richardbarley.com

It’s 30 years since the introduction of the Lego minifigure (the little yellow-faced lego people), and Gizmodo are runnig a competition to celebrate.

Now, sadly, I don’t have the film-making skills, nor the time nor the patience to make a lego-movie to enter the competition with, but what IS cool is that I totally HAD the first prize when I was a kid: the Galaxy Explorer.

Seeing this set brought back so many memories for me, it was really spooky. I can remember it so clearly, building the rockets for the wings, the translucent yellow windows, the little twin guns right on the front, the moon buggy….

Incredible how so many memories can be dragged up from the depths of your mind by just one picture.

[Gizmodo - Giz's Lego Minifig Contest: Win The Best Vintage Sets Ever]

I mentioned the several billion Lego bricks out there in the world today. Well, Gizmodo has today posted about where all these Lego bricks start their life. And would you believe they live in a series of old cathedrals? With a robot flying about, picking up the boxes and collating them as required?

You better believe it! Check out the video here:

[Gizmodo - Giant Lego Storage Buildings: 65-foot-high Lego Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year]

Gizmodo recently went on a pilgrimage to Lego HQ in Denmark. There they got a tour of the factory and got to ask a whole shed load of questions of the Big Lego Bosses.

It makes great reading for any Lego fan (of course I’m not one, it’s all for the kids….. No of course I don’t still have my “Master Lego Builder” certificate from 25 years ago….honest…).

For example, did you know that over 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since the dawn of time? That’s about 62 bricks for every person on the earth today. Now, I could build you a nice model of the Taj Mahal with 62 bricks back in my day…

[Gizmodo - The Lego Mega-Guide: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lego]