northern bears that circle the North Pole. It has all the star constellations built onto the surface of the earth blue globe.

Oli: Oh, lovely. That's nice!

David: From the first few episodes, it didn't surprise me that you two ended up in the final. And it didn't surprise me that Carsten and Angus were in the final, too.

Oli: We thought that about Carsten and Angus, as well. We were scared of them after their first build.

David: I couldn't pick which one of those three builds was going to win in the final. They were all so different. Because of how the invited guests and children were given bricks to vote with, the winner would probably have been between your dragon and the Classic Space model of Harry and Andrew, as Classic Space is a nostalgic theme.

Oli: Definitely!

David: It was a theme I understood as a kid when it came out in 1978. I had one of the Classic LEGO Space ships when I was ten years old. And so, that would probably draw in some votes.
But Angus and Carsten's Egyptian-themed model with the rotating gyro sphere was also very impressive. That was where Carsten had built those rings by bending and stressing the pieces until it made those three rings, which I would call an armillary sphere, which you sometimes see on sundials with a needle going through the middle pointing to a celestial pole.

Oli: Oh yes, "illegal building!" That was amazing. I still can't comprehend how they built that out of LEGO.

David: As I said, I couldn't have picked it. And your build at the end with the Dragon with motorised flexing wings and the rotating dragon's flames coming out of its mouth. Congratulations.

Oli and Charlie: Thank you.

David: And Oli, those brick-built figures that you built where you built the knights using the handcuff pieces to make the visors of the knights' helmets.

You two were very complementary: the motorised Powered Up strength of Charlie came through strong, complemented by the storytelling and aesthetics from you, Oli, which were impressive. You couldn't have won individually, but together you complement each other really well!

Oli: Definitely!

David: I said in the first interview that you were a threat to everyone else for the whole season. How has being LEGO Masters NZ champions changed your world in the LEGO communities?

Oli: We've had people asking us to come to brick shows. We went to the Hawke's Bay Brick Show which was a lovely event. What would you say, Charlie?

Charlie: They wanted us there because of who we are. It was a cool feeling, and we were privileged to be there.

David: I can see how that works. "Come to our show. The winners of LEGO Masters NZ will be there as our special guests." It's a draw card to have kids come and see the winners of LEGO Masters NZ.

Oli: Yes.

David: Congratulations, and well done for your win. Who has the trophy?

Oli: Charlie, that's because he still lives at home.

David: You've been overseas recently. Haven't you, Charlie?

Charlie: I was in America competing in the VEX World Championship.

David: What is The VEX World?

Charlie: It is a robotics competition where different teams build giant metal robots to go into a four-metre arena and play Frisbee golf with other universities' robots to try and outscore them.

David: Well done, and thanks for talking to me.

Oli and Charlie: Thank you so much.

David: Thanks for talking with me today.

Oli and Charlie: Thank you. Bye now.

LEGO Masters NZ

LEGO Masters NZ, Season 1 and 2 episodes can be viewed on the TVNZ 2 website.

You may need to use a VPN (virtual private network) f accessing the Internet from outside New Zealand.

7 comments on this article

By JayCal in Netherlands, 10 Jun 2023 11:54

What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!

By MaxA in United States, 10 Jun 2023 15:56

@JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I didn’t watch this show, as I don’t think this version is available in America. However, I wanted to respond to your comment regarding the trophy going to the right person despite not winning (in your opinion) the finale.

This is a fascinating concept. So many competition shows are the exact same: sudden death competitions each week. As such, you have the potential for the best teams to be eliminated for an odd misstep. I wonder if there is any way to build out a competition show format that judges overall performance from the entire competition when making the decision each week. It would certainly have less “drama”, but it might create something better.

By Slobrojoe in United Kingdom, 10 Jun 2023 17:25

@MaxA said:
" @JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I didn’t watch this show, as I don’t think this version is available in America. However, I wanted to respond to your comment regarding the trophy going to the right person despite not winning (in your opinion) the finale.

This is a fascinating concept. So many competition shows are the exact same: sudden death competitions each week. As such, you have the potential for the best teams to be eliminated for an odd misstep. I wonder if there is any way to build out a competition show format that judges overall performance from the entire competition when making the decision each week. It would certainly have less “drama”, but it might create something better. "

Well, yes. I imagine it would use a points based system, much like a league but that’s no fun for anyone to watch when it’s regarding LEGO.

By JayCal in Netherlands, 10 Jun 2023 21:59

@MaxA said:
" @JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I didn’t watch this show, as I don’t think this version is available in America. However, I wanted to respond to your comment regarding the trophy going to the right person despite not winning (in your opinion) the finale.

This is a fascinating concept. So many competition shows are the exact same: sudden death competitions each week. As such, you have the potential for the best teams to be eliminated for an odd misstep. I wonder if there is any way to build out a competition show format that judges overall performance from the entire competition when making the decision each week. It would certainly have less “drama”, but it might create something better. "

I think that a hybrid system would work: sudden death towards the finale, and judging will be based on your final build... But in case of a tie (in the judging fase) your body of work during the previous challenges comes to play.

Anyway, Charlie and Oli gave us so many great builds this season that I found their final build quite underwhelming in proportion, bulk, technique, movement, character and story. But they have proven to be amazing in all those fields in previous challenges.

By Miyakan in New Zealand, 11 Jun 2023 23:19

@JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I was very disappointed when they announced the third place as I thought Carsten and Angus had the most polished and well presented build, and the gyroscope was incredible to get it going like that. I would have kept Harry and Andrew in second as their build was pretty good. They could have done something a bit different for their dust storm though.

For the Dragon, I felt it was too blocky, and lacked proper posing. But I guess it appealed to the public.

Not noted here in the article but Robin had a vote that was worth 30 votes on it's own. He has stated in one of the NZ Lego groups that his vote did not actually make any difference in the end, so they must have won by quite a margin. (I don't know if that meant he voted for the winners, or another team, and has not elaborated further for good reason.)

In general I have found the NZ builds lacking in polish compared to other countries seasons. Maybe that is because NZ essentially had season 1 twice, as none of the second season had seen season 1. I wonder if it is also due to limitations within the brickpit. I know it has a smaller budget, so perhaps there is not the variety of pieces. Also, the production team hadn't been able to gauge public feedback from the first season. They did make improvements, but perhaps not to the same extent as other countries.

Maybe I'm just being spoiled by the outstanding builds from Grandmasters Australia.

By FlagsNZ in New Zealand, 12 Jun 2023 02:13

@Miyakan said:
" @JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I was very disappointed when they announced the third place as I thought Carsten and Angus had the most polished and well presented build, and the gyroscope was incredible to get it going like that. I would have kept Harry and Andrew in second as their build was pretty good. They could have done something a bit different for their dust storm though.

For the Dragon, I felt it was too blocky, and lacked proper posing. But I guess it appealed to the public.

Not noted here in the article but Robin had a vote that was worth 30 votes on it's own. He has stated in one of the NZ Lego groups that his vote did not actually make any difference in the end, so they must have won by quite a margin. (I don't know if that meant he voted for the winners, or another team, and has not elaborated further for good reason.)

In general I have found the NZ builds lacking in polish compared to other countries seasons. Maybe that is because NZ essentially had season 1 twice, as none of the second season had seen season 1. I wonder if it is also due to limitations within the brickpit. I know it has a smaller budget, so perhaps there is not the variety of pieces. Also, the production team hadn't been able to gauge public feedback from the first season. They did make improvements, but perhaps not to the same extent as other countries.

Maybe I'm just being spoiled by the outstanding builds from Grandmasters Australia."

I have just re-watched the final episode, and you are right, Angus and Carsten were in third place with Andrew and Harry in second place. I have amended the article accordingly.

I did not touch on the voting process in my article. There were 70 invited guests each with one vote and Robin Sather had a 30-vote brick.

By Batcave in New Zealand, 25 Jun 2023 10:35

@Miyakan said:
" @JayCal said:
"What a great article! Although I thought the finale build by charlie and oli deserved a third place, I still think they deserve the trophy for their consistent quality throughout the rest of this season. The smaller scale of the NZ production of Lego Masters really has its own charme next to the bigger versions like US and AU. I loved reading these interviews, thanks!"

I was very disappointed when they announced the third place as I thought Carsten and Angus had the most polished and well presented build, and the gyroscope was incredible to get it going like that. I would have kept Harry and Andrew in second as their build was pretty good. They could have done something a bit different for their dust storm though.

For the Dragon, I felt it was too blocky, and lacked proper posing. But I guess it appealed to the public.

Not noted here in the article but Robin had a vote that was worth 30 votes on it's own. He has stated in one of the NZ Lego groups that his vote did not actually make any difference in the end, so they must have won by quite a margin. (I don't know if that meant he voted for the winners, or another team, and has not elaborated further for good reason.)

In general I have found the NZ builds lacking in polish compared to other countries seasons. Maybe that is because NZ essentially had season 1 twice, as none of the second season had seen season 1. I wonder if it is also due to limitations within the brickpit. I know it has a smaller budget, so perhaps there is not the variety of pieces. Also, the production team hadn't been able to gauge public feedback from the first season. They did make improvements, but perhaps not to the same extent as other countries.

Maybe I'm just being spoiled by the outstanding builds from Grandmasters Australia."

Yep, a lot of the lack of polish came from a combination of time and pieces. Due to losing two weeks of filming time to COVID we had shortened challenges (including a 22hr finale instead of 24), and lost our break days between episodes, so many of us were running on steam (some still recovering from COVID themselves).
Many of those "finishing" pieces, like curved slopes were severely lacking in the brick pit due to TVNZ's budget.

Unfortunately these challenges, coupled with TVNZ's rapid release schedule, lack of advertising/promotion, and decision to run it at the same time as AU Grandmasters, which it was never going to stack up against (big budget and returning experienced LM builders) have led to the series being cancelled for the foreseeable future, it appears S2 didn't get great ratings.

- Andrew