So last year I missed something.  I discovered it last weekend when I opened up the Gotham City Cycle Chase 76053.  Its the Round Tile 1 x 1 with Pin (BL 20482, Lego Element numbers  6112751 / 6126113), and I think it’s awesome.

In this set, its is used as jets for Deadshot’s jetpack.  This piece is quite versatile. The bottom of the piece accepts a stud.  The pin on top is a standard 3mm lego pin: it fits in a minifig’s hand.  And it has a nifty tiny hole in it that accepts friends hair accessories ( as demonstrated in Emma’s Tourist Kiosk (41098). It also accepts fire and feathers.

The really nifty application for this piece is as a way to change the directions of studs – instead of placing studs in both directions, we set up the tubes facing outwards: By placing the pin into the hollow stud in the top of an offset plate, over the space of  3 plates, as demonstrated below.

This piece appeared in trans-clear in 2015 (Especially Friends, and some of the Elves/Dragons), and has begun to appear in pearl gold, particularly in the 2016 friends sets, but also in the major Direct to Consumer sets: the Classic BatCave(76052); BrickBank(10251) and Ghostbusters HQ(75827).  It also appears in the Nexo Knight set ‘The Kings Mech'(70327).  The clear version also appeared in the controversial reissue of the Winter Toy Shop (2015, 10249) – admittedly only two, tucked away in the bottom of micro builds in the toy shop, but still there.

I think this is a versatile piece, whose potential is only just beginning to be explored both in MOCs and regular sets. What do you think? Could this be a useful SNOT/inverted snot technique? How would you use this piece? why not leave a comment below.