Subject:
|
SpringBrick: A hypothetical LEGO convention
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.events
|
Date:
|
Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:40:04 GMT
|
Highlighted:
|
!!
(details)
|
Viewed:
|
6337 times
|
| |
|
|
Here’s the start of a few ideas that the Greater Florida LEGO User Group (GFLUG)
will share under a attribution
share-alike creative commons license. If you like these ideas & decided to
host an event based on these ideas, just give us credit... any LEGO you send to
the group will greatly be appreciated, but not required. This is also a call
for open and honest criticism; if this event sounds very interesting to you,
please participate in the discussion.
BACKGROUND:
The ideas started spring time of 2007 with the visit of a few AFOLs to central
Florida area either on vacation or for a convention. Our LUG took time to visit
with these individuals for LEGO shopping and a meal. A few weeks later, during
a GFLUG meeting in my garage, in the middle of mounds of unsorted LEGO, we
started talking about hosting a smaller type of LEGO event in central Florida
around spring break time, hence the name SpringBrick. But there were certain
issues that needed to be addressed:
• Would an AFOL on spring break with their family spend a few days of their
vacation at such an event?
• How do you go to a LEGO event without hauling
around MOCs and still enjoy your vacation? Go to this event with no LEGO, but
maybe take LEGO away from an event.
• What could you do at this event that
would include LEGO somehow?
• How can the focus of the event be more on
socialization and creativity?
• How do you pay for the cost of such event?
Can you hold a public day or not to help offset the cost? Or what can you do to
help offset the cost?
• Since most AFOLs like contests, what kind of contests
would be fun to do at this event?
One idea I had was, “wouldn’t be great to have a bunch of AFOLs over to sort my
LEGO?” A joke on my part, but the next logical step was, what if everyone was
given a large tub of LEGO & was told to build something over the course of a few
days?
THE COMPETITION:
Ideally, you could have a building contest based loosely on the Iron Chef format
-- provide a room, equipment, and raw ingredients, let your contestants be a
part of a small crew, with raw talent & inspiration. And let the crews compete
with one-another. So there would be some general ground rules:
• A crew should contain somewhere between 3-5 people.
• All contestants should be 18 years of age or older, but exceptions will be
made if a parent or guardian is also present on a crew. Under-aged contestants
should be 12 or older (and this can be flexible, based on the maturity of the
contestant & consent of the guardian).
• Crews have two (2) days to build with
the pile of random LEGO elements they received.
• Contestants are not allowed
to add any LEGO to their building material -– the honor system here –- but
contestants are allowed to trade with other contestants for LEGO elements they
need.
• Each MOC must fit on the given baseplates that have been provided to
them. Stress modularity & ease of portability – MOCs will be transported from
the building area to a display area for judging.
• A height & size requirement
(to be determined).
• MOCs must fit the pre-determined theme; points will be
deducted at judging if it doesn’t fit within the theme.
• There is a twist – a
special LEGO element will be given to the crews that must be incorporated into
the MOC. (Think Galidor!) And points will be deducted from judging if this
special LEGO element is not seen or on the MOC.
• And there might be other
twists at any given time in the competition.
• Contestants going into this
event should view it as a challenge: a challenge to build with a limited palette
of parts (and limited colors); a challenge to build something outside of the
theme they are normally comfortable in building in; a challenge to use LEGO
elements they are not use to working with.
THE EVENT FORMAT:
The event runs something like this:
• Wednesday night: Check in. Meet & greet. The rules are laid out. The
special LEGO element (secret ingredient) is revealed.
• Thursday & Friday: The
MOC building happens.
• Saturday & Sunday: The MOCs are moved & judged. Now
there’s a certain benefit to living near a LIC at this point: the MOCs could be
put on display in front of the LIC store for the public to be apart of the MOC
judging (more on this later). Several thousands of people pass by the store on
any given weekend. Contestants can spend all of Saturday & most of Sunday with
their families; event volunteers can watch over the displays.
• Sunday night:
Final meet & greet. Judging is tallied. Awards are handed out.
JUDGING:
MOCs will be judge on the following categories by their peers & guest judges:
• How well a MOC stuck to the theme: 20%
• How well a MOC met the size requirements: 20%
• Creative use of the surprise LEGO element: 10%
• Overall creativity: 20%
• Technical construction: 30%
The public judging will only play into a small factor in the overall judging.
FINANCES:
Notice, the public day is not a paid public day, per se. At this point no money
has been raised to pay for the building location, the building material, nor
awards/prizes. And this is the point where creativity needs come into play.
We’ve tossed around the idea of the cost for a crew to participate should cover
the cost of the bricks to build with (figure somewhere between the $500-$1000
range); for a crew of 5, this works out to be less than $200/person. Crew
sponsorship could be found in a BL store, any LEGO related business, or local
businesses (think advertising on crew T-shirts, like baseball teams).
It would be up to the event organizers to creatively come up with financing for
the event location(s) & awards/prizes.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Some final thoughts:
• This builder’s challenge could actually be coupled with any other LEGO
convention. But this would be nice to do it as a single focused event.
• Team building offers some challenges in and of itself. GFLUG is currently
doing it on a Holmes Regional
Medical Center LEGO Project, we’re about 40% done at this point with a lot to
do this weekend.
• There are still some concerns about selection of brick for the event. As
stated above, competitors will be limited in pallet and color. One idea tossed
out, do about 60% from the PaB wall and the other 40% of brick from sets.
There’s a few perfect opportunities for a few twists at this point (randomly
select crews to pick a set that would help them in their MOC... maybe decide
which crew get which sets via a Dirty-Brickster type of game... etc.)
• Allow a crew of official LEGO master builders compete against crews of AFOLs.
• Who do we pick for guest judges?
Anyway, let me know your thoughts.
--Mike.
|
|
Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: SpringBrick: A hypothetical LEGO convention
|
| So let me get this straight. There will be absolutely no profit from this that will secretly end up in an off shore account? BTW, I see the absence of a wet minifig torso contest. You can't have a Lego Spring break without one. F (17 years ago, 19-Oct-07, to lugnet.events, FTX)
| | | Re: SpringBrick: A hypothetical LEGO convention
|
| (...) I certainly would... the only problem I can see is its rare for everyone to actually have a school break all at the same time. (...) I adore the idea of a fest in Florida... in fact... there isnt a place I would rather be in the middle of a (...) (17 years ago, 19-Oct-07, to lugnet.events, FTX)
| | | Re: SpringBrick: A hypothetical LEGO convention
|
| Mike, This also sounds a little like the Food Network Challenges that you see from time to time. A little known fact about Iron Chef (at least the original Japanese version)...the secret ingredient wasn't exactly "secret"...What happened was that (...) (17 years ago, 23-Oct-07, to lugnet.events, FTX)
| | | Re: SpringBrick: A hypothetical LEGO convention
|
| I really like the concept of SpringBrick, however I see a neat opportunity for you guys to do something different than what the traditional Fests offer. Choosing a date where out-of-state AFOLs could attend might be an issue. As my oldest enters (...) (17 years ago, 10-Dec-07, to lugnet.events, FTX)
|
16 Messages in This Thread:
  
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
