Welcome to Toy Brick Brigade Toy Brick Brigade has over a million individual new and used LEGO parts including many rare parts and bulk quantities of new and/or used LEGO parts. Whether you’re planning the ultimate project or just looking for that one last hard-to-find LEGO part to finish your masterpiece, shop Toy Brick Brigade. We have just launched our new store! – come on by to checkout our selection! Visit Toy Brick Brigade often as we are constantly adding to our inventory of over a million LEGO parts.Specials and Featured Items VAB 6x6 Armored Personnel Carrier British SAS is now in stock! CLICK HERE for more recent NEW RELEASES! Lego Boost is going to turn all your Lego toys into programmable robots CES is full of robots, but Lego robots... well, that doesn't happen every year.Educational codable robot toys have been a mega-trend in kid tech over the last year, from Jimu to Cozmo. Lego has had its own Mindstorm educational robotics kit for years, but its pieces come from the older-skewed Technics sets, as opposed to the piles of multicolored bricks everyone's basements are full of.
Lego Boost is the idea that Lego was overdue to debut. It's a set of motors and programmable bricks that can work with existing Lego kits and turn them into motorized or motion-sensitive toys. And the app can record voice effects... so, yes, you can make your robot Lego-cat speak.The $160 set, coming in the second half of 2017, comes with instructions to build five different things out of the box: "Vernie the Robot, Frankie the Cat, the Guitar 4000, the Multi-Tool Rover 4 (M.T.R.4), and the Autobuilder." After that, any existing Legos can be glommed onto new creations, according to Lego: "a walking base for making animals like a dragon or a pony, a driving base for building vehicles like a dune buggy or rover, and an entrance base so that children can make their own castle, fort, or even a futuristic space station." The kit is targeted at kids 7 and older.A companion Android and iOS app will handle the programming parts, using what Lego claims are basic coding instructions. Similar ideas live in most toy robot kits made over the last couple of years.
Lego's advantage is, clearly, that you could potentially make a dancing dinosaur, a DIY Batmobile or a robotic Star Wars base. Or something of the sort.The Lego Boost comes with three Boost bricks that do most of the robotic heavy lifting, including a tilt sensor, a color and distance sensor and a motor. The set also comes with 843 pieces and a special playmate that the robots can move on.Stay tuned for hands-on impressions at CES, but this sounds like the Lego holiday gift to beat all Lego gifts. The connected home experience you didn't know you wanted Everything you need in a phone, except the headphone jack Apple iPad Pro (9.7-inch) The best iPad ever can't quite kill your laptop -- yet Visit manufacturer site for details. Scott Stein is a senior editor covering iOS and laptop reviews, mobile computing, video games, and tech culture. , Men's Journal, and Maxim, and regularly appears on TV and radio talking tech trends. It was summer 2011 and my 19-year-old son Ryan was returning home after having completed his freshman year at the University of Florida, where he’s studying computer science.
He had done well but had no concrete plans for the summer. My husband Jim and I didn’t want to see Ryan turn into the quintessential lazy teen – up all night hanging out with friends or playing video games, then sleeping away most of the day. We suggested to Ryan that he look into getting a summer job, although with the economy stalled, jobs, especially for teens, were in short supply. Instead, Ryan came up with an interesting business plan and asked us to front him a few dollars, which we did. Ryan’s business idea was to obtain and then resell used Lego sets. They’re those snap-together bricks used to build everything from miniature houses and cars to complex, themed action sets replicating scenes from the Star Wars and Harry Potter movies. Ryan proposed a business that capitalized on his favorite childhood toy, Legos. Ryan had loved Legos as a kid and collected many sets. Just before leaving for college the previous summer, he had cleaned out his closet and sold most of his Legos on eBay for some pocket cash to take to school.
He’d taken notice of the interest his Lego auctions generated and was surprised to find that many sets sold for even more than we’d originally paid years earlier. From that glimmer of success came Ryan’s business idea. Ryan’s idea was to sell “gently used” themed Lego sets, such as those featuring scenes from Star Wars and Harry Potter movies. With our support firmly behind him, Ryan placed some ads seeking Lego sets. He quickly got a few bites and negotiated to buy some large Lego collections using the seed money we’d loaned him. The sellers were mostly young men in their 20s who’d been saving their Lego sets for years and now wanted cash more than their childhood toys. Ryan was banking on the fact that most of the sets were old enough to be out of production now and therefore considered rare. The garage soon became a storage and staging area for incoming Legos. Once he had the collections, Ryan began building each set to make sure it had all its parts.
Some had well over 1,000 pieces. As an experienced Lego builder, he was able to swiftly assemble them. Ryan enlisted the help of his sister Katelyn in sorting and organizing loose Legos. Once built, Ryan photographed each Lego set and created a video showing any moving parts and action figures. He wrote compelling ads, speaking from the heart as a long-time Lego lover. Battery-powered Lego models that moved and functioned were always in high demand. Finally, with all his marketing materials ready, Ryan began placing auctions on eBay, selling each set individually for the greatest profit. And sell they did! Often within minutes of launching an auction, the bids began rolling in. At any one time, Ryan had 20-30 Lego auctions in progress. Using the profits from his initial sales, Ryan ramped up his efforts, buying more collections and posting more auctions. At any one time he had 20-30 auctions in progress. Any dirty or dusty Legos were soaked in a soapy solution or given a bath in the tub.
Once clean, the Legos were set to dry outside on the pool deck. He became more organized, setting up systems for his operations and building spreadsheets to track everything from profit and loss to customer communications. Ryan bought boxes & bubble wrap in bulk, storing the shipping supplies in his bedroom. Ryan found he was able to make two to four times what he paid for each set and occasionally, luck into an online bidding war for a rare set, netting him an even greater profit. Lego models in various stages of assembly covered every flat surface in the house. Lego Minifigures were valuable and could be sold with sets or separately for a premium. Over time, Ryan became more savvy about acquiring product and the selling process. He learned how to find and negotiate for the most popular sets. He discovered how to word his ads and take professional-quality photos to generate the most interest. Finally, he continually sought ways to streamline the various steps leading to auction, maximizing his profit margins.
Ryan purchased shelving where he placed Lego sets on auction. As soon as an auction ended and he’d received payment, he sealed the box and shipped it to the winner. Ryan set up spreadsheets to track every expense and sale. He learned basic accounting and handled his own banking and bookkeeping with precision. Looking back, the only downside of the business was that our house resembled a garage sale all summer. Lego models in various stages of production covered every flat surface. This is what guests saw when we opened our front door. Cardboard boxes and shipping supplies occupied every shelf and corner. No doubt we will be finding pieces of styrofoam peanuts for years. Nonetheless, the mess was a small price to pay for a lucrative and fun little business. The Lego business turned our home into Ryan’s personal warehouse. Spread around the dining room were filled boxes awaiting shipping labels. Do Jim and I think Ryan has a future with his Lego business?
Ryan is delighted to have the cash, having made considerably more than if he’d worked in the typical summer position at a fast-food restaurant or grocery store. And as Ryan is quick to add, “Playing with Legos is way more fun than flipping burgers.” In nearly every room, packages were scattered amid the furniture. While we don’t see Legos as Ryan’s future career, (We’re spending too much on his college tuition for that!), Jim and I were delighted to see him run a business and get a taste of entrepreneurial success. Ryan and Katelyn closely monitored the bidding on their eBay auctions. He even employed Katelyn, our 12-year-old daughter, to build some of the sets and assist with uploading the auctions, so she was in on the venture and enjoying it just as much as Ryan. Ryan set up sound effects for any activity on his auctions. The house sounded like a Las Vegas casino with bells ringing for every bid and a cash register opening for every sale. Both kids are already making plans to resume operations when Ryan comes home for a month at Christmas and then to ramp up for next summer after Ryan has completed his sophomore year at college.
Items like functioning trains were rare and would cause a bidding war that often went into the hundreds. While the money is nice, of course, Jim and I feel the real value of selling Legos is what both kids have learned. The business skills – understanding supply and demand, negotiating for product, writing ads, creating marketing materials, streamlining production, handling fulfillment, and servicing customers – are transferable to any job or business they have in the future. Perhaps more important though is that both children now know they can, on their own, without an employer, find a way to generate some income. Resourcefulness is the unexpected but meaningful life lesson acquired from Ryan’s childhood-hobby-turned-business in what we’ve come to know here as “The Summer of Legos.” Starting a new business? Need help creating a website or brochure to launch your new venture? Contact Susan Greene, mother of Lego-selling mogul Ryan, to discuss your marketing project.