Page Not Found (404) Sorry, what you're looking for can't be found! The page might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavaible. Or it probably just doesn't exist.Sean Kenney uses LEGO toys to createBuild your own drones using LEGO® bricks Basic kits ship now!Deluxe kits ordered today ship March 2017. Basic Flybrix Kit - SHIPS NOW Deluxe Flybrix Kit - SHIPS 3/17 R/C Expansion Pack - SHIPS 3/17 T-minus 15 minutes to liftoff! Build your Flybrix with the included LEGO® bricks (or use your own). Flybrix Kits come complete. No need to comb the internet to find your parts, or pull out a soldering iron. Trial and error is the spirit of Flybrix. The Kits are designed to be durable and withstand your flight tests. Flybrix is a kit that makes getting started intuitive for beginners, while staying challenging for experts. Access sensor data and tune motors our Chrome Extension Configuration Software. The Flybrix brain is a powerful, open-source, Arduino compatible PCB.
Become a Flybrix VIP Stay in the loop on the latest news and special offers.Raymond Girard's impressively detailed sculpture for the new Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre in Hamilton is 19'x 4' and is made from more than 500,000 pieces of Lego.)Lego may be child's play, but it can also be art, as this detail of Raymond Girard's vibrant, large-scale Lego installation for the Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre in Hamilton reveals.)In choosing Lego as a medium, Girard joins the ranks of internationally acclaimed artists such as Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson and Douglas Coupland as well as billions of children all over the world whose parents bear the scars of having inadvertently stepped on a tiny yet ferocious fragment of the Millennium Falcon while searching for a stray brick in their bare feet. “As a medium it’s super-easy to work with,” offers Girard. “It’s clean and doesn’t require brushes or water or anything other than a tabletop. It also packs easily in a carry-on, which is important given my work life.”
Girard’s day job involves so much travel that he almost turned down the commission when he got the call from curator Sarah Beatty Russell, who was looking for a large-scale piece that would work to sustain the interest of both children who are patients of the hospital’s prosthetics clinic and the adults who accompany them on regular visits. “I went from saying, ‘I have a corporate job! I’m working on a merger and acquisition in Brazil, there is no way I can do this’ to, well, maybe if I hire someone to help me sort out the tiles, I might be able make it happen . . . ,” says Girard who was working on a tight, three-to-four month timeline for delivery and installation. A barista at Girard’s corner coffee shop came in to save the day, sorting bricks by size and colour so that Girard was freed up to build and dream, just like he did after school on a card table in front of the TV at his parent’s house in snowy Winnipeg.Inspiration this time around came from Girard’s travels in the futuristic urban centres of Asia and South America.
“I started looking at what I was building and I realized, that section looks a little bit like Sao Paolo, and this bit is starting to resemble parts of Hong Kong,” says Girard, who also discovered some of the engineering challenges of creating such a large-scale Lego work resemble those of building an actual city.Hassles aside, Lego appeals to Girard’s sense of design and order. “It’s got built-in limitations that I love pushing to the limit. It’s a gridded product that’s suited to rectilinear expression, but it’s fun to bend and curve them too,” says Girard. “That satisfying sound the bricks make when they fit together — it’s just such a beautifully engineered product. I’ve worked with 500,000 bricks on this project and there wasn’t a single flaw . . . no nicks, warps or colour inconsistencies. Every brick is almost a work of art.”Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. , each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6.
You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.Mustafa Merchant shows off his Lego X-wing while his brother Ibrahim holds his Lego Millennium Falcon.)Lego is the ultimate toy, full of engineer-in-training complexity and bursting with potential creative play — as nutritious for a child’s growing mind as milk and kale.Which is a little hard to remember when I’m vacuuming up, tripping over and picking moulded plastic bricks out of pockets and socks.I remember getting my first Lego set when I was 5 years old. There’s a picture of me in a pink silk dress (a gift from an aunt in India) cradling one of those 1980s starter kits. I wasn’t sure what Lego was exactly but the package was big and shiny and I had to have it.I don’t think I actually played with the set. The bricks probably drove my neat-freak mother to distraction and, after a few months, the toy was discreetly “taken care of.”My husband on the other hand is a born collector.
His comic books have their very own bookcases (Yes, more than one!) and no one is allowed to take the comics out of their plastic sleeves to do something as pedantic as actually read them.He’s just as careful with his childhood toys. Last week, he triumphantly showed me a large, slightly beat-up remote-control truck. “I got this when I was 10!” he crowed. He still has his toy train set (unfortunately named the “Big Loader”) as well as a few original Transformers toys.And Lego.When The Lego Movie came out a few years ago, I laughed loudest at the earnest Space Lego dude — but hubby just looked wistful. Lego is expensive and for immigrant parents supporting a new life in Canada and family “back home,” frivolous toys were at the bottom of the list.Our own children, on the other hand, have reached peak-Lego.Between gifts from aunts, uncles, grandparents, older cousins, as well as the yearly Eid and birthday haul, their toy collection runneth over. We had to buy one of those Lego organizer thingies just to keep it sorted.
And still the Lego ended up all over the place.For those not in the know, Lego has moved away from miscellaneous variety packs and now sells “sets” based on popular movie and TV franchises — Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, as well as the usual motorcycles, cars and airplanes.Yet kids continue to play with Lego the same way. Which means that after my sons assemble their sets, take the requisite selfie and show it off to family, it is promptly disassembled and left on the floor for me to step on.“What happened to your Star Wars Tie-fighter?” I ask, horrified and bleeding. “That thing cost $100 and has over 500 pieces!”“I’m making My Own Creation out of it now, mom. It’s called a ‘MOC.’ ”Finally, my husband could take no more. He declared a Lego moratorium and went on a search-and-rescue operation under beds and inside bins. All Lego was seized, sorted and mini-figures reunited with original torsos, heads and hair. He started with the Star Wars X-Wing, carefully matching our inventory to the list on the instruction manual, with 8-year-old Ibrahim’s help.
Many pieces were missing.Enter the Lego Stock Exchange.BrickLink is an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of anything Lego, from vintage sets to random pieces. Bricklink, often called “the eBay of Lego,” was launched in 2000 by an AFOL (adult fan of Lego), the late Daniel Jezek. Bricks are bid, sold and bought at prices that fluctuate according to Lego market conditions.While browsing, father and son are mesmerized by a kinetic MOC of Sisyphus perpetually pushing a boulder. It was designed and constructed by Jason Allemann. Mental gears start spinning as a new plan is born. Still, this might be a good thing. According to a December 2015 story in the Telegraph, over the past 15 years, Lego sets have provided a better return for investors than gold or stocks. I think it’s time to splurge on a signature piece, like the Lego Star Wars Death Star. With a little luck, it might just be the golden brick that helps pay for tuition in a few years. In the meantime, like Sisyphus, we keep on.