(Written by HP)

Just a couple of weeks ago we discussed a really fun LEGO project, the LEGO Architecture Studio 30-Day Challenge (follow link for details). Today I would like to share with you a similar challenge my local LEGO Users Group put together here in the Philippines (PhLUG), called MOCtober. This LEGO event was awesome, with 25 challenging categories to enter. My entire LUG participated in it – that’s over a hundred members! Below I will share with you the challenges, and maybe you can use them (or parts of it) in your own LUG, or even with your friends and family, for some great LEGO fun! 🙂

LEGO MOCTOBER CHALLENGE CATEGORIES:

1. YOUR PROFESSION – Use customized minifigs, or build something related to your profession out of LEGO elements.
2. 4X4X4 VIGNETTE – Build a small LEGO vignette within these dimensions.
3. CMS MECHA – Build a mecha for a LEGO Collectible Minifigures character.
4. HALLOWEEN IN SPACE – What is it like?
5. PROUD TO BE PINOY – Build anything pinoy (pinoy refers to Filipino people); landmarks, animals, people, food, etc.
6. LORD OF THE RING/HOBBIT – Recreate a scene from J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece.
7. STAR WARS – Recreate a scene from any of the 6 episodes of George Lucas’ masterpiece.
8. ANIMALS ON THE GO – Build a vehicle for any of the LEGO animals; planes, cars, mecha, boat, etc.
9. HOUSE – Build a LEGO house in micro, midi, minifig, or Miniland scale.
10. FRIENDS OF THE TREES – Build a tree and link it back to the real tree that inspired you.
11. MEDIEVAL SHOWDOWN – Build a battle-scene between knights. Is it going to be good vs. evil? A joust match? Armies in battle? Your call!
12. ANIME/MANGA – Build anything related to anime or manga.
13. IT FLOATS! – Build something that floats. LEGO boat-moulds are not allowed!
14. LEGOLIZE – Take any everyday object and build it out of LEGO.
15. MINI LANDMARKS – Build a micro version of any famous landmark from around the world.
16. CREATURE FEATURE – Build an animal out of LEGO.
17. GARDEN – Show us what’s in your garden. Flowers? Vegetables? Worms? Bones?
18. NPU! – Seed-part: minifig legs and/or orange brick-separator – incorporate minifig legs and/or the orange brick-separator in your LEGO creation.
19. COMICS – Create a comic-strip from LEGO with a minimum of four scenes.
20. RE-IMAGINATION – Re-imagine your favorite LEGO set. Change the color-scheme, make it bigger, smaller, etc. – your imagination is your only limit. Make sure to include a picture of the original LEGO set.
21. MONO-COLOR – Build something with only one LEGO color.
22. 25 PIECES – Build something with exactly 25 LEGO pieces.
23. ALTERNATE MODEL – Take any LEGO set and build an alternate model using only the pieces from that set.
24. GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT – Build food out of LEGO that looks good enough to eat!
25. SCHOOL PRIDE! – Build something that represents your school.

That’s 25 categories in total! My first thought was; could I do it all? Well, I decided to at least give it a try. Now, what started as a joke – whoever would be able to do all 25 categories would get a special zombie award – became a real thing, as I strived to do all 25 categories. I eventually accomplished my goal, and you can see my entries to the contest throughout this article.

The experience was actually really crazy, as I spent all my free time thinking and building for the contest – sometimes not even eating lunch. I also had to dig out my entire LEGO collection (which led me to rediscover my LEGO Bionicle sets that I pretty much forgot about). The biggest problem, you may ask? The aftermath of the process. My entire room is now a mess! 🙄

As far as getting things ready for the contest, thankfully there were a couple of days without classes due to holidays, which kept me at home with my LEGO collection. Slowly but surely I was able to make entries for some of the categories and was about half way ready, but then I had to leave for boy-scout camp at Mt. Makiling. This meant that there were four days I was disconnected from my LEGO collection, and the world too! So I rushed myself and built entry after entry before leaving, until finally only three categories remained to build after getting back.

As soon as I came back from camp, I quickly started working again on two of the last three categories; CMS Mecha and Re-Imagination. After I was done with those I had to face the greatest challenge for me in all of MOCtober; the Comics category. I, for one, don’t make comics – which made it even harder to come up with comics out of LEGO. But I needed to get that zombie award – I desperately wanted it. So for a whole afternoon I was just staring at my LEGO collection to get some inspiration – and that’s when I found Hulk. From that point on I knew what I was going to do; the infamous “I have an army.” “We have a Hulk.” scene from the Avengers.

I also ran into some problems with the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars categories though, mainly because I don’t collect those themes. So I had to improvise somehow – luckily I had one of the rings from the theme (don’t ask me how I got it, I don’t know either). For the Star Wars category, my brother bought me the #7672 LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow awhile back, which, until now, has been my only LEGO Star Wars set. For the Star Wars contest I tried to recreate the scene where Luke removes his father’s mask. For the Lord of the Rings one I just did the scene where Bilbo looks at the ring after Gollum drops it. At this point I didn’t really care if it was ugly, as long as I had an entry for that category.

Overall, this LEGO challenge was really fun. Our LUG highly encourages MOC building, which was a big change for me, as I normally just collect LEGO sets and follow the instructions. I have never really been a MOC-er, so this was a great start for me. And, as of October 31, 8:48 PM, I’m officially the first person and TFOL to complete all 25 categories! Yay! The sense of achievement is awesome, especially after getting congratulatory comments from everyone, including our LEGO Ambassador. 😀

How about you? Are you a member of a local LEGO Users Group? Do you have events like this in your club? If you do, I would love to hear about it, so please share in the comment section below! Also, if you decide to use this list to create your own LEGO challenge, let me know how it goes! 😉

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

• LEGO Users Group in South East Asia
• Your LEGO Users Group Online Presence
• LEGO Convention: Philly Brick Fest Coming!
• LEGO Contest Story: Build Your World Part 1
• LEGO Contest Story: Build Your World Part 2