Euromap: micro on a grand scale

The Euromap project on display.

One for the road

Pete Reid is going Moon truckin'.

Mini Castle Contest VI

Over on Classic-Castle I am hosting yet again, the Mini Castle Contest.

This year the specialty category is for Ancient themed creations. Check it out, and if you care to try your hand at Castle Micro, this is the contest for you.

Our winner from last year:

Military

Zizy2 recently posted some great military vehicles at microscale (plus other great weapons MOCs - go peruse the gallery).

Temple of the Golden Idol

David Fletcher presents the Temple of the Golden Idol, complete with golden minifig statuette.

Vic Viper

Mainman presents a yellow Vic Viper, dedicated to Nate Nielson, who passed away in April.



Nate was a prolific builder. More about him here, here, and here.

There was a memorial fly-in at Brickworld in June and another one at BrickFair in August. There will be a final fly-in at BrickCon in October.

UPDATE: Mainman posted an exploded view, for those of you who are interested.

micro crane

Over the years, AFOLs have come up with lots of different ways to represent continuous tracks in micro. Most techniques involve stretching a tire, like this or this.

This tank by Fredoichi uses the narrow Technic link chain wrapped around a Technic liftarm.

The designers at LEGO came up with a simple solution for the micro crane in the 2010 City Advent Calendar, set 2824. They used a Technic liftarm.



Other micro vehicles in set 2824 include a bulldozer, a fire truck, an airplane, and a helicopter. See them all in this photo review.

Eco Pirates

Karf Oohlu has come up with a new theme: Eco Pirates.


I'm looking forward to Eco Pirates of the Caribbean.

LEGO Micro Design class samples

I teach youth and family classes at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Over the years, I've developed a number of classes that use LEGO as a teaching tool. Topics include medieval technology, construction equipment, towers and bridges, cars, and space exploration.



Inspired by this blog, I created a class called LEGO Micro Design. We learn about scale and a bit about digital photography. But mostly, we build.

Students don't get to keep what they build. We use a lightbox to take photos, which are then uploaded to private photosets on Flickr, so the students have access to their photos.

Here are some samples of work that students have done in this class. I'll write more about this class and post additional photos in the next few days.

Rook to king's rook 4

Icgetaway has a great Star Wars themed chess set. While most of the pieces are fig-scaled, the rooks for the Imperial side are these AT-ATs.

Blade Runner

No, not the movie. The MOC, by Karf Oohlu.

The katana is nicely integrated into the design.

Distant temple

In his recent Qryh an-Nbydh, Minkowsky includes great details, like this view of a distant temple.

Humvee

Commander Hawk presents a very tiny Humvee.

As best I can tell, the wheels (black 1x1 round plates) are attached to this part, which is the same technique used for vehicles in the new Tower Bridge set.

Containment

Earlier this year, Legohaulic and Nannan Z built an amazing display named Containment. It's too big to keep on display in his home, so Legohaulic built a smaller version.