Brickley's
Words

There are contests that showcase a builder’s
skill. There are contests that showcase a builder’s creativity.

There are even contests that showcase a
builder’s sense of humor. This contest is all that and a
bag of chips.

and
Proudly Present and Promote:

For more information, visit JLUG or Reasonably Clever.

Well, more like an old one dry-cleaned really. Just installed Geeklog CMS so updates are a little easier. Will be adding more features in the future. See the updated site here.

On the weekend of 10th-11th June, the inaugural public Australia-wide LEGO convention, Brickvention 2006, was held in Melbourne. There were a myriad of activities to keep AFOLs busy – a summary follows.

Contests:

Speed Build

This was a contest to find the fastest person to build the new Batboat set, 7780. The winners were:

• Ben W, 9:45
• Braith G, 10:01
• James H, 10:00, but penalised 10 secs for mistakes made

Polybag Build

Each contestant randomly picked one of the racer sets “8662 Blue Renegade”, “8663 Fat Trax”, “8665 Highway Enforcer”, or “8664 Road Hero”, and the winner was the person to build their set quickest without opening the polybag. Four prizes were awarded because the winner, being an organiser, decided to forfeit their prize. The winners were:

• Ross C
• Troy W
• Teunis D
• Matthew W

Mindstorms Sumo Contest

Unfortunately, Steve was the only competitor, so he won by default. His robots were cool though 🙂

Best at Show

Voted by other registered attendees for the best overall MOC. There were lots of great MOCs to choose from, so it was pretty difficult. A Judges Choice was also awarded for the MOC the judges thought was the best but didn’t win a prize. Winners were:

• Aaron A, Micro Melbourne
• Pete W, Tower
• Braith G, HZ Holden Ute
• Paul B, Space Ships Galore (Judges Choice)

Raffle

A raffle was held, with 3 prizes available – participants could place their raffle tickets against whichever prize or combination they wanted. The winners were:

• Derek M, 7894 Airport
• Ben W, 7237 Police station
• Frances S, 7782 Batwing + 4762 Harry Potter Merpeople

All non-winning tickets were then drawn from for a surprise raffle, and the winning ticket was Aaron P, who received a 4884 Wild Hunters set.

Presentations:

• The LEGO Ambassador Program, by Richie Dulin
• Beginners LDraw, by Ross Crawford
• Advanced Rendering Techniques, by Allister McLaren
• Advanced MLCad tips & Techniques, by Allister McLaren

Brikwars:

This turned out to be a fun demo, showcasing the fun that can be had using LEGO bricks for gaming. James Howse has posted a storyline here.

There were also activities to keep the public amused, including a Duplo play area, and a trade area where they could buy almost anything they wanted.

And of course there was a room full of MOCs to enjoy, including:

• Sue Ann’s Rock Concert
• Kane’s Street
• Ben’s Bricktoria Barracks
• Steve’s Technic, including crane, bridge, and GBC
• Moonbase with 6 modules
• Rosco’s cranes

For more picrures, visit:

• Rosco’s Brickshelf folder
• Allister’s Brickshelf folder
• Mike’s Maj folder
• Steve’s Brickshelf folder
• Teunis’ Brickshelf folder
• Matthew’s Brickshelf folder
• James’ Brikwars folder

In the end there were around 35 registered attendees, and 150 guests on public day, so it was pretty successful – who knows, maybe it will even get to be an annual event!

The organisers would like to thank all the sponsors:- LEGO Australia, HiTechnic, Moore Educational, Educational Experience, and Mel’s Yellow Brick Road and Gear. We would also like to say a huge thanks to all the people who turned up, and made it such a successful weekend, especially those who travelled long distances to get here.

After a couple of heavy building sessions, we have most of the club layout complete. I won’t post final pics until after it is unveiled at Brickvention 2006, but here are some recent progress pics:

Finally, May 1st has arrived, and the NDA is relaxed a little for members of the LEGO MUP and MDP. And information has been flowing already – Philo has already updated his pages with some interesting details, and Jim K’s blog is also being updated at a humongous rate.

Also, there’s a couple of information pages at lego.com:

More software details
Firmware will be Open Source

Click the links, and be happy!