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LEGO Ideas updates & featured projects

We haven’t talked about LEGO Ideas projects for a while now, so I thought to do a little-round up of some of the most popular and noteworthy projects currently listed and you might want to support. As you probably know already, LEGO Ideas is platform where LEGO fans can submit their own ideas for future LEGO sets. If a project reaches 10,000 votes within one year, they will be considered by LEGO to become official LEGO sets. 🙂

LEGO Ideas Fall 2016

There are currently twelve projects that already achieved 10K votes. This is an unusually large number within one review period, and it does decrease the chances of each candidate, as LEGO normally only choose one or two projects per batch. The twelve projects are as follows: Women of NASA, Addams Family Mansion, Voltron – Defender of the Universe, LEGO Observatory – Mountain View, Modular Construction Site, Merchant’s House, Plum Creek – The Little House on the Prairie, Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, Lovelace & Babbage, Large Hadron Collider, Star Wars UCS X34 Landspeeder, and Spaceballs – Eagle 5. You can find all of them here.

LEGO Ideas Fall 2016 2

There are some very strong projects in this lineup, and I’m really not sure which one(s) LEGO will choose. Personally, I like the Merchant’s House, and Plum Creek – The Little House on the Prairie, because they look sweet and use interesting building techniques. But again, the other projects look very good too, and obviously plenty of people like them as indicated by the number of votes they got.

LEGO Ideas Fall 2016 Plum Creek

A project that has been gaining a lot of momentum is the LEGO Pop-Up Book by Grant Davis and Jason Allemann. This is a project that’s beautiful, creative, educational, and comes with alternate models. I would love to see this becoming an official LEGO set! Below is a video about the project where Jason and Grant shows you how the books works. If you like what you see, you can vote here: Support LEGO Pop-Up Book Project

A project that a number of readers have emailed me about is the LEGO Advent Calendar, which can be reused year after year – unlike the normal LEGO Advent Calendars released every year. The project has been gathering good support and lots of praise from the LEGO fan community. See more details and vote here: Support LEGO Advent Calendar Project

LEGO Ideas Fall 2016 Advent Calendar

There are many other interesting and worthy projects on LEGO Ideas that you may want to support help them reach the minimum required votes. It is a good idea to visit the LEGO Ideas website once a month or so and spend a few minutes browsing around just to see what’s new, and what projects other people are supporting the most. I found the search box on the site to be pretty useless, but the Filter By and Sort By features under the Discover tab work really well. Under the Project State heading you can see which projects achieved 10K support already and waiting to be reviewed, which are currently under review, which were approved, which were rejected, etc. Under the Sort By heading you can sort projects by most supported, most comments, most recent, most followed, ending soon, etc. This is a good way to quickly see what’s happening.

LEGO Ideas Fall 2016 Projects

Also, don’t forget about the nine projects that are currently in review, that we should be getting a result on sometime soon. It includes: Jedi High Council Chamber, Modular Train Station, Jurassic Park Visitor Center, Johnny Five, Rolling BB-8, Particle Accelerator, Old Fishing Store, Gingerbread House and Fossil Museum.

LEGO Ideas Announcement 2

And of course you can also check out the currently available LEGO Ideas sets, which include the #21304 LEGO Ideas Doctor Who set, the #21305 LEGO Ideas Maze, the #21302 LEGO Ideas The Big Bang Theory, the #21303 LEGO Ideas WALL-E, and #21108 LEGO Ideas Ghostbusters Ecto-1. You can find them all at the Online LEGO Shop.

Shop LEGO Ideas

What do you think? Which LEGO Ideas projects are your favorites? Are there any ones that you would like to see get more support? Did you ever submit a project to LEGO Ideas yourself? Or are you planning to? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

{ 36 comments… add one }
  • Håkan September 5, 2016, 10:21 AM

    I have little hopes for most of these projects. They’re either too big, based on too obscure franchises or just plain bland…

    • Håkan September 5, 2016, 10:35 AM

      Plum Creek might work if the surroundings are simplified / cut out… (It’d look a lot more boring, though…) And Lovelace & Babbage is kinda cute and gimmicky in its retro imagery and geekish homage.

      • admin September 5, 2016, 11:57 AM

        I also like Plum Creek. It is very sweet. LEGO has been actually getting better at providing more picturesque sets. Some of the LEGO Elves and LEGO Creator sets come to mind, and of course also the beautiful Ninjago Temple. So even if the project won’t get chosen, LEGO may release something similar in the future. 🙂

    • admin September 5, 2016, 11:55 AM

      LEGO may not choose any of the projects (it happened before), but they could still get clues on what people would like to see in future LEGO sets. So voting for projects you like, even if you don’t think LEGO will choose it because of various reasons (too big, weak design, etc.), is still a good idea.

      • rainey September 5, 2016, 2:14 PM

        Good point! And when you respond with what you’d pay for something it may help to keep prices more realistic as well. I mean, one could hope… 😋

        • Håkan September 5, 2016, 3:31 PM

          How do you respond with what you’d pay for a set? E-mail? Boycott until on sale?

          • admin September 5, 2016, 3:50 PM

            Yeah, basically that’s the idea. Although I would say it is hard to execute, as a very large number of people would have to boycott a product before a large company would really feel it. I was expecting that the Disney Castle would be too painful to buy for most people, but nope, a bunch of regular looking folks were all lined up the first day! I consistently underestimate the purchasing power of LEGO fans. 🙄

          • rainey September 5, 2016, 4:38 PM

            When you support something you get that survey: who would buy it, how many would you buy, how hard do you anticipate it would be to build, what price range would you expect.

  • James September 5, 2016, 10:47 AM

    I really like the pop-up books (which I just supported). Most of the others are beautiful creations, but far too large and complex for an official Lego set. And it seems that each cycle we get a “Women of _____” proposal. This seems like pandering to me. I bought the Research Institute set for my daughter and we both really enjoyed it. But these others seem like jumping on the bandwagon.

    • admin September 5, 2016, 11:52 AM

      James, I agree with your observation about the Research Institute copycats. But it actually happens every time there is a successful project; a bunch of similar submissions get posted right away. Most of them never really get any traction though, so you won’t notice them. The interesting thing about the female projects is that they often make it 10K votes or close to it.

      I don’t think LEGO will choose any of them, as so far they have been all quite boring, or too similar to the Research Institute, but LEGO is definitely getting the message that people want more female minifigures. There has been a significantly more female minifigures in the last couple of years, so LEGO is definitely listening. 🙂

      • rainey September 5, 2016, 12:42 PM

        YAY! I just hope it doesn’t all get translated to more Friends and Elves. Some of us are past adolescence.

        • Håkan September 5, 2016, 1:04 PM

          You could still MOC with mini-doll themes, though… (Although I only own a few mini-dolls bundled along with some second hand bulks, myself… My biggest gripe is their lower posability…)

          But I think, even in the in-house themes, the male/female proportions might be getting better…

          • admin September 5, 2016, 1:32 PM

            I also used to think that I don’t like the lack of posability of the mini-dolls. But now that I also have some of the Mega Bloks action figures, I understand why LEGO minifigs and mini-dolls lack posability compared to other brands.

            The Mega Bloks American Girl dolls are very similar to the LEGO mini-dolls, but are fully posable. In one sense that’s nice as you can make their body parts work realistically, but on the other hand it is a total pain to attach them to anything. Each leg has to be posed separately and aligned with the studs, and all other body parts have to be posed separately as well. I like small things, but even I loose patience with them at times. After fiddling with them for an hour or so, it is so nice to get back to LEGO and just bend the hips and lift the arms!

          • Håkan September 5, 2016, 4:26 PM

            Hmmm, I guess Friends and Elves also are in-house themes, now that I think about it, but I meant in-house minifig themes…

            • Håkan September 6, 2016, 2:31 PM

              I guess I just bought two new mini-dolls, almost involuntarily, since I managed to find two second hand dirt cheap Friends sets on a thrift store… Those chicks are an invasive force!

              (The last owner had opened the set already, so I gotta check if the sets are complete, or if it was a pig in a poke…)

              • admin September 6, 2016, 3:09 PM

                Nice! It is always a thrill to find sets in the wild like that! 😀

                • Håkan September 6, 2016, 5:28 PM

                  41013: Emma’s Sports Car and
                  41029: Stephanie’s New Born Lamb

                  Curiously enough, Stephanie and her lamb had slipped into the Emma’s Sports Car set… Thankfully, I bought them both…

                  Also 3864: Mini Taurus
                  Seems to be complete, except for the Pearl Gold knife… Not sure if I’ll try to replace it. I don’t know if I’d play the game, anyway…

  • rainey September 5, 2016, 12:41 PM

    I hadn’t seen the Merchant’s House before. It’s charming and wonderful. You can just get into the fantasy of that one.

    I am also smitten by the Boat Repair Shop and the Boat House Diner projects submitted by someone named robenanne.

    I wouldn’t want to be Lego and be in the position of having to refuse any of those wonderful things!

    I suspect the Pop-Up Book is a shoo-in based on the rapidity with which it’s tearing through 10K recs, but my heart still wants the Advent Calendar very, very badly. Do designers sell their method and brick inventory if Lego passes?

    Thanks for

    • Håkan September 5, 2016, 1:06 PM

      You mean building manuals? Occasionally. I saw the the constructor of the Large Hadron Collider had uploaded a brick list and building manual free of charge, for instance.

      • admin September 5, 2016, 1:35 PM

        Yes, a number of unsuccessful project creators have done this. If they have designed the project in LDD or other software it is particularly easy to share the instructions. But they may still not like to do that. I have shared LDD instructions for just a couple of my models, and they were stolen and reproduced a number of times, and people claimed them as their own. It just didn’t feel good, and I don’t think I will ever do that again…

        • rainey September 5, 2016, 3:08 PM

          Whoa! That sucks to have your idea taken but to have the credit stolen from you in return for an act of generosity is really scraping the bottom of the barrel! 😡

          • admin September 5, 2016, 3:44 PM

            Yeah… and it’s not just me who had this experience. You give away – or maybe get a small payment – for the instructions of your creation, only to have the person list them for sale on eBay. And there is not much the original creator can do. This is one of the reasons LEGO fans don’t like to share instructions. Miro, who created the Holiday Tram that you like, had his small WALL-E design stolen this way as well.

            • rainey September 5, 2016, 4:43 PM

              That stuff makes me furious because it gets in the way of the ordinary ways we would support one another if we were in a social circle. Which the internet should be. I still have the first internet friend I made more than a decade ago.

              She lives in the San Francisco Bay area. I live in LA. She’s helped me move to Vancouver, BC and back and visited me in Cape Town. People who get in the way of opportunities like that are the worst!

              • admin September 5, 2016, 5:29 PM

                The Internet is just a reflection of real society, so there is good, bad and ugly. I have also made great friends online who became friends in real life as well. So I just focus on the good stuff. But I also know there is a lot of darkness on the Internet, and we should be careful to protect ourselves. Same as not walking down a shady alley at night.

    • admin September 5, 2016, 1:16 PM

      I really like the Boat Repair and Boat House too. I hope we will see that somehow in some form. Some of the submitters do release PDF or LDD instructions for their projects if LEGO doesn’t chooses them, but it’s really up to the individual. You can just contact them and ask. 🙂

  • rainey September 5, 2016, 12:49 PM

    Not to rain on the Pop-Up Book’s parade — because I think it’s PERFECT for Lego and admire the engineering and design mightily — but wondered if everyone here has seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrU3Z9rLqo

    This designer has an even bigger pop-up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrU3Z9rLqo , but I think the one above is impressive for how he’s done the central building and also landscaped it with other features that tesselate so brilliantly into the closed space.

    • admin September 5, 2016, 12:53 PM

      Yes, I wrote an article about those two years ago: http://thebrickblogger.com/2014/05/lego-pop-ups-more-magical-creations/

      • rainey September 5, 2016, 2:26 PM

        Thanks for pointing that out. That post is from before I found your blog and I hadn’t seen one of the videos.

        Lego’s precision and their technic parts make it perfect for this application but, still, who would think of something so elaborate and demanding?! I assume a single 1×1 that wasn’t aligned perfectly could screw things up and then you’d have to figure out where it was to fix it! Gives me a brain ache just to think of it! But it also gives me appreciation for what’s possible and for your surveying everything to bring us these wonders! Thanks!

        • admin September 5, 2016, 3:46 PM

          Some people are just crazy creative. If creativity is combined with mechanical skills you get a lethal LEGO builder. 🙄

  • Mav.weirdo September 5, 2016, 8:58 PM

    I am a fan of https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79922
    LEGO Starbucks Cafe Modular
    it is currently at 8618 Supporters, but only has 9 days left before it runs out of time, so the odds are against it hitting 10,000

    Of the First 2016 LEGO Review I favor the Gingerbread House and the old fishing store

    Of the 12 that qualified for the Second 2016 LEGO Review I have hopes for Lego Observatory – Mountain View

    • Håkan September 6, 2016, 6:10 AM

      Pretty solid set, licence or not…

      Starbucks have to fix their bathroom locks, though…

  • jjava September 6, 2016, 6:33 AM

    I love the fishing store and really hope it will get approved (but I won’t hold my breath ). As for the current ones, the ones I like are too big so there is little chance for it to get approved. The women of NASA has the best chance although I think it is the worst set of the lot and not original at all.

    I love the pop-up book. (I supported it long time ago.) I will be extremely disappointed if it doesn’t get 10k vote and get approved by LEGO.

  • RadioactiveOwl95 September 6, 2016, 9:09 AM

    This has given me hope for Lego Spaceballs, even though that is almost guaranteed not to happen.

    • Håkan September 6, 2016, 2:38 PM

      I think the movie is just too old… Without being a proper cult franchise, like Back from the Future or Ghostbusters… Unlike Star Wars, few people under 25-30 have even heard of it…

      Also, personally I don’t think it’s one of Mel Brooks’ better films, anyway. I prefer his stuff from the 70’s… But to each his own…

  • yoda archives September 11, 2016, 2:14 AM

    I want the Lovelace & Babbage set. I know a lot of software developers would get the set. I have seen LEGO sets displayed in some offices. And even seen LEGO used at Software hackatons.

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