The Number of Ways You Can Put Together 6 LEGO Bricks Will Astound YouWith the Danish documentary on LEGO, A LEGO Brickumentary, premiering in U.S. theaters, iTunes, and OnDemand Friday, the gaming news website Kotaku posted a clip from the film profiling the math professor who became famous for calculating that there are 915,103,765 ways to combine six, eight-stud LEGO bricks.Inspired by a LEGOLAND display that seemed to lowball the number at 103 million, Søren Eilers from the University of Copenhagen created a computer program that now drums up that figure in 5 minutes. Why was LEGO's estimate off? Eilers says it's because it only counted the ways bricks could be stacked on top of each other in tower formations, not accounting how low, wide structures can be put together.To figure out how many ways seven bricks can be combined, it took Eilers two hours. Nearly 21 days (20.83 to be exact). That would take years, hundreds of years, he says, so something to think about if you have some free time this summer.
Type the characters you see in this image:The new sets for 2017 continue with a glimpse of Disney’s Frozen, Disney’s Princess Pets, and 6 new creator sets! Brickset reports that the Disney Princess theme will be renamed simply Disney, and should include both the general Disney sets and Frozen sets. The new Frozen lineup includes a new Ice Palace, which is a good deal larger than the previous version (which is on sale currently, along with the other Disney Frozen sets). And next up, we also have some new Creator sets, making the this the third batch of 2017 Creator sets we’ve seen. We’ve got links below for the previous reveals. Check out more brand new sets: 2017 LEGO Architecture sets 2017 LEGO Batman Movie sets 2017 LEGO City sets 2017 LEGO Creator sets, part 1 2017 LEGO Creator sets, part 2 2017 LEGO Elves sets 2017 LEGO Friends sets 2017 LEGO Nexo Knights sets 2017 LEGO Ninjago sets 2017 LEGO Technic sets LEGO Technic BMW R 1200 GS set
2017 LEGO Star Wars setsTell all your friends! You face off against Rowan during this entire level, dodging his monstrous attacks but at the end of the level as you try to escape the interdimensional portal, you have a final show down with him! The actual battle in the Portal Mercado Hotel is fairly easy and requires you to dodge his many attacks while slowly eating away at his health with Proton Pack blasts. Eventually use SILVER LEGO DESTROY to launch the pod into his mouth and LASER to blow it up. Minikit – Super Strength Handle, Silver Lego Destory, Atlantis Pool, Cargo Hook, Gyrosphere Switch, Suspend Ghost, Fuse Box, Diffindo. Rescue Character – None NYC Streets – 3 Minikits Use SUPER STRENGTH HANDLE to pull open the trunk to the dangling Taxi Cab releasing the minikit. Use SILVER LEGO DESTROY to blow up the front of the overturned fire truck to release a minikit! Use the ATLANTIS POOL to summon a giant watery tentacle to put out the car fire and reveal a minikit!
NYC Courtyard – 2 Minikits Pick up the giant tomato to the immediate left of where you start the level using a flying vehicle with CARGO HOOK, and lift it up to the window ledge above. Open the Diner’s front door using the GYROPSHERE SWITCH then destroy everything inside to build the minikit! Portal Mercado Hotel – 5 Minikits Capture the bathing ghost using GHOST SUSPEND to smash the tub and reveal a minikit! On the second floor of the first room, use SILVER LEGO DESTROY to clear out the objects swirling around Dorothy to collect a minikit! While on the second floor of the first room use DIFFINDO to cut the man shape out of the red wall, assemble the pieces into a minikit! Lighting Up The Hotel Find and destroy all six of the wall sconces hidden around the spectral hotel. Fly over to the far ledge with a vehicle (don’t try to go through the door you will get caught by Rowan) and use FUSE BOX to reveal the minikit hiding in the TV.
Rescue Character – Paul Feig Crossing the large gap into the second section of the streets, clear out the ghosts surrounding the dumpster to release and rescue Paul Feig! Collect 125,000 studs to get the RULE BREAKER gold brick for this level! Let me make one thing clear right up front: I am not claiming responsibility for the idea of Lego Club. No, Lego Club has been in existence, both at my library and at other libraries worldwide, since way before I became a librarian. What I do claim: Lego Club is engaging for kids of all ages, easy to manage from a staff perspective, and enjoyable for everyone involved. I think everyone should seriously consider hosting a Lego Club at the library. Here's how we operate ours.Most of our Legos have been purchased through grants from our Friends of the Library (Friends--We love you! Thank you for your support!!). We've made three big purchases since my branch began offering a Lego Club a few years ago; we've probably spent between $500 and $750 on Legos at this point.
I would argue that you can start a Lego Club with $250-$300 for purchasing your initial supplies. Some things to keep in mind in purchasing your Legos: Do purchase a good number of baseplates; lots of kids prefer to build on these foundations rather than just start free-form building. Do make sure you have lots of Lego people, as one or two of your frequent program attendees will spend most of their building time hunting and hoarding the figures. Don't worry about buying a "correct" proportion of the new pink Legos "for girls." I know lots of people have lots of thoughts about these frill-ified pieces, but I don't want to get into that here. The only thing that is worth your consideration in purchasing your Legos is that all of your blocks will get jumbled together, and their colors will largely not matter. Do get some containers to hold the Legos during the program. Whether these containers are the ones the Legos come with or are generic plastic containers doesn't matter--any containers will keep hundreds of little pieces from ending up on your program room floor.
We've also added to our collection through donations of used Legos--parents and grandparents looking to clean out the former playspaces of their grown kids are often happy to know that those Legos they spent so much money on will go to a good home. My advice if you do decide to accept used Legos: be prepared with a strategy to clean them. Dust gets into all of those little crevices.Our monthly Lego Club is open to all school-age children and their siblings. That is to say that our target audience is K through 5, but we recognize that some younger siblings are going to want to tag along. That's fine with us. I know of plenty of libraries that actually split their Lego kiddos into two separate sessions, K-2 and 3-5. This model doesn't really work for us; it creates problems for families with kids in both age ranges, and it limits the breadth of interaction and collaboration during the programs. Thus we have one all-ages session and expect to have a full room. We get a good balance between boys and girls in attendance.
Also, you will have plenty of caregivers attending with their kids, especially dads. The only time I've ever seen more dads engaged in a library program was during our Jedi Academy.We host our program on the last Monday of the month. We find that we have outstandingly regular attendance at this time, as the week hasn't gotten too busy yet and no one feels too worn out by the week that early on. We usually host the Lego Club from 6 to 7 p.m. on those Mondays to allow kids from all sorts of families to attend. We have two exceptions to that consistent time slot: during winter break, when we offer the program at 2 p.m. because of the plethora of evening holiday commitments; and during the summer, when we offer both a 2 p.m. and a 6 p.m. session to accommodate our larger seasonal audience. The consistency really works--kids know exactly when Lego Club will happen, and they anxiously await it.I like to provide plenty of opportunities for collaboration in our Lego Club programs, so I set up two long tables and have plenty of chairs surrounding each (usually 15-20 chairs per table).
There is plenty of room for kids to move around to search other builders' buckets for a specific piece they need, and there is also space for both collaboration and individual focus.Every Lego Club has a theme, and children are encouraged to build a creation based on that theme. (Note: If they want to ignore the theme and do their own thing, that's fine, too. Recent themes at my Lego Clubs have included Robots, Mad Scientist, and It Came From Outer Space! I've found that kids look forward to the grand unveiling of the month's theme--which is really just me announcing the theme in a silly voice. Our hour-long program breaks down roughly into four segments: 6:00-6:05 -- Kids and caregivers come into the room, grab a baseplate if they want, and find a seat at one of our tables. I announce the theme for the evening. 6:05-6:50 -- Free building time. During this time, kids build and I mill about the room talking to kids, seeking out specific building pieces someone has requested, and just having positive, friendly interactions with everyone.
I love asking about what the kids are building--even the youngest ones are very deliberate about how they make their creations. As we near the end of our free building time, I encourage kids to write the names of their creations on blank notecards, as well as their names. We use these cards in our displays. 6:50-6:58ish -- We "tour" the evening's creations. Each child has the opportunity to talk about what he/she created; some love to share their work, others shyly just repeat the evening's theme and then hide behind their caregivers. 6:58-7:00 -- Cleaning up the building area. I enlist the help of all Lego Club participants in checking the floor for errant Lego blocks, and they help get all of the unused pieces into our tubs. As kids leave the program, I always remind them to come see their creations on display in the library before the next meeting of the Lego Club. I also encourage them to check out a book on the evenings theme; we always have a table of such books available by the program room door.