It’s the start of March. LEGO Dots is officially on the market today. As I recently mentioned, I found some any a local retailer a day or two early, and picked up a variety of the sets.

Today I would like to look at the contents of the 5 wristband packs. Costing AUD$9.99, and allegedly containing 33 parts, these sets come with a wristband, and a variety of tiles – square, round and quarter circle, printed and plain, and, in one extreme situation, a completely new design of element, in a fairly new colour. Allegedly 33 parts? As you will see, these sets tend to contain 40 – 41 parts. About 20% more than it says on the packet.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The collection, as currently available, includes 41900 – Rainbow; 41901 – Funky Animals; 41902 – Sparkly unicorn; 41903 – Cosmic Wonder, and then a jump in number to 41912 – Love birds. (some of the intervening sets: 41904, 41905 and 41906 represent the more sophisticated builds sets- also part of the first wave, and 41908 is the ‘Extra DOTS’ bag we looked at yesterday.) But what of 41907, 41909, 41910 and 41911? Will they bracelets in the second wave, or something completely different.

The bracelets come in a dual channel plastic tube, the channel on there right contains the wristband, attached to a piece of cardboard, while the other channel contains all of the tiles in a small plastic bag.

The Wrist Band

Wristbands currently come in 5 colours: Medium Azur (rainbow); Bright Purple (funky animals); medium lavender (Sparkly unicorn); Black (cosmic wonder); Bright bluish green/teal (Love birds)

The band has 14 pairs of studs, as well as 5 holes to adjust the wrist size. It is slightly wider than a 2 stud plate. The holes accomodate a stud, but with no clutch. The band is a little thinner than a plate, but seems to be the thickness of a stud’s height.

The band could be fixed by using an offset plate, in conjunction with a stud with bar as shown below:

• 

• 

• 

The ‘catch mechanism’ is a little larger than a stud wide, and is flexible enough to pass through a hole in a plate, but I think the ‘catch stud’ is under a little stress.

With this ‘catch’ poking through, it significantly reduces the ability of anything to clutch onto the top of the plate.

However, it becomes possible to bind the bracelet in a loop.

I can see that it would also be possible to make a ‘studs out loop’ but I am not entirely sure how I would use it. What about you? How might you apply this element in a ‘non-jewellery’ way? New Elementary have an interesting analysis of some alternative uses for this part which you can read about here.

What Tiles Do you get?

There are at least 3 different printed tiles in each pack – typically 5 of a 1×1 round tile, and 2 different 1×1 tiles. Cosmic wonder breaks this mould, with 3 1×1 round printed tiles, and 2 different quarter tile prints – with 5 of each included. I ran my Ultraviolet lamp over each pack – typically only the vibrant coral consistently fluoresced, and the light transparent blue tiles in rainbow show a little fluorescence. The white, and tiles with ‘purple tendency’ reflected the UV, while most of the other tiles just absorbed the UV, appearing very dark. In my mixed elements at home, I have found red, bright orange and bright yellowish orange to fluoresce under UV from time to time, however, this was not the case in my batch of bracelets. I have included most of these images here, except for funky animals, which seems to be missing. Suffice to say there were no lurescent surprises in that pack.

The only new element, apart from the wrist-strap, is the white/opalescent gem tile. It is octagonal, and is almost as thick as a plate and the stud on top of it. There are 7 of these in the Cosmic Wonder pack.

41900: Rainbow

The colour scheme in this pack is solid and bold, with primary colours well represented. The inclusion of the aqua here is interesting, but it can offset the white nicely.

• 

• 

1×1 tile	rainbow print	3
1×1 square tile	rainbow print, with cloud	3
1×1 quarter circle tile	rainbow print	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	aqua	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright yellow	9
1×1 quarter circle tile	white	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright red	5
1×1 round tile	transparent blue	5

41901 Funky Animals

The funky animals have some really cute tile prints, including a cat and rabbit, as well as animal paws. The pink/purple palette is offset by the black tiles also included.

1×1 square tile	light purple with rabbit print	3
1×1 square tile	light purple with cat print	3
1×1 round tile	white, with Bright purple print
1×1 quarter circle tile	black	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright red violet	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	light purple	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	white	5
1×1 round tile	black	5
1×1 round tile	transparent medium violet

41902 Sparkly Unicorn

The sparkly unicorn’s prints include silver in the ink, complementing the silver ink tiles. Violet and lavender contrast with the Vibrant coral. There unicorn tile has been seen in the Chinese New Year Temple Fair, as well as the Trafalgar Square architecture set.

• 

• 

1×1 quarter circle tile	medium lilac	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	lavender	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	Silver ink	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	black	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	vibrant coral	9
1×1 quarter circle tile	black with lavender,	5
1×1 square tile	bright bluish green – mane print	3
1×1 square tile	bright bluish green – unicorn print	3

41903 Cosmic Wonder

The cosmic wonder has some elegant pastel tones to go with the printed planet tiles, as well as the bluish green tiles with stars/trails.

• 

• 

1×1 quarter circle tile	aqua	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	cool yellow	5
1×1 round tile	white with printed ringed planet	3
1×1 octagonal gem	opalescent	7
1×1 quarter circle tile	light purple	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	lavender	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright bluish green with Star print	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright bluish green with Trail print	5

41912 Love Birds

The lovebirds feature a warmer palette, with oranges and coral, as well as cool yellow and spring yellowish green. I really like the feather prints, along with the eye print.

• 

• 

1×1 quarter circle tile	bright orange	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	bright yellowish orange	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	light purple	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	coole yellow	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	spring yellowish green	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	vibrant coral	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	cool yellow, feather print	5
1×1 quarter circle tile	white, eye print	3
1×1 round tile	spring yellowish green, heart print.	3

I really like these sets: each band comes with a different palette, as well as its own printed tiles, each contrasting with the one before.

Personally, I am unable to wrap the wristband all the way around my own wrist. I am happy to accept that I am not the target demographic, but there is less than a centimetre in it. Unfortunately, two wrist bands in series are too long. That said, there is some potential for using the bracelets in other ways.

I think I am not approaching a time where I should start playing around with the deign potential of the tiles, rather than just catalog them.

First, I need to get some trays to wrangle all the tiles. Perhaps I’ll find something appropriate when I look at the next two sets…time shall tell.

If you are posting pictures of your decorated bracelets online, don’t forget to use the tag #dotyourworld. I’m really enjoying seeing the results of people’s creativity with this new line.

Until next time,

Play Well!