What’s in the bag?

About a month ago, we heard about the forthcoming arrival of LEGO® Dots. This is a range of jewellery and decor items pitched squarely at the 6-10 year old market, where some children might be reluctant to create a model of their own , because of doubts in their own creativity. The DOTs sets have far more free form instructions, to help you decide how you might choose to to place small square, circular and quarter circle 1×1 tiles – in a wide variety of colours.

LEGO Dots is due to be released on March 1st 2020, but some have made their way into the wild a couple of days in advance of this. I picked up a few of the first wave of sets, and will present them over the course of the next few days.

First I thought I would start with 41908 Extra DOTS – Series 1. Recommended retail price for these is $AUD5.99, but I found them at K-Mart (an Australian retailer) for $AUD5 per pack. So I bought a couple, to look at the consistency between them. The pack purports to contain 109 parts, including 10 ‘surprise charms’. These surprise elements are white round tiles, with emoji like expressions printed on them. On the packet there appear to be 16 different printings in this bag – and the printed elements here are different to those seen in the other sets currently available. Read on to see what I found inside…

Given the pack’s relatively small size, and the even smaller size of the elements inside, I thought I would have a look at the part count and have a quick look at the consistency of part count between the two packs, as well as the mix of Emoji tiles (as I am sure we will soon know them all.)

Breaking Down The Bag

This set contains 5 different ‘DOT’ elements: Speckled trans light blue round 1×1 as well as quarter tiles in spring yellowish green, light purple, bright red-purple and teal – Bright bluish green. There were also ’10’ surprise charms – emoji tiles – in the bag.

But how did the count actually come through? I opened 2 packets, and got the following breakdown of colours…

Colour	Bag#1	Bag #2
Speckled pale blue, (1×1 round)	21	21
Spring yellowish green (1/4 circle)	21	22
Light Purple/Pink (1/4 circle)	20	21
Magenta/bright red purple (1/4 circle)	21	21
Teal/bright blueish green(1/4 circle)	21	21
Emoji tiles, (1×1 round)	11	11
TOTAL:	115	117

So, technically, it would appear that there are around 20 of each ‘mosaic tile’ and about 10 (and a spare) of the printed emoji tiles. BUT, it also looks like we can rely on a couple of spares. It will be interesting to see how this works with the bracelets and other sets as well.

How did these colours look under UV light?

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With so many great colours, I was hoping to see some of these elements really pop under UV light, but past esperience tells me that this is unlikely. The light purple reflected the UV light, but did not fluoresce. The speckled trans blue tiles fluoresced gently. Some of the other packs are right in orange and red tiles, which fluoresce inconsistently. I look forward to having a look at them soon.

EMOJI Tiles

There are 16 different emoji tiles featured in the package illustration. In my 2 bags, I collected 11 tiles

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After looking at these tiles, and counting them, I grabbed an 8×8 plate and began to dabble in some pattern making. Before long, this happened:

It becomes quite mesmerising to place the tiles in a pattern on a baseplate. I can see that this could become quite a relaxing activity. I suspect I shall do another sometime soon. In the meantime, I’ll leave some lying on the kitchen bench to see what the rest of the family come up with.

In Conclusion

Overall, the tiles average out at a little under $0.05-0.06 each (Australian). This seems to compare fairly favourably with current Bricklink prices, where quarter tiles start in the price range of $0.08-$0.12 cents each.

I’m enjoying the new colours, as well as the chance to play with these elements in relative bulk. I had picked up some of the bracelets, we well as other DOTs sets, and will continue to cover these over the next few days. I’m quite looking forward to it. It’s hard to give these bags a rating – the parts are fun, and I think it is reasonable to assume that the purchaser already owns a couple of plates. They certainly represent reasonable value for money at this stage when it comes to considering the price per tile on Bricklink at present. That said, while the mystery as to exactly which emoji tiles adds to the fun… I still need a couple more packs to make my quota. By which Time, I could have purchased a mother of the larger sets. Gotta Catch ’em All!

What are you looking forward to doing with the LEGO DOTS? why not leave you comments below, and until next time,

Play Well!

Want to see what’s in the bracelet sets? Click here to find out

Addition- 3rd March

I now have 3 bags of Extra Dots. Here is the distribution of Emoji tiles I have now found…

This is just my experience. Here is what Brickfinder found after his first 3 bags. It does seem reasonably random, but it remains to be seen whether distribution is a bit skewed, with some rare tiles, or a completely statistically even distribution.