This year, to celebrate International Women’s Day, I have revisited some of the minifigures I have which are based on real-life, inspirational women, and taken some new photos. It’s short and simple and didn’t cause me to develop the same level of mental anguish as attempting to work out whether or not LEGO Star Wars was doing a better job with more female minifigures, as I did last year.
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The new LEGO City Space sets are drawing heavily on the LEGO Group’s Classic Space Heritage, as well as design mockups for the Artemis Program – the NASA’s planned return to the moon in 2024. As I discussed in my review of 60350 Lunar Research Base, the theme is drawing design cues from Space sets of the 80’s, along with a reimagined Classic Space Logo.
Today, I’m taking a look at the 60348 Lunar Rover – AUD49.99 – which I picked up at a local toy retailer. It is now available through LEGO.com and other retailers. The model is inspired in part by the Habitable Mobility Platform (HMP) proposed for NASA’s Artemis program and it also draws on the traditions of Classic Space rovers from the 1980s. It is the least expensive of the City Space sets currently available.
The HMP is a pressurised rover, with the ability to travel some distance from the proposed Lunar Base Camp, without forcing the crew to spend all their time in bulky EVA suits. Essentially an RV for the astronauts. As such, it should be possible to drive the vehicle in shirt sleeve comfort.
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March is Women’s History Month, and this year the LEGO Group pay tribute to Jane Goodall, the ethologist who spent decades studying primate interations in Tanzania. The set, a small vignette depicting Jane Goodall in the jungle with a 3 chimpanzees, is the Gift with Purchase from LEGO.com from March 3rd to 15,2022. You will need to spend $120USD; €120 euro or £120. I am unsure of the price in other markets at this time. [UPDATE FOR AUSTRALIANS: I have heard from LEGO Australia that stock will not be available until after the 8th of March, so we can expect the promotion to runn a little later in the month. The set will be available across the Certified stores, LEGOLAND Discovery Centre and LEGO.com] I am grateful to the AFOL Engagement team at the LEGO Group for sending me a pre-release copy for review. All opinions are my own.
This is the second set honoring women’s History month, the previous being Amelia Earheart, the pioneering aviatrix, released last year. Join me as we take a look at the life of this remarkable woman, as well as this Tribute set.
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News from the LEGO® House:
Continue readingLEGO® House reveals new LEGO House Exclusive product: Dagny Holm – Master Builder (40503)
The newest LEGO® House Exclusive product – the 3rd item in the LEGO House Limited Edition series, is available at the LEGO House Retail Store in Billund, Denmark starting today March 1, 2022.
LEGO House proudly introduces “Dagny Holm – Master Builder” (40503) as a tribute to the very first Master Builder in the LEGO Group. We are excited to present another iconic part of the LEGO history.
It has been a little over 40 years since I fell in love with the idea of LEGOLAND® Space. Those initial sets put forward a future where people were collaborating in exploration, mining, and seeking out new worlds. All while improbably controlling vehicles with a steering wheel, and only installing cabins on to craft cabable of inter-planetary travel. All while drinking coffee in a base with the main control room open to the vacuum of space or whatever hostile atmosphere the team were facing this week.
After Exploring Classic Town, I have been planning a series on ‘Whatever Happened to Classic Space?’ to arrive over the next few months. A lot of the answer depends on how you define Classic Space. While some might limit the definition to sets that include the logo with the shuttle orbiting a planentoid – others might use the definition of sets released before the arrival of Futuron and Blacktron in 1987; Others might feel that to use colours other than Blue, light grey and transparent yellow might be pushing a friendship.
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When Minifigures arrived on the scene in 1978, we were presented with three settings: Castle, Town and Space – The Past, The Present and The Future. Through the 1980s, these themes developed in their own ways, fairly independent of each other. During the 1990s, we saw the themes diversify in different ways: Space brought us a new hyperfluorescent faction each year; Castle changed a little less frequently, but introduced an increasing amount of magic. In the meantime, Town diversified: no longer the sole home of contemporary lifestyles, we saw different themes split off, containing subject material based on the contemporary real world: Divers, Paradisa, Outback, Race, Space Port, ResQ, Team Extreme, and Sports. The ‘core material’ – which we first saw back in 1978 – police, fire and construction – became increasingly juniorized. Having been further dumbed down for younger builders with the introduction of Jack Stone, and other 4Juniors sets, we saw a return to more mature material with LEGO World City.
However, both the 4Juniors and World City themes featured alleged models of modern vehicles that bore minimal resemblance to the real-world equivalent. After the LEGO Group’s financial crisis, a number of themes were discontinued, and the company set out to return to its core business. A revitalised town theme was introduced – but things were on their way to being a bit bigger; expectations were greater: Town just wasn’t going to cut it anymore: we were presented with LEGO City.
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There is something about Italian design from the mid 20th Century. It feels classic, and modern at the same time. The Fiat 500 demonstrated it, and now the LEGO Group have announced the year’s Motor Vehicle For Adults (the label formerly known as Creator Expert): the Vespa 125.
I have to admit, this is one of the more elegant vehicle sets for some time, and more so as a Creator Expert syle Motorcycle, rather than a Technic Model. This baby blue motor scooter captures the charm of this classic bike, endeavouring to capture the iconic curves that have seen the Vespa maintain its popularity some 75 years after it was first introduced.
The set will be available from March 1 2022 and cost 169.99 AUD / 129.99 CAD / 99.99 EUR / 89.99 GBP / 99.99 USD. It has 1106 elements, and measures 35 cm long, 22 cm high and 12 cm wide.
But will this set be one to pick up when it is released on the first of March? Lets take a look through the images that capture the details of this model.
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Outside of the time that I spend thinking about LEGO, I work as a doctor looking after patients needing anaesthesia. Typically, this is for surgery but sometimes for other things: childbirth, correcting heart rhythms, and occasionally helping people through investigations where the environment is a little bit scary and intimidating.
One such environment is the MRI (Magnetic resonance) scanner: a relatively closed and noisy environment, some children might require an anaesthetic to help them through the experience. Such investigations are used in children to investigate problems such as brain tumors, seizures as well as other problems.
Not every child needs an anaesthetic, however. Some find that using music or videos during the scan can make it easer, but without a doubt, the greatest antidote to fear is education.
As such, I was extremely excited to hear that the LEGO Foundation, the charitable arm of the LEGO Group, are planning to donate 600 models of MRI scanners to hospitals around the world to help children to become more familiar and understand the process when they go into hospital for such investigations.
The project was initiated by chemical technician Erik Ullerlund Staehr as a passion project. More recently Senior Designer at the LEGO Group, Rok Zgalin Kobe, has been spearheading the model design and functionality adjustments of the LEGO MRI Scanner.
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The overnight announcement of the previously unannounced LEGO® Jurassic World Dominion sets left be remembering how I used to want nothing more than a toy Dinosaur. Since then, dinosaurs have become a mainstay of the LEGO range, never taking more than a couple of years off. I take a bit of time surveying the history of LEGO Dinosaur sets, from the mid 90s to the forthcoming Dominion releases.
Back in the day, I was dead keen on Dinosaurs. I couldn’t get enough of them. Except, living in a rural town in Australia in the mid-1970s, the best I could hope for was my Ladybird book of Prehistoric Animals and Fossils. Much of the included information is outdated or at least wildly inaccurate except, perhaps, for the fact that the Tyrannosaurus Rex ate meat.
This book strongly recommended trying to get some dinosaur models or toys and building a diorama using chicken wire, papier mache and a few sticks. Of course, these models were not readily available, and it was not until 1976, visiting Melbourne, that we found some plastic model kits. My brother got a brontosaurus(as it was then called) and I picked up an ankylosaurus.
After putting it together and painting it, I glued it to a piece of wood, along with a few pieces of pine bark and a cardboard panel cut from the box, giving some of the animal’s vital statistics. I probably kept it until I was about 30. I can’t find any images of it these days but 7-year-old me was really proud. This obsession with dinosaurs probably lasted until Star Wars was released. But that’s another story.
Fast forward to 1992 and the release of the first Jurassic Park movie, and I remember wondering through Toys R Us, feeling somewhat sad that there were so many dinosaur toys on the shelves. As I was still a struggling student, I avoided diving down that rabbit hole. Now, LEGO® Dinosaurs have a more recent history – with serious sets dating back to around the turn of the century. Join me as we take a look at the Dinosaur sets of the past, before looking at the sets due to be released in April 2022
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Over the last few years, the LEGO Group have released a number of stadia for Football(soccer) fans around the world: Old Trafford; Camp Nou, and today, the LEGO Group reveal Santiago Bernabéu, the home of Real Madrid as the latest stadium to be produced into a complex LEGO Set.
Real Madrid is celebrating its 120th anniversary, and the grounds are celebrating their 75th anniversary, so reproducing the grounds this year seem like a natural choice. The set goes on sale in LEGO stores, from www.lego.com/Real-Madrid and in Real Madrid stores on 1st March 2022 for the recommended retail price of €349.99 / $349.99 / £309.99 /449.99 CAD / 549.99 AUD. It has 5876 pieces and measures 44x38x14 cm. With this many pieces, it is, technically (by part count) a larger set than the Diagon Alley set from 2020. There have been a couple of changes to the top 10 since I last presented it in September last year… so read on to get those details.
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