@rachelh
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Hi Dale!
I live in Elmhurst, IL and I joined the Steel City LUG a few years ago because my fiance’ Ben lives in Pittsburgh. Maybe we can form a Chicago annex:)Whereabouts do you live? Do you plan to display at Brickworld?
Here is a statement from Brickstuff:
https://medium.com/@brickstuff/lighting-the-lego-world-eff6e41e94d6
Sounds to me like LEGO identified a counterfeiter (Light My Bricks) as a partner, and now they are issuing statements implying nothing is set in stone. I sincerely hope that there is enough backlash from the LEGO community to make them rethink their choice of partner.
Here is an article on Sherlocking and an example of public pressure which caused Apple to at least sort of stop screwing over a developer.
Are we sure this isn’t a scam…?
I attended the one in Chicago. You can see my posts about it. What kind of scam are you imagining? It certainly doesnt feature real LEGO bricks, and I question whether they have 1 million bricks on-site, but other than that it’s fine. It’s just an event that involves hauling a bunch of knockoff bricks and LEGO-themed furniture from city to city and then taking over a bar or other facility forna weekend. Kind of like a the way museums build travelling exhibits and send them around the country, but it only lasts a weekend. The Chicago event was in a location several miles away from downtown, in an area with cheaper real estate. Maybe that’s what they are doing in Pittsburgh too. There wasn’t much press about the event but there were a lot of people attending somI assume the organizers know a lot more about social media and pop-up events than they do about LEGO.
Sure thing. Maybe we can come up with some bullet points to shape the talk, to give this guy a starting point.
What a cool opening sequence! I think it could be interesting to do a test layout that could enable
mixing and matching of LEDs (white, UV, and the blue and orange colors) with different diffusers (trans-orange, trans-neon orange trans-light blue, trans-medium blue, and trans-clear).I have an LED that is such a piercing blue light, putting it under a teans-clear brick might be even more impressive than a UV light under the trans medium blue.
I wish I could make it to your Q1 meeting. Maybe the next one. Photography distorts the image significantly compared to IRL.
Oh my oh my oh my. You are talking about my core obsession–the interaction of specific translucent LEGO parts with lights of different colors. I have developed some LED boards with UV lights that sit directly under the glowy parts. Will find pics.
Ah. Now I get it. Thank you @randomdan and @zaximillion for furthering my education.
I’m intrigued but having trouble following. Wondering if you can post a pic or list the part numbers?
Transitioning from bars to studs is pretty easy with Technic bricks with the bars threaded through pins
@RJ Thompson Sure thing! Let me know how I can help. Not sure if keeping it in this thread is easiest or if you had something else in mind.
How long is the talk?
Who is the audience for the business talk?
1. Small business entrepreneur types? If so, they might find it interesting to hear about the army of entrepreneurs selling to LEGO fans, and the recent acquisition of BrickLink.
2. Staff at larger corporations? Then you could look at toy companies and the dynamics of operating in a market dominated by one big fish, in this case construction toys in the consumer market and robots in the education market (comparable to search engines in the shadow of Google search, such as DuckDuckGo which considers it a win if they get 2% of the search market).
3. Or if the audience is more patent/IP, global startup oriented, then looking at LEGO’s history of patents, trademarks, and ultimately licensing as strategies for protecting and differentiating their product, including their failed attempt to trademark the shape of the brick itself and MegaBlocks opening the floodgates for competing brick manufacturers by standing up to LEGO and soldiering through a very expensive lawsuit. I imagine many consumers must have noticed the explosion in competing kits that resulted, which is a good touch point.
4. Or manufacturing (Pittsburgh is a manufacturing town after all) and distribution–that might be the closest match to the ideas proposed for the talk.
It’s all juicy stuff. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I’m adding some comments to share my best guess at Brick Bar’s expectations of the LUG in exchange for the free tix:
Their emails to me referred to my “followers” and told me to send a list of the “winners” to be added to a “media list.” Sounds like they expected me to do a giveaway on a blog. I’m not sure they understand that LUGs are small groups without a lot of reach. I only heard about it Friday so I posted it to a public makerspace forum and didn’t get any takers.
We could post something to the Steel City LUG public forum and Facebook page to help on that end. And if it’s not too late, offer a pair of tickets on some public forum beyond the private LUG membership. However, I wouldn’t go out of your way to lend the credibility of the LUG to the event because the bricks are awful and it’s really just a date night for non-AFOLs.
Beyond that, if y’all show up and put your back into it with a few of the build contests (likely Pittsburgh-themed and 90’s themed) you will raise the general calibre of the event and give them something to post as PR for their future events. If you post some pics to social media, even better. And if you buy drinks or food they’ll come out ahead even on folks who skipped the cover charge.
I don’t think the organizers know much at all about LUGs or traditional LEGO conventions, or media relations associated with LEGO in general. For one thing, they made a big fuss in pre-press communication about a ping ping table made of bricks, and any self-respecting LEGO artist would have made it self-supporting, but no, this is a bunch of fake LEGO covering a makeshift ping pong table.
They seem to know something about pop-up bars and events. Despite the lack of traditional press, they did fill the event with lots of folks in their 20s and 30s and created photo ops to help people fill their Instagram feeds. I had a lot of fun because everything was just a little different from traditional LEGO events and it was interesting to see things from a fresh angle.
Pics of ping pong table (in use as a building surface the whole time I was there) attached. One is a close-up of the edge of the table.
And, Bob, I have dug myself out of other commitments sufficiently to follow up on that Harry Potter wand. I’ll dig up the pics I took and maybe we can start a thread or add to this one to see about getting that lovely wand to light uo!
I am highly interested in DIY lights and would love to participate if we can land on a date when I can make it to Pittsburgh (probably late March). Or I could offer a follow-up class. Either way, I’m happy to help by creating some online tutorials featuring LEGO-specific products.
Chicago theme contest winner: car with yellow parking boot.
Selfie with Tiana and her I (heart) Chicago + Sears Tower build. Tiana was the only contestant who built up instead of all mosaic style. I helped her find black bricks and contributed the white antennae.
To be clear, I found it amusing only because it was startling to see “uncensored” LEGO and it was the first time it occurred to me that someone must be monitoring free build activities at conventions to nip this in the bud. Please do not send dick pics, LEGO or otherwise.
Resized pics from Brick Bar. Will post more representative pics later. I cannot tell a lie, the Hulk build totally cracked me up.
I attended the Chicago Brick Bar event today (thanks Josh for the heads up about it.) Ben and I had a debate about whether all sessions were for age 21+ or just the evening sessions. I’m attaching pics that would indicate we’re looking at 21+ all day.
As for the 1 million bricks, I believe I spotted one genuine LEGO part (a 1×1 round tile with eyeball printed pattern). The rest of the bricks were no name bricks, not even mega blocks. That said, I had a blast. It was really enjoyable to mingle in an adults-only crowd of non-AFOLs. The adults really brought a fresh wonderment to it that is hard to put into words, and it was nice to be able to help them get up to speed on even simple things like how to refer to the different bricks by name.
Also, what they lacked in skill, they made up for in attitude. We had a 15-minute building contest on the theme of Chicago starting with a 48-stud baseplate (referred to by the MC as the squares you can find in boxes around the room), and there were some fun entries. The winner made a car with a yellow boot. Chicago is known for extreme corruption among towing companies and the boot is a much-hated icon.
Will post more pics later. Hope that gives you the flavor.
