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The Alphabet-Fighter contest!

by Thita (admin) on July 15, 2011

in Community News

I completely dropped the ball on announcing this LEGO contest, but there are still two weeks left, and this contest is certainly worthy of your consideration. The contest is run by From-Bricks-to-Bothans (aka. FBTB). Here is the scoop:

“Rumour has it that the Incom Corporation entertained design ideas for letters A-W before settling on the X-wing. Okay, I totally made that up but it sounded like a good intro for our next contest: The Alphabet Fighter Contest. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design a kick-sarlacc star-fighter in the shape of any letter in the Latin alphabet. There are some epic prizes to win, something for first, second, and third place.”

CONTEST RULES:

➡ Build a star-fighter with a shape based on any one letter of the Latin alphabet. The star-fighter must be space-worthy, i.e. have an enclosed cockpit. For the record, the following is a list of allowable characters:

A, a, B, b, C, c, D, d, E, e, F, f, G, g, H, h, I, i, J, j, K, k, L, l, M, m, N, n, O, o, P, p, Q, q, R, r, S, s, T, t, U, u, V, v, W, w, X, x, Y, y, Z, z

(Ships forming any of the above letters representing an exotic font will not be accepted. The letter must be immediately recognizable.)

➡ Submit up to 4 pictures of your fighter. One of your photos must show your star-fighter in the shape of the letter it is representing. One picture must show the droid socket. The other 2 can be of your choosing.

➡ Ship must be minifig scale and seat a minifig pilot.

➡ Ship must include space for an astromech-droid. Only fully assembled droids will be allowed consisting of a dome-head, body and 2 legs.

➡ Submission deadline is 11:59pm Pacific Time (UTC -8) July 31, 2011. You may submit/edit/delete/resubmit your pictures up until the deadline when the entries are locked in.

PRIZES:

1st place:
Bothcon goody bag consisting of the following:
Reusable LEGO Star Wars vinyl tote bag
M-wing Kit
Bothcon minifigure
#30054 MINI AT-ST
#30050 MINI Republic Attack Shuttle
2005 Star Wars Days LEGOLAND CA Duplo Brick
#8084 Snowtrooper Battlepack
#30051 MINI X-wing
#3219 MINI TIE Fighter
#8028 MINI TIE Fighter
#6212 X-wing Fighter
From-Bricks-to-Bothans T-shirt
2nd place:
#6212 X-wing Starfighter set
#30051 MINI X-wing
From-Bricks-to-Bothans T-shirt
3rd place:
#30051 MINI X-wing
From-Bricks-to-Bothans T-shirt

DETAILS: To enter and check out all the LEGO contest details go here: FBTB – Alphabet Fighter Contest. There are some really awesome entries so far, so you may want to check those out too for some inspiration! 😉

Fun contest and amazing prizes, isn’t it? Oh, and if you would like some ideas, check out Tips for Winning a LEGO Contest! 😛

{ 3 comments }

Round LEGO shapes with square bricks!

by Thita (admin) on July 14, 2011

in Building Techniques

Although these days there are many hundreds of specialized LEGO parts, the heart-and-soul of LEGO is still the regular LEGO brick. If you ever get overwhelmed by all the choices, or feel like you are not up-to-date with all the possibilities, I encourage you to go back to the basics and see what you can do with the most basic elements.

One of these basic parts is the 1×2 bricks. I’m sure you know how to stack them, but did you know there is a slight gap between the bricks as you line them up on studs? If you use enough bricks, this almost invisible gap allows you to bend the structure in various shapes.

The basic LEGO shape you might want to try out first to see how this works is a circle. If you build up at least two or three layers of 1×2 LEGO bricks, the gap between the bricks will allow you to bend them all the way around into a full circle!

You would want to use at least 72 bricks to make one layer of the circle (so for 3 layers you would use 216). Why 72? Because if you use less there is too much tension between the LEGO bricks as you try to bend them, and the circle won’t stay together!

Minimum 72 bricks in a row give you a perfect circle without damaging your LEGO bricks or the circle blowing apart. This is the key to this technique; using enough bricks so they easily bend into the shape you want to achieve.

All of the LEGO shapes shown here are from Todd Wilder. Aren’t they amazing? You can check out Todd’s other creations here: Todd Wilder’s LEGO Gallery. Look at all the possibilities with nothing more than basic 1×2 LEGO bricks! (Click on any of the pictures for a larger view.)

Now you know how those rounded LEGO skyscrapers and castle-towers are being built! What would you do with this cool technique? What kind of LEGO shapes would you build? 😉

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The Alphabet-Fighter contest!

Round LEGO shapes with square bricks!

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