We first heard in March that Lego was working with 20th Century Fox to release The Simpsons-branded minifigs and sets, and now there's a new report that details what the entire range will allegedly entail.The licensed range had been rumoured to include various buildings, characters etc, but Nerdly has a few specifics coming straight from an unnamed insider at a "special Fox/Lego event."Read: The Simpsons Lego in the worksLego is reportedly set to release a collection much like the Olympic minifigures. It will feature series 13 blind-bag minifigures, with 16 Simpsons characters in total. Among the characters are Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Apu, Chief Wiggum, Moe, Itchy and Scratchy. Expect a release sometime in May 2014.As for the Lego set with Brickset and Bricks & Bloks, Nerdly could only confirm that The Simpsons' house will be available for purchase via the Lego website and Lego stores in April 2014.Last, but not least - the upcoming Lego range will debut in conjunction with a special Simpsons Lego TV episode on Fox in May 2014.
It will apparently be quite similar to the Lego Star Wars specials. parents can find all the advice they will need to keep their children safe online. Designed specifically for parents, the site offers a wealth of up-to-date, unbiased information and advice about how to deal with online safety. Parents can learn about the latest issues and technologies, get great tips on how to talk about online safety with their children and get the best advice on dealing with issues and taking action. Created with experts, Internet Matters provides detailed information, but also signposts to best-in-class resources from individual expert organisations. Our goal is to ensure parents can always access the information that they need, in a format that is clear and concise.The LEGO Group invites Chinese children to build their future city From April 24th to 28th the children from the city of Jiaxing, China, are invited to use their imagination and build their vision of a future city using LEGO® bricks.
On April 27 the LEGO Group will celebrate the official start of the construction of the new LEGO Factory in Jiaxing, China. When fully operational in 2017 the factory is expected to employ more than 1500 people and manufacture high quality play materials for children in China and all of Asia. In the days leading up to the event, thousands of children from Jiaxing are invited to come and play with LEGO® bricks at the Jiaxing Digital Library, No.339, Hai Yan Tang Road in the city of Jiaxing. “We have found a great location for our new factory in Jiaxing. We want to play an active part in the local community wherever we operate and we look forward to engaging further with the local community here in Jiaxing. We hope the building event can inspire the children of Jiaxing to express their creativity and at the same it is a good way for us to introduce the products we will manufacture here in Jiaxing in the future” said Michael McNulty, Senior Vice President and General Manager for the LEGO Group’s Asia Manufacturing.
More than 500,000 bricks – and a LEGO designer The event at the Jiaxing Digital Library will give more than 1,000 children an opportunity to build and create models using more than 500,000 LEGO bricks during the 4 days. “We hope that it will attract many children from Jiaxing – and that it will engage their imagination and give them an opportunity to use LEGO bricks as a tool for communicating and expressing themselves. With LEGO bricks it is possible to build whatever you can imagine. It is a fun activity which at the same time is a way for children to learn different skills,” says Camilla Torpe, head of the Build the Change event. The topic of the event is “Future city of Jiaxing”, and children can reflect over this theme and express their ideas for a future city. “We will give the children a simple task: Build the city you would like to live in. What could playgrounds look like, what about factories – and how do you imagine houses in the future?
We want to set free their imagination and inspire them to use their creativity,” says Camilla Torpe. On the 26th of April, the building event at the library will receive a visitor from the LEGO Group's headquarters in Denmark, where more than 180 designers from 24 countries develop hundreds of new LEGO sets each year. Danish LEGO designer Ricco Krogh will come to Jiaxing to take part in the building event and help children build the models. It is also possible for children and parents to see some of the products the designer has made and ask any questions they have about how LEGO products are developed. • The event takes place from the 24th to the 28th of April (no event on the 27th) at No.339, Hai Yan Tang Road, Jiaxing City • The event is free of charge • On the 26th of April the event is open to the public – the other days are reserved for schools. • There is no need to sign up for the event on the 26th • Schools in Jiaxing are invited to take part in the building event on the other days
• At the event there will be more than 500,000 LEGO bricks • The event opens officially on the 24th of April with participation of: Michael McNulty, Senior Vice President and General Manager for the LEGO Group's Asia Manufacturing Richard Wong, Vice President and Vice General Manager for the LEGO Group's Asia Manufacturing Young Engineers Beyond The Brick LEGO Exhibition July 14th – 20th We are delighted to announce that we will be visiting Newport for a whole week in July as part of The Young Engineers Beyond The Brick Exhibition. It is a week long event being held at The University Of South Wales Newport City Campus. It promises to be a fun packed seven days of LEGO related fun. Opening on the 14th of July, the first five days will focus on school groups in the morning followed by public sessions in the afternoon. By the weekend there will be a range of exhibits including those from members of the Brickish Association which is the largest LEGO User Group in the UK with over 200 members, many of which are world class LEGO builders.
Our friends from Bright Bricks will also be there including the UK’s only Certified LEGO Professional, Duncan Titmarsh. It won’t just be looking though. There will be plenty of opportunities for children, (and adults!) to join in and play with some bricks. We will be there raising both awareness and funds with the hope of being able to generate enough to benefit hospitals in the South Wales area. There will be fantastic LEGO prizes on offer which will hopefully include something rather large. A live build is of some prizes is also likely along with the opportunity to help us build our mosaic. We would be delighted for everyone to come along and join us in making the event a success. We believe this is the largest LEGO Exhibition ever to be staged in Wales. Tickets are selling fast and if you purchase before April 28th they are available at a discounted rate. Click here to take advantage of this offer. St Oswalds Hospice Donation All donations have similarities however what happened at St Owsalds Hospice in Newcastle on April 15th is unlikely ever to be repeated.
It all started when we had a message from Gemma (seated to the left) She had been talking to Lisa (seated to the right) about us and our donation. Lisa works as an Occupational Therapist and spends time inventing new techniques to assist patients with difficulties in their treatment. Ideas were flying around about how to use the LEGO when suddenly Lisa thought of Jabba! Jabba is a cartoon character created by Beastie Books Limited to assist a patient called Ewan with his needle phobia. He may look menacing but in reality he isn’t a horrible individual, he is simply misunderstood. Lisa wanted to know if the LEGO we were donating could be used to build Jabba. While building most things from LEGO is possible when attempting to create something so unique its unlikely that the correct parts will be available no matter how many sets you have. So we offered to try to produce the model ourselves and deliver it with the other sets. So after chatting to some world renowned LEGO builders, Andy who runs Minifigforlife stepped forward and offered to produce something.
Andy was able to custom print LEGO parts which is the only way to achieve the level of detail required in a model that can be handled. The results which you can see below are spectacular. So a huge thank you to Andy for giving up his time, effort and money to produce him. This is what Lisa had to say “Thank you so much for the LEGO donation. Can you pass on my particular thanks to the super talented and very kind man who built Jabba. I’m going to use him with a little boy called Ewan who has a huge needle phobia. Hypnosis is playing a part and Jabba forms part of a story that will hopefully desensitize Ewan. Having a LEGO model he can actually hold will prove far more effective than a drawing.” To top off this unique donation George our delivery volunteer was able to take the sets outside for some unseasonal north eastern sunshine. He was then given a fantastic tour by Gemma to gain some insight into the invaluable work that St Oswalds do. So a huge thanks to George for taking the time to deliver and a final thanks to RWS Translations whose fund raising helped to make this donation possible following their Fairy Friday.
Royal Bolton Hospital Donation On Friday the 4th of April we were out and about again donating a big pile of LEGO and this time it was the Royal Bolton Hospital. As you can see though our volunteer Robert was not alone. The two hard working members of the play team, Rachel to the left and Carol to the right both wearing red are easy to spot. However also there are staff from the ever supportive Parcel2Go. They are based in Bolton and held a Fairy Friday fund raising event back in late February. We invited Mel and Sammy along to see the benefit their work would actually have. To us this is very important. All to often people can’t see their charitable donations being put to good use and we want to involve as many people in the process as possible. Again this is an example of local fund raising being linked with a local donation but its only correct to point out that we suggested that and not the staff. Finally if you look very closely at Carols t shirt you can just make out a slogan that sums up why we are doing this so well that we may have to borrow it!
Play is medicine to. Nottingham Childrens Hospital Donation Back on Fairy Friday our friend Adrian was selling cakes and collecting donated sets in another part of the hospital. He did an amazing job and we wanted to complete their £800 allocation as quickly as possible. So after some shrewd buying it was off to Nottingham Childrens Hospital which is part of a huge hospital campus. After tricky car park negotiations we were met by Caroline, a member of the play team who made the entire process a dream. Another team member Julie also made us feel very welcome. Assisting was Michael, our youngest volunteer at 5 who was able to help due to the teachers strike. Also pictured are Angela with her daughter Alannah who was a patient and Caroline who is holding another superstar Ethan. Caroline presented us with a card which you can read now to. It really was a wonderful gesture after being made by one of the patients. She also emailed us shortly after wards to say the following.
Thank you so much for your LEGO delivery yesterday, we really do appreciate the kindness of all your supporters” Pinderfields Donation In Wakefield Back in February we were present at the Yorkshire Brick Show to raise funds and awareness. As usual we always attempt to link local funds with a local hospital and after everyone’s generosity this was possible again. Well on the 7th of March we visited Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield armed with £800 worth of LEGO sets. Assisting us on the day was Willie from The National Coal Mining Museum who had so so generously allowed our presence at the Yorkshire Brick Show. We were met by Zoe, one of the play specialists who was thrilled with impact the sets would have on the children. Unfortunately because of some technical problems we were unable to take any pictures but can share a story that makes everything feel worthwhile. We met a two year old boy who had both legs in traction and he was understandably not to happy.